question
stringlengths 9
197
| article
stringlengths 174
99.3k
| url
stringlengths 23
392
|
|---|---|---|
Is AI making us lazy?
|
Some believe automation is making us work-shy, but others believe the benefits outweigh the potential risks Print Print Pro Artificial intelligence (AI) is now part of our everyday lives. Many of us now wake up to our lights turning on automatically with the temperature of our home set just how we like it, and thats before we begin interacting with tools such as digital assistants and IoT doorbells, and even automation-powered services that write our e-mails for us. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, automation technologies have also become more widely used in the enterprise too. According to research from Deloitte on robotic and intelligent automation, 73% of organisations worldwide are now using automation technologies, two-thirds of business leaders used automation to respond to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a quarter of workers have seen a change to their role and ways of working because of the implementation of these technologies. However, while weve long heard about the benefits of AI for businesses, from the fact that it can enable companies to save time and money by automating and optimising routine processes and tasks as well as increase productivity and operational efficiencies, some believe the technology could be making us lazy. advertisement Dumbing it down In 2015, Nigel Barber PhD, a biopsychologist and author, wrote in Psychology Today that much like how after the Industrial Revolution people became less physically active and began to gain weight as machines replaced manual workers, reliance on automation could make people less intelligent. AI is embedded in many features of modern life for the simple reason that intelligent machines can already outperform humans, including some aptitudes where there was once thought to be a human advantage, such as playing chess or recalling trivia in a game of Jeopardy, he said. In the future, the electronic assistant will develop to the point that it serves similar functions as a real living butler, fulfilling requests such as: Organise a dinner party for six on Thursday, Jeeves, and invite the usual suspects. At that point, our long struggle with challenging technologies is at an end. We can take it easy knowing that the hard work of planning and organising is being done by a better brain the electronic assistant. Starved of mental effort, our brains will regress. The future is an aristocratic fog. Prof Stefano Puntoni, professor of Marketing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), has also researched how new technology is changing consumption and society and has subsequently warned of the dangers an overreliance on automation can have on humans. First, he warns, is the risk of deterioration of professional skills that heavy reliance on automation can cause. For example, most famously, in 2009 an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic en-route from Brazil to France, Putoni tells IT Pro. The cause of the tragedy was the pilots inappropriate response following the disengagement of the autopilot system during a storm. Second, we need to avoid becoming complacent. In many situations, human supervision and vigilance remain crucial to ensure all runs smoothly and to step in where necessary to avoid error. For example, the first death in an accident involving the Tesla autonomous driving system was due to a combination of the system mistaking a white truck for the sky and the drivers complete lack of attention. Putoni also warns that even when tragedy is not involved, AI technologies can create discomfort when it prevents individuals from exerting effort and practising skills that they care about. For example, we show that people for whom cooking is an important part of their identity tend to dislike an automated cooking machine when this is presented with the purpose of taking over the cooking responsibilities completely, he adds. However peoples responses became less negative when the same product was presented as still enabling the users involvement, allowing collaboration between people and technology. Sometimes more automation is not better. Work-shy AI Some believe, too, that AI has the potential to make us lazy in the workplace particularly if the implementation of the technology isnt well thought out. Jeet Mukerji, lead AI product manager at Beamery, tells IT Pro: AI has the potential to make us lazy in the workplace if we agree on three things. The first is that the original work, now done by AI, is worth mastering by humans. We choose to not do this, however, so will eventually lose this skill set empathising, or doing mental maths, for example. Secondly, we choose to consistently spend the time and energy, freed up by AI, in lower value moments such as deciding to scroll social media without an aim rather than read a book or to learn a new skill. Finally, we choose to not understand the limits of AI we are using, expect too much of it, shirk our responsibility fully on it and dont engage the outputs of the AI correctly by this I mean we think it is incapable of error, so dont sense check the outputs. Mukerji believes that we can prevent AI from making us lazy, but to do so we need to make the right choices: We need to understand the technologys limitations by engaging with it correctly and be proactive and curious enough to learn how to improve and add further value. A further important point here is that this has nothing to do with AI, but is more focused on general training on how to be a productive human, Mukerji adds. AI dont agree Others, however, believe that AI is not making us lazy and suggest its having the opposite effect: Giving us more headspace to spend on productive and enjoyable tasks at work. James Coombes, CEO of vector.ai, an AI startup for enterprise operations, tells IT Pro: Its still surprising today that employees continue to manually reconcile and organise documents and e-mail communications. Its a waste of human talent. The good news is this is a problem AI can solve. There is so much value to be had by adding an intelligent layer that can do the more basic cognitive tasks and give us all our headspace back. By automating monotonous tasks like answer that e-mail, key in that data and find that piece of information, employees can spend their time on delivering great customer service, learning new skills, increasing business development and pursuing passion projects. Not only will this lead to a better and more profitable business but a happy workforce freed from process pain. This is a viewpoint shared by Rachel Roumeliotis, vice president of Data & AI at OReilly, an online learning platform focussing on digital skills, who tells IT Pro that AI will only make us lazy if businesses use it in a lazy way. She says that if the technology is used correctly, it should allow people to be more creative and use their time doing tasks that can make a palpable difference to the business. For example, AI can be used to take on the burden of repetitive, administrative tasks, such as reporting. This is work which is often necessary, but which can take a long time and is more of a tick-box exercise than anything else, she says. The onus, however, is then on businesses to encourage and enable their employees to replace that work with something more engaging and strategic. In some instances, this will be easy for businesses. Those hours spent on administrative tasks can be replaced by brainstorms or extra hours of content production. For others, it might require some restructuring of the business. Either way, training should be at the very heart of it. The time saved on performing admin tasks can instead be used by employees to learn new skills and impact the business in a new, innovative way. AI shouldnt be making us lazier, it should be enabling greater creativity and a greater sense of fulfilment within work. Dr Lindsey Zuloaga, chief data scientist at HireVue, also believes that the benefits of utilising AI in the workplace far outweigh the potential downsides particularly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused workers to suffer from increased workloads and depleted resources over the past 12 months. In hiring, for example, recruiters are able to spend less time on scheduling and more time on candidate engagement and personalised interactions, as well as streamlining communication between recruiters, hiring teams and candidates, she tells IT Pro. All of these elements facilitate a faster turnaround time for new hires. This is far from laziness, but a modern way of driving efficiency and focusing your staffs time on tasks that hold greater value. Dennis Publishing Professional Development for IT professionals The mission of the Irish Computer Society is to advance, promote and represent the interests of ICT professionals in Ireland. Membership of the ICS typically reduces courses by 20%. Find out more
|
https://www.techcentral.ie/is-ai-making-us-lazy/
|
Can Hezbollah survive Nasrallah?
|
cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); }); if(window.location.pathname.indexOf("656089") != -1){console.log("hedva connatix");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";} Iran recently released an interesting photo. It shows the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Qasem Soleimani sitting with one of his deputies, named Mohammed Hejazi, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Soleimani was killed by the US in 2020. Hejazi died in April. Nasrallah appears to be sick now. Rumors have suggested he could die. Even if he doesnt it leads to questions about a post-Nasrallah Hezbollah.Men like Nasrallah are key to Irans role in the region. These men, along with Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah leader who was killed in 2008 and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, head of Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, were key to Irans dominance of the region. Muhandis was killed in 2020 alongside Soleimani. Hejazi was a key to Irans precision guided munitions project and building up Irans network in the region by moving those missiles to Hezbollah. Nasrallah likes to give speeches, usually in his bunker where he has been hiding since the 2006 war on Israel. Even in the bunker though he has appeared impressive and he articulates a growing command of the region and Hezbollahs role in Irans worldview. Hezbollah is a powerful terror organization with some 150,000 missiles and a parallel state-within-a-state in Lebanon. It has networks from West Africa to South America, from Lebanon to Iran and beyond. It plays a role in Syria and Iraq and works now with the Houthis in Yemen.But Nasrallahs appearance suggests he may be declining in health. Hezbollah supporters say he just as a cold or maybe pneumonia. Other rumors say he got Covid. Nasrallahs impressive speeches were key to how he is perceived. Professor Eyal Zisser writing at Israel HaYom says that this entire perception crumbled, however, with the sound of his first cough and the many more that followed. Thus Nasrallah's victory speech became his coughing speech, and instead of focusing on his threats and bombastic declarations, his health situation drew most of the headlines. Zisser makes an important point: Contrary to Hamas, which has replaced its leaders numerous times, not in the least due to several assassinations attributed to Israel, Nasrallah been the sole, dominant leader of Hezbollah for close to three decades now. As with any typical Middle Eastern dictator, he made sure a possible successor never emerged, which brings us to the questions currently arising in Lebanon about the day after Nasrallah, which even if delayed is still inevitable.This is important because Hezbollah grew into its own under Nasrallah. It became a phenomenally powerful organization, more powerful than Lebanon and more powerful than many small states. It helped to save the Syrian regime during the Syrian civil war, intervening in 2012 and helping the Assad regime hold the line until the Russian intervention in 2015. Despite the fact Hezbollah can only recruit from a relatively small Shiite population in Lebanon of several hundred thousand military age men, Hezbollah has been able to recruit thousands, many of whom became casualties in the recent war in Syria. Many others became veterans, increasing their abilities. Nasrallah played a key role in this and he is in many ways on the last of the key Iranian axis members in the region. With Mughniyeh dad, Hejazi dead, Soleimani dead, Muhandis dead, Nasrallah is the proverbial last of the Mohicans.This issue is complicated. Irans proxies do not rely on any one man. Unlike a regime like Saddam Husseins Iraq, the Iranian octopus network is not based just on big men and small people. Because the Iranian system replicates itself like an amoeba across the region, it is fundamentally rooted in the abilities of the people it recruits, mostly among Shiites. It relies on engineers and operators and often trains relatively small units of elite groups, such as Kataib Hezbollah, to carry out extensive operations. For instance, Kataib was involved in drone attacks on Saudi Arabia. Pro-Iran militias use 107mm and 122mm rockets to target US forces. They do this with such clandestine alacrity that they can set up rockets and disappear into the night and no amount of CIA and NSA and US SOCOM can find them, apparently. Of course they make mistakes sometimes, Soleimani and Muhandis were killed by the US and Mughniyah died at the hands of professionals, but in general these men build upon intelligent and strong structures.Hezbollah will need such a structure if it is to survive Nasrallah and thrive. What is known about his health. Not much except rumors. One article says he underwent a direct examination by a specialist doctor, and there was no need to use a hospital. Supposedly a doctor who had been in the US was also consulted as were experts in local medicine. He may be taking folk remedies such as eucalyptus leaves, which are famous in the field of relieving coughs, infections, seasonal allergies and improving lung health, according to an article at Al-Jumhuriya. According to the information, Nasrallah continues to work and keeps up with the files concerned, at a measured pace via the internal phone, and he communicates whenever needed with party officials who fall within the circle around him. This is also what people said about Stalin even when he was incapacitated. Hezbollah says Nasrallah has some allergies. He will be fine. The region waits to find out.
|
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/can-hezbollah-survive-nasrallah-669872
|
Is FXs Pose Going To Be Renewed For A Fourth Season?
|
FXs Pose has become one of the milestones in American television over the past few years, since its premiere in 2018. In a recent interview, the series creators discussed the possibility of a fourth season. In the ongoing golden era of American television came Pose, which is as beautiful as the title suggests. The series, based in the 1980s, is set in New York City, on the African-Americans surviving in extreme poverty, crime-infested neighbourhoods, and among them, the LGBTQ people that faced the most adverse circumstances back then. Created by Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy the series opened in 2018 to extremely good reviews and ended up winning a Golden Globe award for its brilliant first season. Though the third season of the series was released in the first week of May 2021, surprisingly, there has been no information about the series renewal for a fourth season. Lets investigate. Highlights Pose Season 4 details Pose creators discussing the series renewal As per the creators, season 3 happens to be the most crucial one among all the three seasons that has been aired so far. They added in an interview that the final season will be shorter than its predecessors, with only 7 episodes to be aired. It also tells the stories closest to the creators hearts, the stories they shared with each other before the series even materialized. During a virtual discussion for the show recently, the creators said that the audience will see the season finale and theyll get to know what the writers had in mind even before they sat down to write the series. They added that every story has three acts and it was the same in the case of Pose. The first season was the first act, the second season the second act, and the final season will be the final act of the story they created. Thus, they very clearly indicate that there will be no more seasons after the third one is done. Yes, sadly enough, it seems like it. Although there has been no confirmation by the FX regarding the fate of the show, it clearly seems like the series might be ending very soon. There have been times before when the creators have shocked the fans with the surprise announcement of renewal after previously discarding the possibility. So, all hopes not lost, until, well, it is actually lost. SERIES CREATORS TALKED ABOUT THE FATE OF POSE SEASON 4 The creators also spilt some beans for the final season and told the fans what was there in the store for them. The main characters will finally get what they had already desired in the first season. Blanca will get a job fighting for the rights of HIV patients, while Angel and Papi will finally take some big steps in their relationship. It means that the fans will get to see some major developments in the lives of other key characters such as Stan Bowers, Patty Bowes, and Matt Bromley. Video Credits: E! Red Carpet & Award Shows One of the creators, Steven Canals, noted that it wasnt like there was no chance at all for the fourth season of Pose to exist. They had nurtured and loved these characters themselves and the writers room had many such talks about whether to give these characters more space to breathe. The discussion involved renewing the series for a fourth season. But, he added, that every discussion led to only one conclusion, that season 3 must be the final one. Now, we all hate when our favourite series turn stale very quickly after they overstay their welcome. And there is nothing more frustrating than seeing your favourite series turning into a shell of its former shelf. Canals reflected the same sentiment over the interview and said that as a television lover, it saddened him multiple times to see his favourite series turning into just fillers. So, in a way, the creators are probably quite certain about not letting Pose have a fourth season. But again, as Andy Dufresne said to Red in that letter in The Shawshank Redemption- Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. Tell us in the comments if you have seen Pose and let us know who is your favourite character from this vast ensemble.
|
https://www.dkoding.in/entertainment/tv-web/fxs-pose-season-4-renewal-and-release-date-update/
|
When Are White Males Going To Walk Out Of CRT Training?
|
By Ron Ewart Race is suddenly all the rage. Employees, students, parents [and corporations] are being inundated with anti-racism training programs and school curricula that insist America was built on white supremacy. Anyone who raises even the slightest objection is often deemed irredeemably racist. If this all sounds very Marxist, it should. All the giants in whiteness studies, from Noel Ignatiev, to David Roediger, to their ideological lodestar, W.E.B. Du Boiswho first coined the term whiteness to begin withwere Marxist. In the cases of Ignatiev and Du Bois, they were actual Communist Party members. Mike Gonzalez, American former professional baseball pitcher. Anyone paying attention knows what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is. It is an absolute travesty that this garbage is being taught in our schools and parents had better rise up and stop it before any more damage is done to the brains of our little ones. But what is even more alarming is that CRT is now taking place in major corporations throughout America like Lockheed Martin, Coco Cola and Delta Airlines. CRT is a direct attack on our capitalistic system and free market society and it is based on the false premise of systemic racism. For three straight days top executives at Lockheed Martin are forced to listen to this bilge as a condition of employment. They are told that White male rugged individualism, can-do attitude, hard work, operating from principles and striving towards success are devastating towards minorities (Blacks) and women. Poor babies. It would appear from this that minorities (Blacks) and women just arent up to the task and are unable to compete. Capitalism is a highly competitive system and only the cream of the crop rise to the top. Yes, nepotism and favoritism are in their somewhere but not on a huge scale. Capitalism is not always fair, nor is it a perfect system, but it works better than any other economic system. Nevertheless, socialist Democrats, in the name of equity, want to tear down a good working system and convert it to abject mediocrity so that Blacks and women can compete. It reeks of affirmative action and pandering to Blacks. (See: To Prop Up The Black Race Were Dumbing Down the White Race) May we strongly suggest that if White males didnt hold these traits, a continent would not have been conquered, the trains would have never run, big city buildings would have not risen to the skies, two world wars would not have been won and America would have never been built. If they did it together, the company couldnt and wouldnt fire them. They would cancel the CRT training sessions. CRT is part of a much larger global plan to subjugate the masses. The global plan includes breaking down the family structure; drastically changing the English language and the meaning of words for the purpose of confusion; socially brainwashing the children through public schools; making all citizens dependent on government; sanctifying abnormal behavior; demeaning cultural norms; breaking down our religious heritages; allowing criminals to go free and crime to flourish; creating a virtual lawless society; de-funding and demeaning the police; tearing down national sovereignty; the implementation of massive new laws and regulations; censoring all other thought, ideas and ideologies that dont fit the Progressive-Marxist narrative; increasing the national debt until all current and future citizens are debt slaves or indentured servants and confiscating the citizens wealth through usurious taxes. This cozy relationship started over 100 years ago with the rise of the Progressive movement. It is entrenched in all of our institutions. It is Marxist by act and deed! It is anti-American on its face and unconstitutional in its content. We are Americans. The blood of heroes and patriots courses through our arteries and veins. Millions of men and women have paid the ultimate sacrifice and many have been maimed for life so that the rest of us can stand free on a new continent, where freedom was born. We are the descendants of those whose spine was stiffened by courage when their country called, or evil raised its ugly head. We are the direct lineage of the men and women whose intellect and fortitude carried them to new heights and made America the greatest, proudest, industrious, creative, productive and most generous nation on Earth. We are the sons, daughters, grandsons and grand daughters of those who stood up to tyranny, no matter what the cost. The genes of creators, inventors, hard workers, the educated, the warriors and those in service to others, are an integral part of our DNA and it lies dormant in our being until it is called upon to do good .. or destroy evil. And yes, we are rugged individualists with a can-do attitude. We believe in hard work, operating from principles and striving towards success no matter whether minorities (Blacks) or women are devastated. These attributes built a free nation never seen before on mother earth. True Americans are not whiners and they are not losers, no matter what their race or gender. And that goes for Blacks and women who refuse to accept the victim label. They are doers and winners. When an obstacle is in front of them they go around it, or under it, or over it, as the situation warrants. They build things they dont tear them down. They invent things to make our lives a little easier, or increase our health and life span, or so that we can get a job done quicker, or yes, even go faster. Americans are the givers and preservers of life, not the takers of life. Americans believe that life is precious and a gift from God and its preservation is a prime imperative. Proud and brave Americans have been the victors in two world wars and the sacrifice of those men and women have lifted over a billion people out of bondage and shown them that freedom is the natural order, not slavery. Unfortunately, we have engaged in wars of late where victory was not the goal and Americans have paid a high price for our governments dereliction of duty to those who must fight our wars. That dereliction is now abundantly evident in our current Commander-in-Chief, who labors over endless detail, political expediency and socialist doctrine, while brave Americans are dying on the front lines of our enemies. On this Memorial Day we salute all those who were called upon, living or dead, to defend this nation with their lives. Americans are the light to the rest of the world, not because we are better than anyone else, but because we live under the bright light of liberty that frees us to climb the highest mountains, or jump off this once giant planet into the vastness of space, where only the brave dare tread, in search of the secrets of our island Universe. So if this is all true and it is, When are White Males Going To Reject Reverse Racism and Walk Out Of Corporate and Government CRT Training, en masse while thumbing their collective middle fingers at the idiots that dream up, teach and promote this insanity. Americans dont have to give in to this: You Caused It, Youre Guilty, Shut Up and Comply! mentality. 2021 Ron Ewart All Rights Reserved E-Mail Ron Ewart: [email protected] Read over 500 powerful conservative articles like this one HERE.
|
https://newswithviews.com/when-are-white-males-going-to-walk-out-of-crt-training/
|
Can Biden close the racial wealth gap?
|
WASHINGTON President Biden vowed on Tuesday to close the vast and persistent difference between the assets of Black and white Americans. That racial wealth gap stems from injustices going back to the era of slavery and is reflected today in factors like home valuation (much higher for whites) and access to credit (much harder for Black-owned businesses). In all, the racial wealth gap was recently estimated by the Duke economist William Darity Jr. to stand at $11.2 trillion. Biden has offered nowhere near that amount, instead introducing a raft of proposed programs, such as $31 billion for small-business development and $10 billion for infrastructure upgrades in communities that had been neglected by Washington for generations. President Biden commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center on Tuesday in Tulsa, Okla. (Evan Vucci/AP) Biden discussed the proposals in remarks after touring Greenwood, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood once known as Black Wall Street. The area was devastated a century ago by racist marauders who killed as many as 300 people. They also destroyed 1,256 buildings. The attack, and others like it around the nation, served to reinforce white supremacy in the wake of the Civil War and suppress the development of a Black middle class. It was a massacre, Biden said as he toured the Greenwood Cultural Center on Tuesday afternoon. In subsequent remarks, the president quoted the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, telling his audience which included three Tulsa Race Massacre survivors that the nation may be in one of those rare moments when, as Heaney put it, hope and history can rhyme. A Black man with a camera looks at a burned-out block after the Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., in June 1921. (Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images) Great nations, Biden said, come to term with their dark sides. And we are a great nation. He said he had come to Tulsa to fill the silence. Greenwood has only recently entered the national consciousness as a grotesque symbol of racial violence, as well as of racisms lingering effects. The district never truly recovered from the massacre, and attempts at urban renewal such as the construction of a freeway only made things worse in Tulsa. Story continues Biden now wants to reverse decades of what has come to be known as systemic racism. Although some of his proposals, like the infrastructure and business development funds, require the passage of his American Jobs Plan by a bitterly (and narrowly) divided Congress, others do not. We must find the courage to change the things we know we can change, Biden said in Tulsa. The president instructed the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to focus on countering housing practices with discriminatory effects. Those practices have recently come under scrutiny, with historians uncovering the blatantly discriminatory practices of the Federal Housing Administration and other federal agencies that helped create the postwar white middle class while depriving Black Americans of the same upward mobility. The result is that today, a house in a Black neighborhood is worth 23 percent less than a similar house in a similar neighborhood occupied by whites. That difference amounts to $48,000 per house, or $156 billion nationwide, according to a 2018 Brookings Institution analysis of Black asset ownership. Ben Carson, who directed the federal housing department under President Donald Trump, dropped enforcement efforts when it came to housing discrimination. The inability to buy a home has relegated many Black Americans to renting, preventing them from building equity that can be passed on to descendants. It can also leave them at the whim of landlords. Tulsa and many other cities have recently seen a wave of pandemic-related evictions, which have been especially devastating to people of color. Part of the Greenwood District burned in the Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., in June 1921. (Universal History Archive via Getty Images) Biden also pledged that the federal government would devote $100 billion in contracts to minority-owned businesses. White-owned businesses have enjoyed a significant advantage in securing such contracts in the past. The aspects of his wealth gap proposal that will need approval from Congress include $10 billion for community-led civic infrastructure projects; $15 billion for transportation upgrades; $5 billion for affordable housing, as well as, separately, a tax credit for developers of such housing; and $31 billion for small businesses. The plan unveiled on Tuesday came just as Biden departed for Tulsa and was framed as a necessary step in a broader national recognition of racial iniquity. The destruction wrought on the Greenwood neighborhood and its families was followed by laws and policies that made recovery nearly impossible, said a White House press release announcing the wealth gap initiatives, noting that the disinvestment in Black families in Tulsa and across the country throughout our history is still felt sharply today. During the presidential campaign, Biden drew criticism for waxing rhapsodic about the bygone days of congressional bipartisanship, when he, as a young senator, could work with unrepentant segregationists like James Eastland on certain issues. As president, however, Biden has become a champion of racial justice, framing many of his proposals as a means to redress the depredations of the past. Aboard Air Force One on the way to Tulsa, principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the wealth gap proposals were part of what she described as Bidens broader goal of advancing equity and racial justice across the whole of federal government. Apart from the new wealth-gap measures, that has included loan forgiveness to Black farmers and grants for educators to teach about the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society. Notably, student loan forgiveness was not among the plans proposed by the president on Tuesday, though some have argued that canceling student debt would help close the very racial wealth gap that Biden has now promised to address. President Biden tours the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Okla., on Tuesday. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Neither was anything resembling outright reparations for the descendants of the enslaved. The call for racial reparations has grown louder in recent years, including for the descendants of Greenwood victims, having gained popular support via arguments by Ta-Nehisi Coates and other intellectuals. The White House has said that Biden supports studying the issue of reparations but the president has never endorsed the issue outright. Yet reparations are the preferred means of racial redress for some, including Darity, the Duke economist. He has endorsed cash payments, arguing that incremental measures will not be sufficient to address the enormous racial wealth disparity. Bidens proposed measures go well beyond those of previous administrations, but they are not enough for those who say that Biden cannot merely recognize the enormity of the problem without offering a solution commensurate with that problems size. Writing in the Root, a news outlet devoted to Black affairs, the critic Michael Harriot who tussled with then-South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg during the Democratic presidential primary in 2019 offered that Bidens proposals wont fix a single problem. ____ Read more from Yahoo News:
|
https://news.yahoo.com/can-biden-close-the-racial-wealth-gap-232707047.html
|
How long do covid vaccines take to start working?
|
While it's possible to still catch coronavirus post jab, the vaccine slashes the risk of severe disease, hospitalisation and death - and helps stop transmission. While it's possible to still catch coronavirus post jab, the vaccine slashes the risk of severe disease, hospitalisation and death - and helps stop transmission.... Amid Victorias worrying covid outbreak, perhaps the point of greatest concern is the fact the virus has again found its way into aged care. On Sunday, the state government announced an aged-care worker had tested positive for Covid-19, despite having received their first vaccine dose on May 12. Weve since found out another staff member, who worked alongside the original staff member at Arcare Maidstone, has returned a positive result, along with a resident. The resident had received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and reportedly has only mild symptoms, but is being monitored in hospital. The original workers son has also tested positive. The cases in the first staff member and the resident, both who had received a first vaccine dose, highlight the fact you need both doses for maximum benefit. It takes a couple of weeks Clinical trials show covid vaccine protection is optimal from about two weeks after your second dose. This means they: Nearly completely protect against severe disease and death in healthy people. Clinical trials of the Pfizer vaccine were designed to test the efficacy of the vaccine more than one week after the second dose. However, these trials also provided the first hints that a single dose could offer some protection as early as 12 days afterwards. Real world data now supports these early observations a single dose is highly effective against hospitalisation four weeks after vaccination. Meanwhile, early research and reports suggest a first dose of Pfizer could be between 50 per cent and 90 per cent effective at preventing infection. Preliminary data also suggest people who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 after one dose of the Pfizer vaccine are up to 50 per cent less likely to transmit that infection to other members of their household. The AstraZeneca vaccine was initially developed as a single-dose vaccine, estimated to have an efficacy of 76 per cent against disease in clinical trials. These trials were later amended to include a second dose when other work showed two doses significantly increased antibody levels in volunteers. Real-world data, though yet to be peer reviewed, has shown one dose is roughly 65 per cent effective at protecting from infection and up to 50 per cent effective at preventing vaccinated people from passing the virus on if they do become infected, like Pfizer. Also similar to Pfizer, a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine offers very good protection against hospital admission four weeks afterwards. Despite differences in mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and viral vector vaccines like AstraZeneca, both take similar amounts of time to generate antibody responses. After a single dose of AstraZeneca, antibodies can be detected after 14 days and further increase over the next two weeks. When researchers track the antibody response to the first dose of vaccine, they find it takes at least 10 days for the immune system to start making antibodies that can recognise SARS-CoV-2s spike protein (a protein on the virus surface which it uses to enter our bodys cells). It also takes at least a week for T cells, a type of white blood cell important in our immune response, to start to react to the vaccine. Over the next few weeks, these responses become even stronger. In contrast, the second dose activates the immune system much more quickly. Within a week of dose two, your antibody levels increase by more than 10 times, providing much stronger and longer-lasting protection from infection. So the first dose of a covid vaccine gets your immune response going, but the second dose is essential to ensure immunity is strong, consistent from person-to-person, and longer-lasting. RELATED: Vaccine side effects you could have Partial vaccination can be risky While a single dose of either vaccine provides some benefits, relying on partial vaccination for people who are vulnerable or working in high-risk roles is problematic. Its critical we fully vaccinate frontline healthcare workers, quarantine workers and people who work and live in aged and disability care as soon as possible. Another challenge is that all current covid vaccines are based on the original virus strain but variants now make up the majority of infections in many countries. Some variants are targeted less effectively by vaccines, particularly after only one dose. Preliminary data suggests that while two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are 88 per cent protective against symptomatic infection with the B.1.617.2 variant, a single dose is only 33 per cent effective. A similar variant, called B.1.617.1, is behind the current outbreak in Victoria and may respond similarly. This makes it even more important to ensure frontline workers receive both vaccine doses as quickly as possible. Its also worth noting immune responses to one dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines decrease with age. In a pooled analysis of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, older people had lower rates of protection than younger people after a single dose, although older people were protected just as well as younger people after two doses. Although this study is yet to be peer reviewed, it tells us administering the second dose in a timely manner is particularly important for older people to realise the full benefits of vaccination. This article originally appeared on The Conversation and was reproduced with permission
|
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/how-long-do-covid-vaccines-take-to-start-working/news-story/8d92a89ad78885832ca350cf61bb4f8b
|
Are Knowledge Management and Organizational Intelligence Different?
|
PHOTO: Edward Howell | unsplash Peggy Winton, president of AIIM and an old friend, recently asked which term people preferred: "knowledge management" or "organizational intelligence." Organizational intelligence is a relatively new phrase introduced by Microsoft. In a white paper on content services from last year titled, "Growing Organizational Intelligence with Knowledge and Content in Microsoft 365," Microsoft stated its investments in content services will help with: How that collective knowledge within an organization is accessed, shared, and matured ...." With Project Cortex and now Microsoft Viva, the term knowledge management has seen a resurgence within Microsoft marketing literature. AIIM has also shared quite a few posts on KM, but its recent release of an ebook developed in partnership with Microsoft is important in our current context: Building Organizational Intelligence with Connected Thinking (pdf). Read the AIIM ebook and see what you think it's pretty short, you can digest it in 5 minutes. Definitions are a good place to begin. The ebook provides a clear definition of organizational intelligence within its first page: "Organizational Intelligence is the ability to use information, technology, and people in ways that improves an organizations' performance." OK, so it encompasses information management, people management, and of course, our use of technology. At first glance, process is missing, but that's only because I did not quote the line from the introductory paragraph that sets the context: Choose any important business process and you will find that information drives the workflow. So we are talking about the flow of information as the fuel for an organization's business processes. To make our organizations intelligent, we must examine the use of that information, the technology that enables it to flow, and of course, our greatest resource, the people who create, share, manipulate and manage the information in order to create value. What is missing so far is any use of the word knowledge. Instead we are focusing on "information," which is fine. Many people use the words information and knowledge interchangeably. I am a KM purist who thinks this is wrong, and will happily sit with you in a pub over a beer and tell you why, but for now I will curb my enthusiasm and remain awkwardly pragmatic! The ebook goes on to suggest that "connected thinking" can make our organizations operate more intelligently: "Organizational Intelligence is about making a connection between knowledge and people. The goal is to create a workforce of 'connected thinkers,' who can tap into information and access it at the point of need ." Again, I see nothing radical here. We are now talking about concepts that KM theorists and practitioners have been pushing for decades: connecting knowledge and people. Personally, as information is re-introduced at the end of the sentence, I would have stuck with the theme of connecting people and information in order to generate knowledge, but connected thinkers is as good a phrase as any to encapsulate the concept. Connect the people (the thinkers) to the information they need, and to the other people across the organization in a well-structured, or well-managed way to remove friction, increase the efficiency of the information flows, and thereby improve the business processes. I haven't yet provided a snappy definition of KM to compare and contrast with organizational intelligence, largely because there are soooo many to choose from. I do like this 2002 definition by Dr. Clair McInerny: KM is an effort to increase useful knowledge within an organization. I have always explained that the difference between information and knowledge is that knowledge is mostly in people's heads, and therefore KM is a management discipline that should be largely focused on people. We discussed the well-known KM theory called SECI back in 2015, which posits that tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge. Yes and no. Applied properly, knowledge management should be an enabling strategy for your organization (be wary of anyone who wants to sell you a KM system). KM is a management discipline, which means it has broad applicability and involves many elements, although obviously you can pick and choose which elements to add to your ongoing KM strategy. If organizational intelligence is about creating a workforce of connected thinkers, then it would appear to be a sub-strategy that sits within KM, and yet the way we use language suggests that a KM strategy would be an enabler for achieving an intelligent organization! Language always matters. It is what separates us from other creatures, and allows us to communicate the most complex and intricate theories and ideas. And yet, in this case my answer would be no, it does not really matter. In the business environment, you must be both pragmatic and practical. Use the terms and phraseology that can be most easily understood by your stakeholders. Despite there being hundreds of academic definitions of KM, if you ask an attorney about KM, they will be able to give you a sentence based on the specific use of KM in the Legal industry. Interestingly the Microsoft / AIIM ebook has the top technology targeted for transformation as Document and Knowledge Management (64%), which is somewhat odd as outside of the legal industry, I would not necessarily have put the two together. However, this reinforces my point: in your specific context, in your industry, with your stakeholders, you may gain more traction for digital transformation projects if you talk about organizational intelligence. Whether you talk about Digital Transformation (DT), Information Governance (IG), Organizational Intelligence (OI) or good old KM, make the alphabet soup work for you. Bend it to your will, and make the language resonate for your organization, and then it truly wont matter what you call it, as long as your stakeholders can identify with it, and engage with it to improve their business processes. Related Article: Knowledge Retention in Times of Disruption
|
https://www.cmswire.com/knowledge-findability/knowledge-management-vs-organizational-intelligence-whats-in-a-name/?utm_source=cmswire.com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=cm&utm_content=all-articles-rss
|
What is Driving Uranium Spot Prices?
|
The answer lies in a number of factors that have led experts to believe that the stars are finally aligning. Uranium is one of the hottest metals on the market today. In the last month, the spot price for U3O8 surpassed US$30 per pound, garnering increased attention from investors. According to research notes from BMO Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley, recent prices signal a floor with a predicted rally over the next few years, peaking at US$50 by 2024. The answer lies in a number of factors that have led experts to believe that the stars are finally aligning. One of the key drivers of growth in the uranium sector is a renewed interest in nuclear energy across the US and Europe, together with a continued push by China, all spurred by ambitious climate goals and large-scale green energy initiatives. In fact, the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that a median of 840 GW is required from nuclear energy to meet current climate goals representing more than double of whats currently generated worldwide. While last year saw a split decision, recent documents show that EU experts plan to designate nuclear power as a sustainable source of electricity. The official green label will open the door for new investment as European governments race toward a zero-emission standard. Likewise, nuclear energy plays a central role in Chinas 14th five-year plan, with Beijing planning to boost the countrys capacity by 46 percent, reaching 70 GW by 2025. Already, China is on schedule to complete five new reactors while beginning work on four to six new reactors in 2021. Recently, China overtook France in nuclear power generation, and is now second only to the US, where nuclear regulators are now considering extending power plant licenses to 100 years. This INNspired article is brought to you by: Fission Uranium (TSX:FCU,OTCQX:FCUUF,FSE:2FU) is developing the high-grade Triple R uranium deposit in Saskatchewans renowned Athabasca Basin uranium district. Significantly, the companys prefeasibility study shows the potential for the Triple R to be one of the lowest cost operating uranium mines in the world.Send me an Investor Kit Moreover, experts are excited about the emerging development of small modular reactors (SMRs), an innovation that could lead to a paradigm shift in nuclear energy. SMRs have long been viewed as the next step for nuclear power, as well as a new source of clean energy. These novel reactor technologies may have the potential to supply power to smaller electrical grids as well as remote, off-grid areas, reducing the impact of high capital costs and providing power away from large grid systems. The start of a new cycle for uranium According to analysis by UxC, the industrys leading research and analysis group, declining uranium inventories and a depletion of reserves is likely to drive higher cost production by 2025. Annual uranium demand is now above the level that existed prior to the 2011 Fukushima disaster that caused Japan to shut down all of its reactors. Despite this, global production has faltered significantly. The first half of 2021 saw the closure of two major uranium mines: Energy Resources of Australias (ASX:ERA) Ranger mine in Australias Northern Territory and COMINAKs Akouta mine in Niger, the latter of which ceased production after nearly half a century of service. With the temporary suspension of its Cigar Lake mine in December 2020, Cameco (TSX:CCO,NYSE:CCJ) lost roughly 1.5 million pounds of uranium every month but announced its plans to restart production in April. The worlds largest uranium operation, Camecos McArthur River mine, was suspended in July 2018, lifting more than 25 million pounds off the market. As it stands, there are more than 440 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide and another 50 under construction. However, in the wake of significant production disruptions, shrinking inventories and the potential consequences of the UKs withdrawal from the EU, experts are now raising questions about uraniums long-term availability. According to UxC estimates, approximately 390 million pounds of uranium are locked up in the long-term market, while 815 million pounds have been consumed over the past half a decade. By 2026, uranium requirements left uncovered by utility inventories are expected to surpass 500 million pounds, reaching 1.4 billion pounds by 2035. While long-term contracting between 2014 and 2020 was only moderate, producers and consumers were protected by higher-price contracts and sizable inventories. Today, UxC believes those factors are no longer at play. In the wake of rising demand fueled by a nuclear energy boom, the pricing reporting agency and research company predicts the beginning of a much larger contracting lifecycle. In addition, it is important to note that in April 2021, Sprott Asset Management LP entered into a definitive agreement with Uranium Participation Corporation (UPC), the worlds largest publicly traded investment vehicle. UPC provides investors the opportunity to gain exposure to the price of uranium. In Camecos earnings call on May 7th, executives said that this agreement provides a potential upside to the market, not to mention create transparency in the spot price. Canadas uranium sector poised for growth Rising demand for nuclear energy translates to rising demand for uranium. Global hotbeds of production are expected to play a significant role in meeting this increased demand. Over two-thirds of the worlds uranium production originates from three countries: Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. In particular, Canadas known resources encompass more than 600,000 tonnes of the heavy metal. Canada has also earned a reputation for uranium grades between 10 and 20 times higher than the global average. The country also hosts the worlds largest deposits of high-grade uranium, with grades up to 20 percent uranium, which is 100 times greater than the world average. With the Athabasca Basin as one of the worlds most prospective mineral basins, Canada represents the new frontier for uranium exploration. Companies like Fission Uranium (TSX:FCU,OTCQX:FCUUF) are well positioned to capitalize on nuclear energys status as a frontrunner for the decarbonization of electricity. The companys high-grade Triple R uranium deposit is located in Saskatchewans world-class Athabasca Basin uranium district. The projects prefeasibility study highlights the potential for the Triple R to become one of the worlds lowest-cost operating uranium mines, and the project is currently advancing towards feasibility status. Takeaway Experts have forecasted a robust future for uranium driven by a new phase of nuclear energy investment powered, in turn, by ambitious climate goals and a new standard for energy efficiency. As demand for uranium is expected to continue to rise despite increasing uncertainty about supply, the industry is now facing a growing wedge of uncovered uranium requirements. In the wake of growing optimism for the sector, investors should pay special attention to low-cost uranium operations that are strategically located in the worlds uranium hotspots. This INNSpired article is sponsored by Fission Uranium (TSX:FCU,OTCQX:FCUUF). This INNSpired article provides information which was sourced by the Investing News Network (INN) and approved by Fission Uranium in order to help investors learn more about the company. Fission Uranium is a client of INN. The companys campaign fees pay for INN to create and update this INNSpired article. INN does not provide investment advice and the information on this profile should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. INN does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company profiled. The information contained here is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities. Readers should conduct their own research for all information publicly available concerning the company. Prior to making any investment decision, it is recommended that readers consult directly with Fission Uranium and seek advice from a qualified investment advisor.
|
https://investingnews.com/innspired/uranium-trends-2021/
|
Should Switzerland cooperate with China on development aid?
|
The Addis Ababa city railway in Ethiopia was built by the China Railway Engineering Corporation and financed by loans from the Chinese state bank China Exim-Bank. Keystone / Daniel Getachew China has reached out to Switzerland to cooperate on development aid projects. Switzerland has so far been open to such collaborations. NGOs warn of Chinas political motives but agree its financial clout could help reduce poverty. This content was published on June 2, 2021 - 09:00 In January China published its latest reportExternal link on international development cooperation. The report covered Chinas approach to international aid and pointed out ten countries and regional organisations with which it had strengthened exchanges and had conducted exchanges and visits. One of those countries was Switzerland. The paper also mentioned tripartite cooperation programmes with Switzerland in the form of a pilot project. SWI swissinfo.ch asked the Swiss foreign ministry whether the country was joining hands with China to provide development aid. The ministry replied that informal contacts with the relevant Chinese authorities had existed for more than ten years. In January 2019 Switzerland became the first and to date only country to sign a memorandum of understanding with Chinas state development agency, according to the foreign ministry. It said Switzerland was looking to pass on knowhow and share experiences. It also acknowledged that it was open to cooperation with China in third countries. Given Chinas growing importance in international development cooperation, Switzerland has an interest in this dialogue, the ministry said. Chinas budget for development cooperation is enormous, though no official figures are available. The same goes for the loans it grants to poor countries. We estimate that China has become by far the largest public donor for developing and emerging countries, economist Sebastian Horn, who focuses on China, told the Neue Zrcher Zeitung newspaper in April. Cooperating with China in development aid does not come without problems. China has a reputation of saddling third countries with debt, overlooking human rights issues and dealing with corrupt officials. In the light of Chinas rising geopolitical clout, Switzerland presented last March its first ever China foreign policy strategy highlighting the differences in values between the two countries. Swiss NGOs are critical of potential collaborations. Kristina Lanz from Alliance Sud, a thinktank grouping the six main Swiss charities concerned with international cooperation, believes that Chinese development aid is guided by political reasons concerning power and rarely benefits the poor (see box). Criticism of Chinas development cooperation The following points have earned criticism: - A large part of Chinas development cooperation is made up of loans to African countries which, critics say, contributes to the national debt of these countries. Some claim that China purposely drives countries into debt to take over their infrastructure and control their national budgets. - With its development cooperation, China pursues its own power-political, geopolitical and economic interests. - China has a keen interest in African raw materials. - China does not differentiate between economic development and development cooperation. - China is not transparent. - China cooperates with governments and businesses, and not with civil society. - China does not attach conditions when it comes to corruption and human rights violations in beneficiary countries. - China invests primarily in infrastructure and employs its own construction workers, some of whom remain in the country. If locals are employed, working conditions are poor. - China builds infrastructure without taking care of the subsequent operation or maintenance. - The quality of Chinese products and constructions is poor. The Chinese embassy in Bern responded to these critical points as follows: "As a developing country with a history of suffering and poverty, China empathises with other developing countries [...] Our motives are sincere and there is nothing to hide." It added that in actual cooperation, China also fully takes into account the actual situation of the recipient countries, shares its development experience and industrial technology with other developing countries in various ways without reservation. "[China] helps developing countries improve their own capacity, and realises diversified, independent and sustainable development of the recipient countries," the embassy wrote. Of course, it said, it also takes environmental criteria into account. "We have helped relevant developing countries to build a number of clean energy projects. For example, the China-supported Garissa photovoltaic power station in Kenya," it said, pointing out that China had so far carried out cooperation projects with 34 countries to combat climate change. End of insertion Pilot project The pilot project mentioned in Chinas white paper is a joint project with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to combat bilharzia, a disease caused by parasitic worms prevalent in Southeast Asia. China approached us back in 2017 with the idea of a joint project to eliminate bilharzia in the Mekong region, said Markus Drst, the SDCs desk officer for Asia. The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, the National Institute of Parasitic Disease in Shanghai and the World Health Organization (WHO) would have been involved in implementing it. However, he said the project had not been launched for several reasons, the main ones being change within the Chinese authorities (the China International Development Cooperation Agency was founded 2018) and the Covid-19 pandemic. Fritz Brugger from the Centre for Development and Cooperation at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich also confirmed that efforts had been made to establish contacts between the Swiss and Chinese development authorities. In general, Chinese actors want to establish partnerships with Western actors, he said, adding that the University of Geneva and the Centre for Development and Cooperation had also been approached by Chinese organisations. We still havent decided whether well team up with any of these organisations, Brugger added. For its part, China is satisfied with the agreement. It can be said that China-Swiss exchange and cooperation in the field of international development cooperation has a certain foundation and has great potential for future development, the Chinese embassy in Bern told SWI swissinfo.ch in a written statement. Better than nothing Lanz from Alliance Sud said that as long as the concrete projects contributed to reducing poverty and strengthening civil society in the countries concerned, her organisation was not against Switzerland implementing aid projects with China. To better coordinate aid from all donor countries, it would be desirable to involve China more, she said. China donated this building to Ethiopia as the headquarters for the African Union Conference Center in Addis Ababa. Construction cost $200 million. Keystone / Ding Haitao For Brugger, the question of whether Switzerland should be allowed to collaborate with China is moot. Switzerland has been working with China since it initiated and spearheaded the foundation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2016, he said. Joint development cooperation with China is not new. No strings attached China still considers itself a developing country and describes its development work as South-South cooperation, which refers to technical collaboration between developing countries. Its not unusual for African countries to prefer Chinese aid over Western aid: its considered fast, efficient and, above all, it comes with no strings attached. China does not attach any conditions when it comes to corruption or human rights violations, Lanz said. Autocratic states obviously find it very attractive to get money just like that. Brugger agreed that the Chinese approach had its advantages for beneficiary countries. Cooperation with Western governments has become quite cumbersome for African nations. It comes with too many conditions, and it can take a long time to negotiate a contract. Brugger also said it was only fair to say that China invests a lot in third countries. It is one of the most generous donors. China has large sums of money to invest because of its currency reserves, he explained. China sees its impartiality as a strength. China and recipient countries respect each other and treat each other as equals, the Chinese embassy in Bern said. When carrying out international development cooperation, China fully considers and respects the views and needs of recipient countries, does not interfere with the development path and internal affairs of other countries, does not impose its will on others, does not attach any political conditions, and does not seek political self-interest. swissinfo.ch Bogeyman China China is also very much involved in humanitarian aid. While Western countries bought Covid-19 vaccine doses for their own populations, China supplied countries around Asia and Africa with its homegrown vaccine. Brugger said the issues were not black and white and argued that China should not be portrayed solely as the bogeyman. The debate on China is often limited to accusing it of doing everything out of self-interest or to improve its image, as well as pointing to the poor quality of its products. This is oversimplifying things. Thinking like that means we dont even try to understand how China ticks and thinks in the long run. Understanding China is crucial, he stressed. China is here to stay and is not going anywhere. We have to come to terms with this fact and find a way to work together sensibly and pragmatically. The Chinese embassy told SWI swissinfo.ch that China keeps its promises and makes good on its promises [] This is the most important premise and foundation for China to build mutual trust, friendship and cooperation with other developing countries. (Translated from German by Billi Bierling; edited by Thomas Stephens)
|
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/should-switzerland-cooperate-with-china-on-development-aid-/46664658?utm_campaign=swi-rss&utm_source=multiple&utm_medium=rss&utm_content=o
|
Who is Jasmine Hartins husband Andrew Ashcroft?
|
THE daughter-in-law of a British billionaire has been charged with manslaughter after a cop in Belize was found dead on May 28. Andrew Ashcroft is the youngest child of the Billionaire Tory donor Lord Ashcroft. The 43-year-old is married to American Jasmine Hartin who was recently charged with manslaughter by negligence charges after the body of cop Henry Jemmott was found floating in the sea on May 28, 2021. Hartin and Andrew have two kids together and recently opened a luxury resort close to where the shooting occurred. Andrew is a citizen of Belize where his dad Lord Ashcroft also resides. It is unknown what Andrew's net worth but according to Forbes, he recently worked with the Marriott group to develop oceanfront villas in Belize with prices ranging from $190,000 (140,000) to $1.3 million (919,000). He and his wife also run Alaia Belize hotel group. Forbes also estimates that his dad, Lord Ashcroft, has a worth of $2.1 billion. He owns 93% of Waterloo Investment Holdings and also owns 75% of Caribbean Investment Holdings Ltd which is a publicly-traded company that owns the Belize Bank. Andrew has not released a statement since his wife's arrest. On Sunday, the billionaire's son was questioned in Belize over the killing of Supt Henry Jemmott. Lord Ashcroft has not yet commented on the incident.
|
https://www.thesun.ie/news/7080001/who-jasmine-hartins-husband-andrew-ashcroft/
|
What's inside Ayushmann Khurrana's lockdown survival kit?
|
Ayushmann Khurrana is quite active on his social media platform where he keeps on sharing what's up with him amid the COVID lockdown. Not just him but even his wife Tahira Kashyap shares glimpses of their life on Instagram. Yet again, a similar incident took place when the 'Vicky Donor' actor shared an interesting video on Wednesday that basically gave an insight into his pandemic survivors kit. The video shows the list of things that are a must for the 36-year-old actor that includes a journal for scribbling thoughts, his favourite sneakers and t-shirt, a novel and a warm drink for him to drink. Now that's he is talking about COVID essentials, mask and sanitizer were musts. Taking to Instagram, Ayushmann shared the video and captioned the same, "My essentials" and completed the same with hashtag #COVID19. Well, not just the video but also the stunning view from his balcony caught everyone's attention. Before him, it was Tahira who shared a list of all the things she likes. Sharing a silhouetted picture of Ayushmann, she wrote, "Also all things I like! (Part 2). Chai, kitaab, lamp, study table, rain and this hot boy." The first part of the post included a picture of Tahira along with her daughter Varushka alongside a caption reading, "Hope everyone is safe! Everything fav in this pic- Mumbai rains, chai, the little one, papaya planter and TIKA THE IGGY! We are BIG Tika The Iggy fans." On the professional front, Ayushmann was last seen in the film Gulabo Sitabo which co-featured Amitabh Bachchan. Coming up next, he has a couple of films in the pipeline including-- Doctor G, Anek, and Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui
|
https://www.indiatvnews.com/entertainment/celebrities/what-s-inside-ayushmann-khurrana-s-lockdown-survival-kit-708680
|
Is Ancelotti joining Real Madrid good news for Arsenal?
|
By Dan Our best hopes of keeping Odegaard were if Zidane stayed at Madrid, given that was the manager who left the Norwegian out in the cold in Spain and sent him out on loan. So the Frenchmans open letter revealing he was leaving the Bernabeau is a blow to those who want Odegaard in London next season. The winger says it hasnt been ideal the amount of moves hes had and now seeks stability. Therefore Carlo Ancelotti taking charge of Real for the second time might not be good news for the player, but selfishly it could be for gooners. I believe the players first choice is to get an opportunity for the side he signed for as a teenager, but just wants to be told if thats ever going to happen. Ancelotti was head coach when Odegaard was brought at the age of just 16 with the Italian calling it a pr stunt and not my choice. Odegaards biggest supporter happens to be the Madrid President. Its believed one of the reason Perezs relationship with Zidane soured was the refusal to transition some of the younger talent into his squad. The 61-year-old Ancelotti is long enough in the tooth to not be bothered about politics. Hes not going to let his employer pick his team for the sake of a job. Yet he also is street smart enough to pick his battles, so if it makes those in power happy to use Odegaard as a resource then he will do it. If though, the Italian makes it clear he doesnt rate the player, then Odegaard becomes an asset to Real at a time when they need to make some money. Without match day and European revenue, the gunners have to be cautious with any spending. In a sense Odegaard is too big to be small but too small to be big. After 6 years hes been deemed not good enough to start at the Bernabeau, but good enough to make some money off. The player has indicated his time in North London was fruitful so another loan would suit both parties, just not his parent club. While it would get money off the wage bill, Real would obviously prefer a transfer fee. It might come down to each club calling the others bluff. Real could quote Arsenal their valuation and tell us to take it or leave it. While we could declare only an interest in the second loan, confident no club in a Pandemic are going to meet that asking price. That might need help from the player to force through a move. Be kind in the Comments Dan
|
https://www.justarsenal.com/is-ancelotti-joining-real-madrid-good-news-for-arsenal/283841
|
What will the League of Nations tell us about the future of the soccer teams of the United States and Mexico?
|
Alexei Lalas learns of a turning point when he sees her. It happened in his first match as a junior for the national team, at the Colosseum, against a Mexican team who had lost only one of their previous 26 matches against the United States. But that day, 20-year-old Lalas helped the Americans draw 2-2, starting a streak that would see them lose just one of their eight games against Mexico. I was there on that occasion, Lalas said. It was like the beginning of that generation that didnt accept that we were still inferior to Mexico in this field, that we were still losing. By the time teenager Landon Donovan made his national team debut nine years later also against Mexico at the Colosseum the pendulum swung again and the USA went down again. Donovan changed that, starting his goal of winning a winning streak that would lead the United States to 9-2-2 in their next 13 games with Mexico, their most successful stretch in the cross-border rivalry. Now, another group of young Americans is about to turn the tide again at this weeks Nations League in Denver. If the two teams win their qualifiers on Thursday the United States against Honduras and Mexico over Costa Rica they will meet for the 71st time in the championship game on Sunday. The United States reached the semi-finals with perhaps the deepest and most talented group of young players in their history. 19 of the 23 players belong to top-flight teams in Europe, with nine of them making at least 30 league appearances this season. Twelve of these European-based players are under 24 years old. For its part, Mexico, ranked 11th in the world according to FIFA, occupies a list of 12 veterans from the last World Cup in Russia, in which it presented the second oldest team in the tournament. If the momentum changes again, it could be long-term, as the core of the US team could be together for a decade, while Mexicos senior roster will soon need a makeover. This generation of young people comes with an attitude of confidence and arrogance that makes them want this moment, Lalas said. If I had been in the Mexican Football Federation, that would have been cause for concern. The two countries followed different routes to reach the final crossroads, routes that were greatly influenced by their national federations. Liga MXs deep academy system has made Mexico a global powerhouse at the youth team level, reaching finals in three of the last five FIFA U-17 World Cups, while also winning the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. The level of talent that appears in [las] U17 and U20 are second to none. Probably one of the four, the eight [mejores] Programs at the youth level around the world, said Denis T. Kloese, General Manager of Galaxy, who was the director of the Mexican youth teams for several years before taking over the entire national team program ahead of the 2018 World Cup. talent. thats not the point. However, once those players make it to Mexicos first-team roster, they can get stuck there, which is why only eight of the 23 Mexican Nations League players play on the continent, while half of them play more in Liga MX. The exorbitant transfer fees Mexican clubs often demand of their players and the relatively high salaries in Liga MX are two reasons why players are not leaving. Another factor slowing the development of young talent is the Liga MX system, which allows teams to bring in up to nine foreign players on their match rosters. Under pressure from Mexicos coach, Tata Martino, that number will drop to eight next year and seven in 2022-23. In the United States they give young players and in Mexico they are more interested in bringing in foreigners than giving a chance to young players from Mexico, Carlos Hermosillo, who is fourth in his history with Mexico, said his 35 goals. The clubs must understand that in order for our football to grow we must produce young players. The Mexicans have heard this countless times, which is why so many of their players were happy that their team qualified for the Olympics the Under-23 Championship for the third time in four attempts, while the US failed. Young Mexican players are familiar with everything that is said in the United States about young people playing in Europe, said Stu Holden, a former US national team player and current Fox Sports analyst, who has covered the Olympic qualifying stage. They have some really good young players who will be about to move to Europe in the next couple of months. Or at least in the next year and a half. So I dont think its clear that we are above them at our next talent level. American players come first, in part, because they usually face far fewer obstacles. Although the MLS academy system continues to grow, it has already helped current national team players, such as Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Tim Weah and Josh Sargent, move to the top clubs in Europe without playing a single MLS match. Others, such as Christian Pulisic, Jordan Sepacho, Anthony Robinson, Sebastian Leggett, Serginio dEste, Conrad de la Fuente and Yunus Musa, have developed on the continent. These American players are not dependent on Major League Soccer and these Mexican players are dependent on their National League to go abroad. And that is a big problem because if the National League thinks its product is worth more, there will be no teams in Europe that will take the risk with them, said Hercules Gomes, player A former US international who played five years in Liga MX. Their chances in this aspect are greater than they are in Mexico. Its not that the Mexicans have never played for the big clubs. Dozens, not now, with only two players under the age of 24 on the Nations League roster Edson Alvarez and Gerardo Arteaga playing in Europe. The United States has six times that number, T. Kloese said, which gives it an advantage. There is not a lot of science in it. It comes down to the youngest players. The more players you have in high competition, in good environments and the better you play against the best, the more players beat themselves up. Obviously this will be important. You will have a positive impact on the American football program. I am 100% sure. However, it was the success of Mexico and the failure of the United States in the last World Cup that brought both countries to this final turning point. Mexico won the CONCACAF Qualifiers Championship, defeating holders Germany in their first World Cup appearance in Russia, and advanced to the knockout stage for the seventh time in a row. Brazil is the only other country to have accomplished this feat. Mexico went on to win, losing only twice in 25 games since Martino took over as coach in 2019, and climbed to the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time in 15 years. As a result, there was little reason to change course and a revision of the inevitable roster was delayed, with only five players appearing on the Nations League roster for the first time with the national team since the last World Cup. Its actually quite a dilemma for them now, Holden said. Tata hasnt really flipped the team yet because nobody holds those positions. Claudio Suarez, whose 177 caps have been the most capped in Mexican history, added: My point is that you have to bring your best players at the moment. It doesnt matter if they are 30, 22 or 23 years old. You have to bring the best. You have to think about winning and not building a base. But he added, It is unbelievable that there is no long-term project planning for the future. Meanwhile, for the United States, their failure to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in more than three decades led to a fresh start to American football, with national team coaches Dave Sarachan and Greg Berhalter broadcasting the soccer equivalent in Open Tests, giving 64 Their first calls with the national team in the last three and a half years. Fourteen of the 23 players on the Nations League roster made their debut for the national team during that time. The lowest point in American football history was not qualifying for the World Cup, Lallas said. However, we are probably at the most positive moment in our history, not just given the talent we have, but its depth. It remains to be seen if it will live up to the expectations we have. This question will be answered in the crucible of CONCACAF competitions, including the Nations League and World Cup qualifiers this fall. Because while the players on the US roster have 80 matches in the Champions League, only seven of them have participated in the World Cup qualifiers. The competencies couldnt be more different. The only way to feel comfortable in this environment is with experience, Donovan, who has played 40 World Cup qualifiers, said, trailing only Clint Dempsey and Josie Altidore among the Americans. There is no excitement in going to Barbados, on a small island, to play in a horrible stadium, with 95-degree weather and 90% humidity, other than doing it and feeling the stress that comes with it. At the moment we dont have enough children who have had these experiences. Yes Mexico. And if this young American team cant adapt to those challenges, it wont matter how many of them play in Europe or how many Champions League matches they win. To read this note in Spanish, click here.
|
https://www.sundayvision.co.ug/what-will-the-league-of-nations-tell-us-about-the-future-of-the-soccer-teams-of-the-united-states-and-mexico/
|
What are the most effective motion pictures to look at on Disney Plus?
|
Raya and the Last Dragon is now available for all on Disney Plus. Walt Disney Pictures Disney Plus, a service packed with great Disney, is supported by heaps of Star Wars and Marvel shows and movies. And thats a good thing, but its far from the only stuff you can find on the rapidly growing streaming service. Because Disney Plus is stacked with movies, particularly if you have access to Star. Unfortunately subscribers within the US cant access the phenomenal Star back catalogue, but those outside the US do have access. Folks, its a goldmine. Editors top picks Subscribe to CNET Now for the days most interesting reviews, news stories and videos. Below are some of our favourite movies currently available to watch on Disney Plus. Weve divided it conveniently into categories. Well start, of course, with Disney! Disney Its only right to start with the best Disney movies on Disney Plus! Warning, we didnt add any of the live-action remakes because they are almost all terrible. Please dont get upset. Aladdin Disney You can agree or you can disagree, but I believe that Aladdin has the best song lineup of any animated movie Disney has ever produced. A Whole New World, Prince Ali, Friend Like Me, Arabian Nights just banger after banger. Combine this with a pitch-perfect, utterly golden performance from Robin Williams and you have for me possibly the best Disney animated movie ever. But, problematic issues aside, Beauty and the Beast is a true work of art. The opening number, Belle, remains one of the best opening numbers ever written. Frozen Disney Theres been a slight backlash against Frozen in recent years mainly, I suspect, from parents forced to watch on repeat by demanding little Elsas but the cultural impact of this movie and its songs is undeniable. Much like Aladdin, its a setlist of bangers tied together with a nicely drawn story about the power of sisterly love. Majestic. In Meg, Hercules has one of Disneys best drawn female characters. It also features the Fates and Go The Distance, an absolutely all-time Disney song. Hercules rules, accept this. The Lion King Disney The Lion King, although slightly overrated, was probably the cultural high point of Disneys influence in the 1990s. It still resonates today. Unlike some Disney movies, its a movie that feels truly epic in scale. Treat yourself to a rewatch. Moana Disney You could make an argument that Moana is the best animated Disney movie ever and Id be inclined to hear that argument. Certainly its my favourite of Disneys CGI movies and certainly its best since The Lion King. Brilliant songs, a perfect character arc for its titular heroine. Everything about Moana hits perfectly. If, for some reason, you skipped Moana, its now time to rectify that mistake. Mulan Disney Forget the hollow, brain-dead, god-awful live-action remake. The original Mulan is the best, by miles and miles. Raya and the Last Dragon Walt Disney Pictures Theres a bit of recency bias here, but Raya and the Last Dragon will be available (outside of the paywall) for the first time in June 2021, and its a real feast for the eyes (and the imagination). Raya and the Last Dragon feels very familiar. It wears its influences on its sleeves, borrowing liberally from Studio Ghibli, Avatar, even Breath of the Wild. But it creates a living, breathing universe thats joyful to exist in. Definitely give it a go. Pixar It feels like the lines between Pixar and Disney movies are getting blurrier by the day. Either way, here are our favorite Pixar movies on Disney Plus. No. It hasnt. Inside Out Pixar Just when you thought Pixar was on the decline, it releases Inside Out, arguably its most thoughtful, powerful movie. I dont think Ive ever watched a movie that dealt with the issue of mental health in children quite so delicately. If you have children, and even if you dont, you need to watch this movie. Onward Disney/Pixar Onward is Frozen for brothers. You cant change my mind. Sadly overlooked, Onward is low-key one of Pixars best. Heartwarming, smart weird. You need to watch this one. Toy Story 2 Pixar Animation Studios Look, we cant put all the Toy Story movies in this list, but we cant not put Toy Story 2 in. Arguably its the best one. For me, its between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 which is next on this list! This isnt just a movie about saying goodbye to your toys, its a movie about saying goodbye period. In that regard its as good as any movie Pixar has ever produced. Just a perfect ending. No, we will not be talking about Toy Story 4. Up Pixar Its not perfect, and its final act stutters, but Up is one of the most interesting and ambitious animated movies ever made. Watch it for that montage alone. Marvel There are a lot of Marvel movies on Disney Plus. These are the ones we like the best Avengers: Endgame Marvel Studios Considering the narrative weight it had to bear, and the knots it had to untie, Avengers: Endgame is something of a minor miracle. I doubt well see something of this scale tied up so neatly ever again. Not only that, Endgame is a fun movie in its own right. An incredible achievement all considered. Its up there. But beyond its quality, Black Panther felt important. It remains a cultural touchstone and its impact still resonates. Killmonger is also one of the all-time best villains. The Guardians of the Galaxy Disney Plus Its weird, its funny and it pushes the MCU in directions you dont expect but Guardians of the Galaxy is just a well made, smart throwback of sorts. Its got big Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone vibes and you have to respect that. Iron Man Marvel Studios Without Iron Man, there is no Marvel Cinematic Universe, so show some goddamn respect! But Iron Man is more than a proof of concept, its just a fantastic, ground-breaking superhero movie. Its loose, interesting and literally vibrates with energy. Its aged fantastically well. Thor: Ragnarok Marvel Lets be honest, its the best one. Thor: Ragnarok came in and completely rewrote the book on how to make a superhero movie. More like this please. Also more Korg. Just a cameo or something, were thirsty over here. X2 Marvel I absolutely felt like this list needed an X-Men movie and it was between this and Days of Future Past. I chose this because, at the time, X2 was absolutely the gold standard for superhero movies. Its time for a rewatch I think. Star Wars Arguably you could put every Star Wars movie on this list. Ive settled on picking the best from each trilogy and a few others. Rogue One Rogue One is a well produced case study in plugging the gaps. Set between Episode 3 and the very first Star Wars movie A New Hope, Rogue One is a very different kind of Star Wars movie. Its mostly absent of Jedis and space magic, focusing on very human characters doing very human things. It drags, and could certainly be about 20 minutes shorter, but its a great example of what Star Wars movies outside of the trilogy format could have become. The Empire Strikes Back Sunset Boulevard The Empire Strikes Back is widely considered the best Star Wars movie for a reason. It features Yoda, the Darth Vader reveal and practically invented the idea of the gritty sequel. Above and beyond that, The Empire Strikes Back features real drama, punctuated with some of the most memorable moments in Star Wars history. The Last Jedi Lucasfilm Ltd. Yes! Its the best Star Wars movie The Last Jedi! This one is controversial but, for me, this is as good as Star Wars has ever been. The final act of this movie is very special. Theres just a lot going on here: Luke Skywalkers anti-hero swerve, the meta-commentary on Star Wars as a franchise. Just a brave, interesting movie from start to finish. Revenge of the Sith Lucasfilm If youre gonna watch one movie from this trilogy, might as well be Revenge of the Sith. Loaded with fan service, and more than a few magical moments, Revenge of the Sith might surprise you with how not bad it is. Star No, this is not a typo. I dont mean Star Wars, I mean Star. Star is a back catalogue of more mature movies and shows on Disney Plus and its absolutely loaded with incredible movies. Its hard to know where to even begin. Ill just pick a few of my personal favourites, but its absolutely worth diving in and seeing what classics you feel like rewatching. Again, as mentioned above the Star back catalogue is unfortunately unavailable in the US. Well update if anything changes, because you poor folks are missing out. Alien Disney Plus Why not start with what is probably the best sci-fi horror movie ever made. When I rewatch Alien (which I do regularly) Im in awe of its opening act. How patient it is, how committed it is to its own world building, the offhand dialogue, the performances. A perfect, ageless movie. Note: Aliens is also on Disney Plus. I prefer the original, but Aliens is also phenomenal and you should watch it. Big Trouble in Little China Disney Plus Its not the best John Carpenter movie thats The Thing but Big Trouble in Little China is definitely up there, and its probably the most fun. Its also interesting as a parody of the white, male action hero. Main character Jack Burton doesnt really do anything. He doesnt drive the plot and he barely rescues anyone. Clever stuff and way ahead of its time. Conan the Barbarian Disney Plus A bizarre, dated but somehow insanely compelling movie thats unlike anything committed to screen before or since. Conan the Barbarian takes itself seriously and is almost good enough to get away with it. Its also blessed with a Basil Poledouris score thats as good as any soundtrack you could name. Contemplate this on the tree of woe Die Hard Video screenshot by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper/CNET Die Hard has gone to that weird Galaxy Brain place where its almost cool to not like it anymore on account of the endlessly boring is Die Hard a Christmas movie debate. Die Hard may or may not be a Christmas movie, but it is a truly awesome movie. Thats hard to deny. A movie so powerful that it literally became its own genre. (Speed = Die Hard on a bus, Airforce One = Die Hard on a plane, etc.) Die Hard is without doubt one of the greatest action movies committed to film. Predator Disney Plus Its hard to believe, but John McTiernan directed Predator and Die Hard back-to-back. In my eyes the #1 and #2 best action movies ever made back-to-back. Absolutely incredible. For me, Predator is the better of the two. Its incredibly lean, has an incredible high concept and executes perfectly. Every scene drives the action, every character is memorable. It also features some low-key subtle performances. And the greatest handshake cinema has ever seen. The Thin Red Line Disney Plus Imagine hitting theatres the same year as Saving Private Ryan but still being the best war movie released in that year. Thats how good The Thin Red Line is. The Rock Disney Plus The only 100%, start-to-finish, perfect movie Michael Bay ever made. Nineties action movies just never got better than this. Sean Connery is perfect, Nicholas Cage is weird. It has a world-class villain in Ed Harris. Only Hans Gruber is more memorable. Absolute barn-burner. This is the movie that took acclaimed actor Liam Neeson and turned him into an unlikely action hero. It also wrote the blueprint for what action movies have looked like for the last decade. There is no John Wick without Taken. Willow Disney Plus Code red: Willow is on Disney Plus. I REPEAT. Willow is on Disney Plus. Any human adult who grew up during the 80s most likely loves Willow. Its hardly a classic, but come on! Its Willow! Note: Disney apparently has a Disney Plus Willow show in production. Ooft. Documentaries This section exists to direct your attention to the fact Free Solo is available to watch on Disney Plus. Free Solo Disney Plus Free Solo is one of the best documentaries ever made. Telling the story of Alex Honnold, the first man to free solo El Capitan, its a delicate character study of a man who makes the impossible look almost banal; an Oscar-winning story that culminates quite literally in a close-up view of one of humanitys wildest human achievements. Howard Disney After youre done with Free Solo, definitely check out Howard, which focuses on the heartbreaking story of Howard Ashman. A pivotal part of Disneys resurgence with movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Ashmans story is absolutely the best of Disneys documentaries about itself. A must-watch for any Disney fan. New movies coming out in 2021: Netflix, Marvel and more See all photos
|
https://shepherdgazette.com/what-are-the-most-effective-motion-pictures-to-look-at-on-disney-plus/
|
Where are the coronavirus exposure sites in Melbourne?
|
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Keeping track of coronavirus exposure sites can be difficult especially when there are now hundreds of them linked to the current outbreak. You can use the interactive map below to explore where the sites of concern are around the state. Well be updating this map regularly but, as always, you can check the official list at the governments official website here. Note: if youre using the search function to search by postcode it will only give you a result if there is an exposure site in that postcode. Also public transport alerts are listed under the link at the top and do not feature on the map.
|
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/where-are-the-coronavirus-exposure-sites-in-melbourne-20210602-p57xjc.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed
|
Are Debt Relief Programs Affordable?
|
Also known as debt settlement, debt relief programs can help you negotiate with your creditors to allow you to pay a portion of the total amount you owe them to settle your debt. In this way, a debt relief company acts as an intermediary between you and the creditor. However, it is important to understand the details of a debt relief program before choosing it to ensure its success. Each has specific requirements and terms. When looking for debt relief options, you should go for affordable debt relief programs that meet your budget. Debt settlement can help some people get out of debt at a cost that is less than what they owe. For others, debt settlement proves to be a costly mistake. Heres how debt settlement works. How Debt Settlement Works A debt settlement agreement is reached when a creditor accepts a portion of the amount you borrowed them as a one-time payment in full to consider the account paid off. Although you can do the process yourself, working with an experienced credit counseloris a wise decision. These knowledgeable professionals can guide you through finding affordable debt relief programs. To have a successful debt settlement process, the first thing to do is find a suitable debt settlement company. You should conduct thorough research online or consult friends to ensure you get an affordable debt relief program. When doing the research, be sure to know how much the settlement process can cost, what services the company offers, possible risks, and an estimated length of the debt settlement process. After you enroll in a debt settlement process, you can start saving money to settle the debt. The debt consultant will help you create a specific account and make all deposits of your savings to the account until it reaches the amount agreed for the settlement. Afterward, the consultant can negotiate with your creditors, informing them of your financial situation and request for a reduced debt. The creditor can assess your financial status to know if you qualify for the reduction or not and later agree to the settlement offer from your debt settlement company. Once youve gathered enough money, the company will negotiate with your creditor to accept a portion of the amount you borrowed. Debt Settlement Risks Although debt relief can reduce your current debt, it usually comes with some debt settlement risks. Its therefore important to understand the risks associated with it to avoid stressful situations in the future. The program may require you to set aside monthly payments until all the debt problems get resolved. So while affordable debt relief programs are real, participating may be a challenge to some individuals since they may not get enough money and may abandon the program. Its, therefore, necessary to ensure your budget can cover the monthly payments before signing up for a debt relief program. Debt Relief Is Affordable Although debt settlement using a debt relief program has some caveats; its still an affordable way to settle your debts. It saves debtors some money by lowering the amount to less than what was earlier credited. So yes, debt relief programs are affordable. The key is to be certain you can follow through with the program. Youll need to set aside funds to support your settlement agreements and the process can take anywhere from two to four years to complete. You must be totally committed to making it work, as dropping out after a settlement agreement is reached can make your situation worse than it was before.
|
https://tecake.in/are-debt-relief-programs-affordable
|
What Might a Julio Jones Trade Look Like for the Patriots?
|
It is looking more and more likely that the Falcons will trade wide receiver Julio Jones by the start of the 2021 NFL season. This Tuesday marks a crucial deadline in Atlantas quest for a trade partner, as they can save $15 million on the salary cap if they trade him after June 1. There are several teams rumored to be in the mix for Jones with the Patriots being one of them. According to Betonline.ag, they are the third most likely team to land Jones. One week ago they were considered the favorites. Odds on Julio Jones next team if traded: Seahawks +150 Titans +200 Patriots +300 Ravens +550 Raiders +900 49ers +1000 Packers +1100 Dolphins +1200 Cowboys +1600 Chargers +2000 Colts +2000 Giants +2500 Bills +2500 Eagles +2800 BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) May 31, 2021 In an uncharacteristic offseason for New England thus far, CLNS Medias Evan Lazar says that Jones is the missing piece that the team needs. New England has been hot and cold with the top-tier wide receiver market in the past. Theyve passed on bringing in big name players like AJ Green, Larry Fitzgerald, and Odell Beckham Jr. Theyve also taken their shots on guys like Randy Moss, Brandin Cooks, and Josh Gordon. Here is what those trades looked like: Back in the 2007 offseason, the Patriots traded a fourth-round pick to the Raiders in exchange for wide receiver Randy Moss. Moss was a polarizing figure during his 16-year career, but was sensational during his stint with the Patriots. He was a part of the legendary 2007 16-0 regular season team, whose offense at the time was the best to ever do it. Moss set an NFL record with 23 touchdowns receptions, and helped Tom Brady break the single-season passing touchdown record with 50 (this has since been tied by Patrick Mahomes and broken by Peyton Manning). Moss stuck around for 2-and-a-half for seasons before forcing his way out of the building in 2010. He topped 1,000 yards in each of his three full seasons with the team. After signing cornerback Stephon Gilmore and re-signing linebacker Donta Hightower, the Patriots topped off an aggressive 2017 free agency period by making a move for Saints shifty wide receiver Brandin Cooks. New England sent the 32nd overall pick and a third-round pick in exchange for Cooks and a fourth-round pick. At the time Cooks looked like a great acquisition. He was both younger and better than Julian Edelman, and added speed to an aging wide receiver room. Cooks caught 65 balls for 1,082 yards during his lone season in New England, and was then flipped to the Los Angeles Rams the following year. The Patriots received the 23rd overall pick and a sixth-round pick in exchange for Cooks and a fourth-round pick. Just as the 2018 season began, the Patriots once again realized they needed some help with their wide receiver room. After several attempts at helping out their troubled star, the Cleveland Browns sent wide receiver Josh Gordon and a conditional seventh-round pick to New England for a fifth-round pick. Gordon caught 40 passes for 720 yards and three touchdowns in 2018 before once again being suspended. After being reinstated for the 2019 season, Gordon started 6 more games with the Patriots before being placed on the injured reserve and once again being suspended. When he was healthy and clean Gordon was solid, however he could not be counted on in New England. According to ESPNs Dianna Russini, Atlanta has discussed several offers for Jones, including a first-round pick. This doesnt seem likely to happen however especially from the Patriots end. @diannaESPN joined us earlier Thursday for the latest in the #NFL story du jour: pic.twitter.com/F1F84Z5XOB Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) May 27, 2021 If we use their past transactions as a benchmark, the only time the Patriots traded a first-round pick for a wide receiver was for Brandin Cooks. Cooks was 23-years-old at the time 10 years younger than Jones. New England spent a fourth on Moss, and a fifth on Gordon both of whom had their own troubles off the field. From all accounts Jones is a stand up guy and teammate. He is however on the wrong side of 30. If a deal with the Patriots were to happen, expect it to be for a second or third-round pick. New England wont end up in a bidding war for Jones, and theyll do it on their own terms.
|
https://www.clnsmedia.com/what-might-a-julio-jones-trade-look-like-for-the-patriots/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-might-a-julio-jones-trade-look-like-for-the-patriots
|
Why is Mukesh Ambani building an international undersea cable system?
|
After conquering telecom connectivity within India, the countrys richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is now all set to place the India at the centre of an international submarine cable network. On May 17, Ambanis oil to chemical conglomerate Reliance Industries said its telecom subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm, is constructing the worlds largest international submarine cable system centred around India. Implementing these critical initiatives in the shadow of a global pandemic is a challenge, but the ongoing pandemic has only accelerated the digital transformation and the necessity of high-performance global connectivity for the delivery of a richer experience to enterprises and consumers, Mathew Oommen, president of Reliance Jio, said in a statement. Reliance Jio is currently working with several global partners to deploy two next-generation cables to support the extraordinary growth in data demand in India, the statement said. An integrated channel of cables laid on the surface of the ocean is known as a submarine cable system. These cables facilitate data transfer from one land-based location to another. The network consists of cables, hardware components, and the infrastructure that makes communication possible. According to 2015 research by Telegeography, around 99% of the international data transfer is done via submarine cable networks. Submarinecablemap.com A screenshot of the existing submarine cable across continents. The two cables that Reliance Jio is laying are called India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) and India-Europe-Xpress (IEX). The IAX system will connect India eastbound to Singapore and beyond, while the IEX system will connect the country westbound to West Asia and Europe. The systems will seamlessly interconnect as well as connect to the worlds top interexchange points and content hubs for the extension of service globally. IAX and IEX will enhance the ability for consumer and enterprise users to access content and cloud services in and out of India, Reliance Industries said. Emphasising the importance of its cable systems, which are expected to span across 16,000 kilometres, Reliance Industries said that this was the first time in the history of fibre optic submarine telecommunications that such a system placed India at the centre of the international network map. The IAX and IEX systems will be high capacity and high-speed systems, providing more than 200Tbps (terabits per second) of capacity. Notably, submarine communications are faster and cheaper than satellites. RIL A detailed route map of Jios IAX and IEX submarine cable systems. Apart from the seamless connection of the IAX and IEX sub-sea systems, the two systems are also connected to the Reliance Jio Global Fiber Network beyond the Asia Pacific and Europe, connecting to both the east and west coast of the US, the company stated. The IAX is expected to be ready in 2023, while IEX will be ready by 2024.
|
https://qz.com/india/2014815/why-is-ambanis-reliance-building-a-submarine-cable-network/
|
What Naomi Osaka will have to face when she returns?
|
Unfortunately for Naomi Osaka, the questions will keep coming. There's nowhere to run and certainly no place to hide when you're a superstar traveling the world and playing on the biggest stages in tennis. Some of the questions may be repetitive. Some may even be a bit negative, though for the most part those in the tennis media tend to treat top players with kid gloves. Regardless, it's part of her job to answer them. That's not going to change, even with Osaka's withdrawal from the French Open after refusing to appear at the news conferences every other top player accepts as part of the job. Only now she'll have even more questions to answer. That's not entirely Osaka's fault, though she did herself no favors by the clumsy way she handled her mini media revolt in Paris. She blew off her first post-match news conference, after declaring earlier in a posting online that she didn't want to hear the same questions over and over and saying that reporters tend to kick players while they are down. In other words, she didn't want to answer questions about why she didn't play better on clay. Osaka rebounded a bit in a second statement announcing her withdrawal, and that's where it gets tricky. She revealed she had suffered long periods of depression after winning the U.S. Open in 2018 and that she suffers great anxiety when faced with having to answer questions from journalists at news conferences. We all can and should be sympathetic to that. Depression and anxiety can be devastating and debilitating, as anyone who has suffered from them or dealt with a family member who has them knows so well. Nobody should begrudge Osaka's decision to withdraw from a major championship because she's having trouble coping with those issues. Indeed, we should all support her efforts to improve her mental health while dealing with everything else that comes with being a global star at the tender age of 23. But let's make this clear: This isn't a media problem. It isn't a news conference problem. Frankly, until Osaka said she would not show up for her news conference and then blew off tournament organizers who wondered why, no one even knew there was a problem. There's nothing inherently wrong with a system that requires athletes who are paid millions of dollars to perform to be asked about their play afterward. There's also nothing wrong with reporters asking an occasional question that may not fit the positive narrative Osaka wants when writing about the newest star in tennis. It's part of the reason why tournaments like the French Open sell out expensive seats every year. It's a lot of the reason Forbes said Osaka made $37 million in 2019, most of it in endorsements from companies that expect Osaka to generate lots of press for their products. Her compelling story of winning back-to-back major championships beginning at the age of 20 combined with her Japanese-Haitian heritage made her a star. But, as the stars who came before her understood well, part of the deal every player accepts is that they answer a few post-match questions at tournaments, win or lose. "I understand her," Rafael Nadal said. "(But) without the press, without the people who normally is traveling who are writing the news and achievements that we are having around the world probably we will not be the athletes that we are today." Just why Osaka picked the opening of the French Open to make her ill-advised stand isn't quite clear. She may not have wanted to be asked about her struggles on clay, but the question is a legitimate one she easily could have given a noncommittal answer to and moved on. She picked a media boycott instead, then followed it with a withdrawal when it became obvious her position was untenable among both tournament officials and her fellow players. Frankly, the people around Osaka should have stepped in long before it got this far. They should have let her know that if she was willing to answer questions about her new Nike apparel line she should have been able to figure out a way to answer questions about her tennis. Instead, she painted herself into a corner, then was forced to walk away. No one was a winner, including a major championship that badly needed her star power on the women's side. Hopefully, the time off serves Osaka well. Assuming her issues are as deep as she says and there's no reason to assume otherwise a long break may be just what she needs. Just understand that there will be even more questions when she returns.
|
https://thebridge.in/tennis/what-naomi-osaka-face-she-returns-21819
|
What Habits Reduce Eyelash Volume?
|
Eyelashes are one of the most important features of your face and they deserve more attention, especially when you notice them changing very quickly. Unfortunately, many people dont know how to properly care for their lashes, and even fewer of them know what options are available once they begin needing that extra boost for their lashes. An eyelash serum can help, to see the best eyelash serum, click here. This article will provide you with the information you need to figure out how to care for your eyelashes, and it will also discuss the habits that reduce the volume of your eyelashes. Habits Reducing Eyelash Volume Eyelash care plays an important role in their growth and beauty, but there are also habits and factors that weaken their growth and put them in serious danger: Improper nutrition Severe deficiencies in vitamins and minerals can cause lashes to become brittled or stop growing. The causes of eyelash loss are the same as the causes of hair loss. Having a healthy and balanced diet eliminates the deficiency of vitamins B, A, E, iron, and magnesium. The inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables such as spinach, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, whole grains, pistachios, almonds, as well as the omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon strengthens the body and thus increases the strength and health of eyelashes. Taking a vitamin B supplement is beneficial for accelerating the growth of eyelashes and hair. False Eyelashes If you are accustomed to using them a lot and even daily, it is better to know that American researchers have concluded that the use of false eyelashes for the eyes is not safe. As you know, false eyelashes are longer than natural eyelashes. As a result, instead of reducing the flow of air to the surface of the eye, they increase it. This causes the eyes to dry quickly and exposes the eyes to airborne particles. These issues also lead to dry eye syndrome. Also, the glue used to attach false eyelashes to the eyelid increases the possibility of allergic reactions. This is even more likely to be the case with adhesives that contain formaldehyde. Eyelash extensions or implants are a way to replace lost eyelashes in people who have lost their eyelashes due to burns, hair loss and some diseases. Natural eyelash transplantation is actually a type of reconstructive surgery and does not have only a cosmetic aspect. To do this, a specialist uses thin hair on the back of the neck or ears and implants these lashes in the operating room. Of course, this operation also has its possible side effects, which include eye damage and even loss of vision. But people who go to their local hairdresser for extensions just for having longer and more beautiful eyelashes cause serious damage to the health of the eyelashes and even their eyes. Note that any external damage, even washing the face and eyes and even hand contact, will cause the implanted eyelashes to be pulled out, along with a few strands of natural eyelashes. Mascara and Make-up Eye makeup has nothing to do with eye health, but it can affect your lashes to some extent and destroy them. Using coarse cosmetics such as thick mascara can stretch and weaken lashes. In addition, rubbing your eyes or squeezing them too hard when removing makeup can cause the lashes to break and fall out. Facial Cleansers The skin around the eyes and eyelids is very sensitive and needs more care. Some people use unsuitable soaps and cleansers to clean their skin, and the sensitivity of the skin in this area can cause the lashes to fall out or weaken. Final Words Eyelashes give a special beauty to our face. But there are habits that can endanger the health of our eyelashes. Therefore, by avoiding the habits above and using the optimal eyelash care methods, you can always maintain the beauty of your eyelashes.
|
https://presstories.com/2021/06/02/what-habits-reduce-eyelash-volume/
|
Are shot clocks headed for Illinois high school basketball?
|
PEORIA Basketball games in the Illinois High School Association might be on a countdown toward a shot clock by the 2022-23 season season. The National Federation of State High School Associations in an early-May report noted it has passed an allowance for individual state associations like the IHSA to start implementing the use of a 35-second shot clock in boys and girls high school basketball games. The NFHS stopped short of making shot clocks a mandatory rule for its member associations. Instead, it gave approval for each state to decide whether to implement shot clocks for games starting with the 2022-23 season. It seems like a step toward making shot clocks mandatory in the future. "This will give us time, and opportunity, to work with our member schools to see if they want the shot clock," IHSA executive director Craig Anderson said. "We need to look at the concerns, the benefits and the financial impact of putting it into our games." Anderson said the IHSA board will likely take up the shot clock issue in August. He said a group of coaches in favor of shot clocks a group that includes former Richwoods coach Mike Ellis, now at Evanston made a presentation to the board months ago. Anderson said putting shot clocks into game play will mean a financial investment by schools to purchase the equipment needed. It will take a human investment, too. Game operations staff will be needed to run the clocks. Both could be an issue for smaller schools. "We were pleased to see the (2022-23) date NFHS designated," Anderson said. "This gives time for our discussion, and it gives time to prepare a scaling in of the system. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. "The first year or two of shot clocks, the IHSA might only use them for varsity games, and not for playoff games. Then we could add them in for playoff games in a third year, and bring them to games below varsity level after that. "But there will be some schools who will have financial difficulty putting these in. Another future impact: To qualify to host (postseason) games, schools will have to have shot clocks." Shot clock systems cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 depending on whether they are backboard or scoreboard mounted. And that doesn't take into consideration whether they can be added to the physical layout of older, smaller gyms without additional costs for renovations. Shot clocks were not previously permitted within the NFHS playing rules. States that used them forfeited a voice with the national body. Not anymore. The clocks aren't required, but for the first time, it's OK with the NFHS if shot clocks are used. "The committee felt it appropriate to stop short of a nationwide rule change and instead allow for the continued analysis of both game and violation statistics as well as continuing to measure preferences in all states through surveys and questionnaire data," the NFHS said in a statement. "These decisions will need to be addressed within each of the states as they determine whether or not to pursue this path ..." Eight states currently have shot clocks in use for high school games: California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington. The NFHS examined data from a 46-question survey sent out to those states already using the clocks. The national body has issued guidance on the acquisition of the shot clock units, considerations for operators, protocols for officials including mechanics and duties, and rules considerations that will need to be reviewed regarding full and partial resets, procedures for equipment failure and responsibilities for officials. Guidelines call for displaying two timepieces that are connected to a horn that is distinctive from the game-clock horn, and using an alternative timing device, such as a stopwatch at the scorer's table, for a shot clock malfunction. The guidelines also allow for corrections to the shot clock only during the shot-clock period in which an error occurred and the officials have definitive information relative to the mistake or malfunction. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
|
https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/basketball/are-shot-clocks-headed-for-illinois-high-school-basketball/article_72f2fe46-ec16-5546-8647-b187813bf667.html
|
Can Bloemfontein Celtic dent Mamelodi Sundowns away record?
|
Ntokozo Gumede Sundowns are the only side without blemish on their travels, having recorded nine wins and five draws. Mamelodi Sundowns are on the verge of setting a club record for a going 15 games unbeaten on the road in the league if they manage to chisel out a result away at Bloemfontein Celtic this evening. ALSO READ: Mngqithi slams Sundowns players after Swallows draw Sundowns are the only side without blemish on their travels, having recorded nine wins and five draws. The DStv Premiership champions are at the Dr Molemela Stadium in the City of Roses looking to add to their tally of 32 points on the road, something for former Phunya Sele Sele winger, Lyle Lakay, knows will not be an easy task. Celtic have had Downs number this season, first by eliminating them in the quarterfinal of the MTN8 before holding Masandawana to a goalless draw in the capital city in January. We lost to them in the MTN8 and then we drew with them in the reverse fixture in the league. We know what type of team they are, the kind of football they plan. They are fighting to save their season so its going to be a tough one, said Lakay. The fact is that were going to every game with the same mindset and goal, which is to win. Its the confidence that weve had throughout the season in away games, it contributes to our confidence because we have been unbeaten on the road. We lost one game and that was at home, so were looking to continue that, he added. Lakay is in line to receive his third league gold medal with Sundowns has contributed a couple of spectacular goals to Downs success this season, effectively becoming their set-piece specialist. In these two final games, Lakay is confident he can deliver a few more goals. Even though we won the league, I think there are certain goals that the guys want to achieve and for me personally I still want to contribute more because I set myself a target of 15 goals contribution for the season and so far I have 11 seven assists and four goals. I still want to try and reach my goal and Im motivated to do that.
|
https://citizen.co.za/phakaaathi/local-soccer/2510724/can-bloemfontein-celtic-dent-mamelodi-sundowns-away-record/
|
Could Fadlu Davids take over if Orlando Pirates sack Zinnbauer?
|
Zinnbauer's future at the club is uncertain with the majority of the management at the club not happy with the way things have been going lately especially after the loss to TS Galaxy. Fadlu Davids is being considered for the head coach role at Orlando Pirates with current coach Josef Zinnbauer on the brink of an exit at the team, an insider in the Bucs camp has revealed. Zinnbauers future at the club is uncertain with the majority of the management at the club not happy with the way things have been going lately especially after the loss to TS Galaxy. There is also pressure from a section of Bucs fans who are planning to march to the Orlando Stadium on the last day of the season. According to a source, bringing a new coach would mean rebuilding the team from scratch and destroying the progress they have done so far, and handing over the head coach role to the Bucs assistant seems like the best option. He (Fadlu) is definitely being considered for the coaching job since he has experience in that seat. He coached at Maritzburg United and the guys respect him, they dont see him as an assistant, but a coach. Plus he has been at the club for some time now and knows exactly what is needed. Its just a matter of fixing things here and there and the team will get to the standard that everyone wants to see them in. But here (at Pirates), things can change in a second because Ive heard there are some other people who are interested in coaching the club, or even more shocking, Zinnbauer might stay for another season. Remember Pirates is a big club and things are done properly here. But everything will be clear once the season is over. At the moment what everyone wants at the club is to get that Caf spot, the Champions League, not the Confederation Cup, said the source. Davids joined the Buccaneers back in 2019 as an assistant to Micho Sredojevic, together with current Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rulani Mokwena. Mokwena left the club, but Davids stayed on as Zinnbauers assistant.
|
https://citizen.co.za/phakaaathi/local-soccer/mgosi/2510630/could-fadlu-davids-take-over-if-orlando-pirates-sack-zinnbauer/
|
What's The Most Popular Video Game Car?
|
May 29, 2021Cars have featured heavily in a variety of video games over the years, enabling users to get around, race, and take part in nail-biting high-speed chases on screen. A new study by Uswitch looked for answers, analysing video games to determine which makes, models, colors, and brands appeared the most. Sitting atop the list is the Ford Crown Victoria Mk2, which is used often as a police car or taxi. The car has amassed 635 video game appearances all-in-all most of which are in the 2000 game Midnight Club: Street Racing (6). Of all appearances, the car is painted in the color yellow 187 times. In second place was the Ford Mustang Mk, featured 545 times. The Nissan Skyline Mk10, the Toyota Supra Mk4, and the Mazda RX-7 Mk3 rounded out the top five.
|
https://www.fenderbender.com/articles/16566-whats-the-most-popular-video-game-car
|
Can I think of a better name for a vaccine lottery than Ohios Vax-a-Million?
|
As you probably know, New Hampshire was a leader in the lottery game, approving the nations first state-run lottery in 1964, back when tickets cost $3 and the winning number was based on horse race results at Rockingham Park. With the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations starting to stall, its time for us to be a lottery leader again. Well, almost a leader: Ohio beat us to it. That state has launched a lottery with the great name of Vax-a-Million. If youre a vaccinated Ohio resident you can enter it and win big in weekly drawings, from a million bucks to a college scholarship. New Hampshire should absolutely do the same. To truly boost our good-but-not-good-enough vaccination rate, we shouldnt waste our time with small bribes like Maines $20 L.L. Bean gift card. That wont convince the vaccine-hesitant the way a lottery will, because a lottery uses the same flawed logic that keeps people from getting the shot in the first place. Human beings are very poor at judging relative risk. Were scared of shark attacks and airplane crashes but dont think twice about zipping around inside metal boxes carrying 100 pounds of explosive liquid. Similarly, some people are hesitant about getting a COVID-19 vaccine because of incredibly rare side effects or less-than-perfect results, even though they dont think twice about exposing themselves to a global pandemic that has killed more people that live in all of northern New England and is still raging around the world. In short, many vaccine-hesitant people exaggerate the risk of the shot and downplay the reward. Lotteries succeed because of a flipped version of that same flaw: We mentally exaggerate the reward of winning and downplay the risk of wasting money. So lets get to it, New Hampshire, and launch the Granite Gamma Globulin Giveaway lottery. Show your vaccine card and get a chance to win a million bucks, with the winners name drawn live on WMUR by an emergency room nurse wearing full PPE as local boy Steven Tyler sings a rewrite of Aerosmiths biggest hit, titled Shot This Way. Wed have herd immunity in a month! On a more serious note, COVID-19 hasnt gone away even though its continuing to improve in the state.
|
https://granitegeek.concordmonitor.com/2021/06/01/can-i-think-of-a-better-name-for-a-vaccine-lottery-than-ohios-vax-a-million/
|
Why are so many kids getting sick?
|
One Tampa hospital has been inundated with children sick with RSV and HPIV. We usually associate winter months with flu and cold season, with a lot of people sniffling and coughing around us. This past year, common viruses weren't spread as easily because of safety precautions taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, according to doctors. Children are especially susceptible vectors for viruses like RSV or parainfluenza, especially when they're in close quarters at daycare or in school. Many children spent time learning virtually, meaning the viruses didn't spread as wildly as they have in the past. "With our isolation and when kids were not in school and our kids were not in daycare, we saw no viruses at all. Our normal respiratory viruses were nonexistent," explained pediatric pulmonologist at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital, Dr. John Prpich. He says his office was quiet through what would have been their busy season, in the period between November and January. He's starting to see all those cases in his office now. "Our local virology, in terms of how much RSV and parainfluenza we're seeing it's really through the roof, especially over the past five weeks," said Dr. Prpich. He suspects that increased vaccination rates in adults combined with eased COVID-19 restrictions like the elimination of mask mandates have led to more mass gatherings. Top it off with complacency for disinfection and hand-washing and close-quarter gatherings become a great environment for virus transmission. While the spread of common viruses like RSV and HPIVs is expected, Dr. Prpich says you should still be cautious because COVID-19 is still spreading across the Tampa Bay area. "I think if you have a child that was born premature or has asthma or another form of chronic lung disease...or people at home are high risk, still just being aware of what you're doing. Maybe now is still not the right time to have those giant mega playdates with a lot of kids."
|
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/children-sick-covid-viruses/67-917f0d31-77d2-4f78-a733-1a90f8484410
|
Which is the most enjoyable GTA game on Android?
|
The mobile game industry has been crushing it for a while, and notable franchises like GTA have a lot to gain in that market. Back when Rockstar Games chose to port some of its most celebrated titles onto the smartphone platform, many simply chalked it up to diversification. Over the years, games like GTA San Andreas, GTA Vice City, and even GTA: Chinatown Wars have found new audiences through their presence on mobiles. While many had reservations about titles of such caliber translating well to smartphones, all doubts have been laid to rest. While janky controls and lower-res graphics were an issue early on, they are far more negligible today. While the problem with controls persists, most players have little trouble adapting to the style of play on mobile. Smartphone technology is now better than it has ever been and more affordable too. Undeniably, games like Vice City and San Andreas have claimed the top spot as people's favorites, but there is one hidden gem that might be best suited to the platform. GTA Chinatown Wars is essentially the perfect game Rockstar could have picked to port over to Android and iOS devices. This is mainly because the game was initially designed for release on handheld devices: the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS. The game is essentially tailored to cater to the handheld platform and provides just the right kind of experience. Whereas games like GTA Vice City and San Andreas make concessions to suit the hardware, Chinatown Wars is already fit for the device. The touch controls might still seem a tad bit too slow at times, but the top-down perspective helps ease movements. This way, players always have excellent spatial awareness and senses of orientation, especially regarding combat. Best aspects of GTA Chinatown Wars The story plays second fiddle to the gameplay, which is top-notch. The top-down perspective might feel like a throwback, but it is essentially an evolution of that style as it incorporates many features that weren't even in future titles. The best of all being the drug dealing minigame which saw players hustling and making dough by slinging dope. The minigame might not sound like much at first, but it will absolutely grip the player to the point where they'll even forget the main campaign and focus solely on it. GTA Chinatown Wars truly deserves its time in the spotlight as one of the most creative outings by Rockstar.
|
https://www.sportskeeda.com/gta/which-enjoyable-gta-game-android
|
Who won the TUF season between Team McGregor and Team Faber?
|
The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) is coming back after a long lay-off of two years. There is a long history of notable seasons, like Team McGregor vs. Team Faber, Garbrandt vs. Dillashaw, and many more. This time around, featherweights Brian Ortega and Alex Volkanovski will be leading a group of bantamweights and middleweights in the 29th edition of TUF. One of the most-watched editions of the tournament involved Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber coaching their respective teams. Not only was the Irishman at his peak, but he was also pitted against popular bantamweight Faber. The latter took all of McGregor's jokes without responding. This led to several hilarious exchanges and clipped moments. "There's the little snake in the grass now!" TJ & Cody's hatred for each other goes back to the current bantamweight champ leaving Team Alpha Male... Something Conor McGregor predicted in an iconic TUF moment on season 22 #MysticMac #UFC227 pic.twitter.com/UiNO0tXXGs UFC on BT Sport (@btsportufc) August 1, 2018 However, the competition witnessed a lot of controversies. Team McGregor took the edge in the season after winning six of the nine matches. Hence, the quarter-finals featured just three fighters from Team Faber. Two of them lost in the quarters, and in the end, Julian Erosa was the only one left from Faber's team. Erosa fought Artem Lobov in the semi-finals and was knocked out in the first round. The other semi-final between Saul Rodgers and Marcin Wrzosek was won by the former via a second-round submission. This led to two Team McGregor fighters fighting in the finale of the Ultimate Fighter. However, it wasn't meant to be. Team McGregor loses a finalist as Saul Rodgers was pulled from the tournament. Things changed when the UFC removed Rodgers from the final due to some visa-related issues. It was discovered that he had falsified information on his visa application, restricting his travel to the United States. Hence, the fight couldn't go forward, and the UFC decided to replace the Team McGregor fighter with the man he beat in the quarter-finals, Ryan Hall. Artem Lobov meets Ryan Hall in "The Ultimate Fighter" finale on Friday night!https://t.co/kag5c0PvBf#TUFFinale pic.twitter.com/ED6RlsOyEV The Ultimate Fighter (@UltimateFighter) December 10, 2015 Hall was a member of Team Faber and it was his chance to redeem his team. He didn't disappoint as he beat Artem Lobov after a dominant display. Hall won all three rounds of the fight and two judges gave him a 10-8 round as well. He crushed the dreams of Team McGregor and won the entire tournament for Team Faber. Hall is still competing in the UFC at a high level at lightweight. He is on an eight-fight winning streak and is set to fight Ilia Topuria on July 10, 2021 at UFC 264. Incidentally, Conor McGregor is headlining the event alongside Dustin Poirier in the final fight of the trilogy between the two. Please take 30 seconds to answer this survey so that we can better understand how to serve your MMA needs.
|
https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/who-won-tuf-between-team-mcgregor-team-faber
|
When is Celebrity Gogglebox on Channel 4?
|
Cut through the noise and get the Lancashire news to your inbox for free - twice daily Invalid Email Something went wrong, please try again later. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Celebrity Gogglebox is back and fans dont have long to wait until the new series starring Lorraine Kelly, Laura Whitmore and many more starts on Channel 4. A mixture of new and returning famous commentators will be taking to their sofas for series 3, as they critique all the latest TV shows. Mel C, Jamie Carragher and Claire Balding are among the new additions joining the cast of Celebrity Gogglebox for series 3 of the multi-award winning show. They will join several returning stars from previous series, including Chris Eubank Sr and Denise Van Outen. Here is everything you need to know about when and where to catch the new series, and who well be watching this year. Celebrity Gogglebox will return to our screens later this month, with the first episode airing on Channel 4 and All 4 on Friday, June 4 at 9pm. The third series of the celebrity version of Channel 4s popular reality show will see a range of fresh faces join some returning favourites to critique all the highlights of British television. The previous two series of Celebrity Gogglebox have seen some of Britains most loved stars of TV, radio and showbiz become armchair critics giving their verdicts on the best TV shows of the week. The first series featured stars including Rylan Clark-Neal, Jessie J, Emily Atack, Oti Mabuse and all four original members of popular girl band Little Mix. The second series saw celebrities like Zoe Ball, Nicola Adams, KSI, Stacey Solomon, Joe Swash and many more review shows, from BBC News to Naked Attraction. Line of Duty actors Martin Compston (Steve Arnott), Adrian Dunbar (Ted Hastigs) and Vicky McClure (Kate Fleming) have previously appeared in the Stand Up To Cancer special, as have stars including Naomi Campbell , Ed Sheeran and Noel Gallagher. Celebrity Gogglebox 2021 starts on Channel 4 and All 4 on Friday, June 4 at 9pm.
|
https://www.lancs.live/news/uk-world-news/celebrity-gogglebox-channel-4-20701663
|
What is Family Karma's Bali Chainani's Net Worth?
|
Bali Chainani is a stay-at-home mother who found fame with the reality television series Family Karma. As a second-generation immigrant who lived her early life in Doral before shifting to Kendall, Bali struggled with her skin color and often compared herself to girls with fairer complexion. Like her co-stars in Family Karma, Bali was also raised with Indian values and never lost touch with her culture despite being raised so far away from the country. When she was only 22 years old, Bali married an Indian businessman and settled down in Mumbai. Soon, she had her daughter, Anushka, but a decade after their wedding, the couple got separated, and Bali returned to Miami. Bali remarried soon afterward, but after her husband cheated on her, and they got divorced. The second marriage did not last long, and Bali prefers not to talk about it openly, so there is very little information. She has been in a relationship with a Kentucky-based businessman, OMalley Dreisbach, since 2014. Balis mother and daughter both reportedly like Dreisbach, but its uncertain if the reality television star wants to get married for the third time or not. Regardless of the challenges in her personal life, she has been brave and continues to work hard. Her television appearance has helped her garner a decent social media following, and some of her fans may sometimes wonder about her net worth; if you find yourself thinking the same, We have got you covered. There is very little information about Balis professional pursuits after she got married to the Indian businessman at the age of 22. However, she did work as a beauty stylist for ELLE magazine for a few years before taking a long hiatus. She later joined Empire Farms as a sales executive in 2009 and worked there for about four years before retaking a brief hiatus. In 2013, Bali joined Equiflor corporation, which is a fresh flower distributor, marketer, and importer company, established in 1986. She has worked there as a Sales and Marketing Executive for the company for over eight years. Bali is still busy in the same business but is open to switching to other sectors of the economy if the right opportunity presents itself. Bali was doing well for herself, but nothing could have ever prepared for the opportunities that came her way in 2020. No one can better explain the experience of second-generation immigrants better than Bali Chainani. After being raised in Indian values in America, she lived for a decade in Indian before returning to her roots again. So, Family Karma gave her the ideal platform to openly talk about her life and the challenges she had faced over the years. Thanks to her recurring appearances on the show, she garnered a decent fan following, and it appears that her popularity is only going to increase from here. Now, working for a television show must come with excellent financial incentives. Lets have a look. Bali Chainanis Net Worth Bali Chainanis net worth is estimated to be around $175,000. Considering she is now a reality television personality, we can expect her overall wealth to steadily increase in the coming years.
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/what-is-bali-chainanis-net-worth/
|
What is Family Karma's Brian Benni's Net Worth?
|
Born in 1991 in Hackensack, New Jersey, Brian Benni comes from an Indian-American family. He rose to prominence with the reality television series Family Karma and immediately became a fan favorite because of his good looks. He is raised in Pembroke Pine in Flordia and studied at the Panther Run Elementary school and Nativity Catholic School. He later attended the Archbishop McCarthy High School and, after graduation, earned his Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences from Florida State University. Raised in America with Indian values, Brain always respected his roots and the lessons he learned from his parents. Although initially reluctant to find a girl from his community, Brians views later changed when he met his new girlfriend, Monica Shah. It has always been his parents wish that the party boy starts a family of his own. Interestingly, the viewers were shipping Monica Vaswani, a software specialist and choreographer, and Brian as they have known each other since they were in sixth grade, but things didnt work out between the two. Although Brian may not have a plan to make a career in the television industry a few years ago, now that he finds himself there, it appears that the party boy is enjoying the limelight. Some viewers may be curious to learn more about him and wonder what his net worth is. If you are someone like this, we have got you covered. Before getting the promising opportunity in the television industry, Brain had no prior experience of the glitz and glamor that suddenly came his way. After graduating from college with a degree in Biological Sciences, he did an internship with the Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits for a few months. He later changed his field and started working in the Information and Technology industry. In 2015, Brian joined the computer consultancy Pro Logic Systems. He worked there as an Account Executive for almost 2.5 years. His interest in the IT sector only grew with time, and he fell in love with his job. Brian never looked back to his old career plans after graduating from the Florida State University. After quitting his position at Pro Logic Systems, he joined Pivot Technology Services Corp. as an Account Executive in early 2018. However, while working at the Miami-based company, Brian must have never thought in his wildest dreams that his career was going to take an unprecedented turn in just a few years. In 2020, he made his television debut with Bravos reality television series Family Karma. The series features the experiences of different generations of Indian Americans living in Miami for several decades. The show soon made Brian famous, and now he has appeared in both of its seasons so far. With his calm and easy-going personality, he is expected to get more popular in the coming years, and we can expect him to climb the ladders of success in the television industry. All of this information may make you wonder how much he worth; well, in that case, lets have a look at his overall wealth. Brian Bennis Net Worth Brian Bennis net worth is estimated to be around $300,000. Since he has a decent fan-following on social media, we can expect him to star in more reality television shows in the coming years. So, his net worth is likely to increase in the future.
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/what-is-brian-bennis-net-worth/
|
What is Family Karma's Monica Vaswani's Net Worth?
|
Monica Vaswani is a reality television personality who rose to prominence with the television show Family Karma. She was born in the Virgin Islands. However, Monica barely lived there as her family soon moved to Pembroke Pines in South Florida. She enrolled there at the Pembroke Pines Charter High School. After graduation, Monica studied at the Florida International University, where she earned a degree in Bachelor of Communication Arts. While in college, she worked for the Sindhi Association of South Florida, which helped her get integrated into her community like never before. Although Monica had an on-and-off relationship with Brian Benni, they both later mutually agreed that they were better off as friends only. After her brief relationship with her childhood friend, Monica found her new boyfriend, Rish Karam, the owner of the Indian restaurant Moksha. Monicas career in the entertainment industry is still in the early days, but she is already making many headlines. People are now more curious than ever before to learn more about her. In case you are someone like this and wish to know Monica Vaswanis net worth, you have come to the right place. Heres everything you need to know. Before she starred in the now-famous reality television show, Monica Vaswani lived a pretty normal life. Because of her conservative outlook and respect for Indian values, she is often called the perfect Indian girl by the Indian diaspora in Miami. Very few people know that the television star back in 2012 participated in the Miss India Worldwide pageant in Suriname. She took her Family Karma co-star Bali Chainanis help in the preparation of the big event. Although she probably did not win the competition, it shows Monica did not want to confine herself to the conventional career choices that Indian parents usually want for their kids. In my interviews so far, she has confessed that her father has always been supportive of her, and he even encourages Monica to follow her heart. After graduating from Florida International University, Monica worked briefly for the clothing retail company White House Black Market as a Sales Associate. Monica then interned as the Social Media Coordinator for EWM Realty International. She was even a South Asian community ambassador while working for the Miss India Worldwide Organization. After her brief stint in the financial services company Wells Fargo, Monica joined Ultimate Software, where she has worked for almost six years. Although, around this time, Monica had a pretty ordinary career, her life suddenly took an unprecedented turn when she was offered Family Karma by Bravo. Initially, she had a hard time realizing that she will star in a television show. But her dreams were realized when she started shooting for the reality television series. Now, Monica is a well-known public figure with an impressive social media following. But the fame and recognition have not changed her a bit. She is still true to her principles and values that have made her successful. Without wasting any more time, lets have a look at it. Monica Vaswanis Net Worth Monica Vaswanis net worth is estimated to be around $150,000. Since she is now so popular, we may see her more on our television screen in the coming years. So its safe to say that her net worth is only going to increase in the future.
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/what-is-monica-vaswanis-net-worth/
|
What is Family Karma's Vishal Parvani's Net Worth?
|
Vishal Parvani is a reality television personality whom you may recognize from the reality television series Family Karma. The show centers on the experiences and struggles of seven Indian-American friends as they look for love as second-generation immigrants. Vishal was born in the late 80s in Doral, located just 13 miles from downtown Miami. Despite living in America, he inculcated Indian values from his parents and is very close to them. He studied at the Florida International University after graduating from Palmer Trinity School, where he spent a lot of time growing up. Vishal had been in a relationship with his girlfriend, Richa, for several years now, but the couple reportedly couldnt get married because of Richas mothers disapproval. There have been rumors that Vishal may be confused about his sexuality, as he confessed in one of the shows episodes that he used to ponder if he was gay when his close friend came out of the closet. But since he is in a happy relationship with his girlfriend, its safe to say that all the rumors are merely harmless gossip. Vishal, who may not have actively pursued a career in the television world, is now the main cast of a reality television show. So, its natural for viewers to wonder what his net worth must be. If you are also wondering the same, we have got you covered. Vishal Parvani never had an interest in working in the entertainment industry, but he confessed in an interview that he does feel bad about the lack of diversity on television when he was growing up. He understands the importance of representation, but Vishal may have probably never imagined that he would be so actively participating in fixing such social issues. Vishal made his debut in the television industry with the reality television show Family Karma in 2020. After graduating from Florida International University, he took his time before he ultimately joined Parvani Commercial Group, his mothers successful real-estate business, in 2012. At the company, Vishal is occupied with commercial sales and leasing, and he has worked hard to contribute to the companys growth using his understanding of Miamis culture and diversity. With tens of millions of dollars of financial transactions every month, the Parvani Commercial Group appears to be doing exceptionally well. It has been the collaborative effort of the mother-son duo that has made this possible. Vishals career in the real estate and the television industry are both remarkable so far. Well, without wasting any more time, lets have a look at it. Vishal Parvanis Net Worth Vishal Parvanis net worth is estimated to be around $750,000. Since his mothers real estate business is doing so well and he is also now a well-known face in the television industry, we believe that his overall wealth will increase in the future.
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/what-is-vishal-parvanis-net-worth/
|
Where Was Kims Convenience Filmed? Where is the Real Store Located?
|
Kims Convenience is a sitcom developed for television by Ins Choi and Kevin White based on Chois eponymous play. The series follows the lives of a Korean-Canadian family, the Kims, who own and run a small convenience store in the Moss Park area of Toronto. If the Kim familys hilarious antics and the shows settings have given you a homely vibe, you must be looking for more details about the locations featured in the series. Well, look no further, as we have gathered all the details of the shows filming locations for you, right here! Kims Convenience Filming Locations Kims Convenience is primarily set in Toronto, Canada, and all five seasons of the show were filmed in the city on-locations and on soundstages like most sitcoms. The first season was shot from June 2016 to August 2016, and the shooting of the most recent fifth (and final) season commenced in early 2020 and was wrapped up in November 2020. Lets take a detailed look at the filming sites of the show. Toronto, Ontario Production of Kims Convenience mostly took place in Toronto. Almost all interior scenes of the show were filmed don soundstages at Studio City Toronto (previously known as Showline Studios), a studio complex located at 915 Lake Shore Boulevard East. The property offers various production facilities, which are spread over an area of more than 80,000 sq ft. Apart from the indoor scenes, the production crew regularly veered into the heart of Toronto, capturing the citys combination of Georgian and Postmodern architectural styles while filming numerous outdoor scenes. Mimis Variety, a convenience store located at 252 Queen Street East, in the Moss Park area, some ten kilometers from the studio complex, stands in as the exterior facade for the titular store. The Kims Convenience Store sign seen in the series retains the style of the original stores sign and most of the other aesthetics. The Moss Park neighborhood of Toronto is home to various ethnic groups and previously held a reputation of being one of the unsafest neighborhoods in the city. Since the shows release, the area attracts many tourists, and Mimis Variety has become a popular tourist spot. Toronto as seen through Kim's Convenience pic.twitter.com/kMDOohDT1h Netflix Canada (@Netflix_CA) May 12, 2021 Some sequences were filmed in and around Moss Park area, mainly at Barrio Cervecera, a Mexican restaurant at 884 Queen Street East; Pro Glo Paints at 943 Queen Street East, and parts of the Queen Street East & Boston Avenue intersection. Other outdoor locations featured in the show include Grange Park at Beverley Street & McCaul Street; Alexandra Park at 60 Ryerson Avenue; and Toronto Vietnamese Victory Church in North York. Some scenes were also shot in the Kensington Market area and Daniels Spectrum, a cultural center situated at 585 Dundas Street East.
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/where-was-kims-convenience-filmed/
|
Who is Matthew Perrys ex-fiance Molly Hurwitz?
|
FANS of Matthew Perry were thrilled for him when he revealed he was getting married. But we are sad to announce that Molly Hurwitz is now the Friends star's EX fiance after it was revealed the couple had split. Molly is a 29-year-old American talent manager and producer. She works for a company called Zero Gravity Management. Molly is based in New York and LA. You can find her on Instagram @mollyhurwitz. The pair met through friends, as they mix with the same people. The Sun exclusively revealed their relationship in December 2019, as the pair enjoyed a romantic Christmas together. On November 26, 2020 Matthew told People magazine that I decided to get engaged." 3 Matthew and Molly have now split Credit: The Mega Agency "Luckily, I happened to be dating the greatest woman on the face of the planet at this time. But sadly it wasn't meant to be and on June 1, 2021 Matthew confirmed the news to PEOPLE, sharing in a statement: "Sometimes things just don't work out and this is one of them. I wish Molly the best." In May 2021, it was reported that Molly put their wedding on hold after he "flirted with other women" while they were on a break. Most read in Celebrity PERRY SAD Matthew Perry, 51, SPLITS from fiance, 29, days after 'worrying' Friends reunion 'ENOUGH' AGT fans slam Howie Mandel for giving choir group Golden Buzzer due to 'sob story' 'TRAPPED' Hillsong's Carl Lentz accused of 'sexually abusing nanny in front of his kids' REALITY STAR GONE Wahlburgers star Henry 'Nacho' Laun 'dead at 54 after medical emergency Exclusive DEFENDING ELLIE Ellie Kempers Veiled Prophet Ball rejects racism despite backlash 'speak up!' As Molly has previously been out of the spotlight, information on her is quite sparse and it is not known who she dated before. Matthew's relationship history is a bit more known and the actor famously dated Julie Roberts in the 90s after she was a guest star on Friends. He also dated actress Lizzy Caplan for six years.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/1866072/matthew-perry-molly-hurwitz-ex-fiancee/
|
How much are Coachella 2022 festival tickets?
|
WHEN it comes to festivals, Coachella is the Queen Bee of all events. It's the one time us mere mortals get to party with the mega rich and famous in the desert. Because of the A-List acts that perform at the festival, and the stars that attend, Coachella is not cheap. Over the years the big event has become the hottest ticket in town, with everyone wanting to get their hands on a ticket. Depending on how much cash you have, tickets range from a general pass, right up to a VIP luxury experience. The tickets for the festival are sold separately for two weekends, and you can choose between lots of different types of three day passes for the festival. Advance sale tickets for Coachella 2022 will be available for purchase on Friday, June 10, 2021 at 10am PT. You can get them through its website. Those who bought tickets for the cancelled 2020 festival can roll their tickets over, or get a refund by logging into their ticket purchase account by 5pm on June 11, 2021. The Coachella Music Festival 2022 is set for two weekends. The first weekend will take place from April 15 to 17. IT'S BACK! The 2022 festival will take place at the same venue of Empire Polo Club at Indio, CA. It is located in the small town in Riverside County.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/2999462/coachella-2022-festival-tickets-prices/
|
Who is Samuel Olson and how long has he been missing for?
|
POLICE fear that a body found in a bag in a motel room may be a missing Texas boy, 6. Meanwhile the boy's dad's fiance, Therese Balboa, has also disappeared. Six-year-old Samuel Olson from Texas was reported missing last week. Police are reportedly investigating after the body of a young boy was found in a motel room inside a tote bag on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. Jasper police Chief Gerald Hall told FOX 4 that police believe the body is likely that of Samuel, who was reported missing in the Houston area. The chief said the child's body appeared to be in the motel for some time. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner tweeted: "It is with great sadness that I share with you that a body - of who we believe to be 6-year-old Samuel Olson - was recovered in a motel room in Jasper, Texas, earlier this evening. "A possible suspect is in custody and will be interviewed by our homicide investigators. More details will be provided at a news briefing tomorrow. "I ask the entire Houston community to join HPD in sending prayers for Samuel and his family." Samuel Olsen was reported missing last week, though cops believe he may actually have vanished a month ago. His dad's fiance, Therese Balboa, claimed she saw the boy last Thursday. Balboa said she last saw Samuel in the 8800 block of McAvoy Drive in Houston, Texas, telling KTRK: "I was going to take Sam to school when his mother showed up with the police officer..." "Or who I was under the impression to be a police officer, and they demanded me to release Sam," she continued, noting that she had to hand over the child because she's no legal rights to him. Houston Police Department Executive Assistant Larry Satterwhite confirmed that cops have not verified the version of events Dalton Olson's girlfriend provided. Satterwhite said Samuel's last known sighting was at Holbrook Elementary School as far back as April. Most read in News RAPPER DEATH Rapper Lil Loaded dead at 20 after arrest for 18-year-old friends shooting 'RECOVERY MISSION' Christian diet guru, husband & 6 others presumed dead after plane crash TRAGIC FIND Cops fear body in bag at motel is missing TX boy, 6, as dad's fiance vanishes MEAT'S OFF World's biggest meat supplier 'shuts ALL US beef plants' after 'Russian' hack STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE Boy, 6, reported missing last week but may have vanished a MONTH ago BELIEVE IT Obama says weapons will be stockpiled & religions may pop up if UFOs confirmed Samuel's mother has since told cops she doesn't know where the missing child is, while his dad claims to have "literally tried to do everything from the very beginning to do what's best for my son." "That is my whole world and I can't imagine if anything happened to him and I believe he's still out there," said Dalton Olson, who shares custody of his son with Samuel's biological mom. The child's mother, Sarah Olsen, has denied claims that she and a man dressed as a cop picked Samuel up last week through her attorney.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/news/2999581/samuel-olson-how-long-missing/
|
Can global investments rise after COVID-19?
|
Governments must play a role in reversing a 50% decrease in global investments during the period of the COVID-19 pending, Dubai Investment Development Agency CEO Fahad Al Gergawi said on Wednesday. He spoke during the Global Investment Forum in Dubai, stating that governments need to work with the private sector and global players to reverse that downward trend and be prepared to make policy changes to support economic growth. There must be an understanding of the post COVID-19 pandemic universe, Al Gergawi said. Dubai Gold and Commodities CEO Exchange Les Male, CEO said global equity markets are already recovering from COVID-19. Unbound founder and CEO Daniel Seal said that pandemics promote opportunity particularly when people want to explore new technologies. There is now an acceleration of such initiatives, he explained. Veritas Ventures CEO and Founder Vera Futorjanski said that the Middle East is now becoming an attractive market for technology investment. She also gave a plug for an initiative in Dubai in which the government plans to go paperless.
|
https://www.jpost.com/international/can-global-investments-rise-after-covid-19-669877
|
Does America Want to be the Transgender Leader?
|
We are told every day that in America we follow the science. It all starts in schools where children declare their pronouns. Some declare minority sex pronouns due to peer pressure or because its cool or rebellious. Kids do that. Now the habitual reaffirmation process begins, and it can involve mandatory parental counseling to ensure compliance with the process. With a superficial transgender diagnosis, public schools on the West Coast can already prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without parental consent. Blockers must be prescribed at puberty (8-14) to be most effective. In Oregon, schools can authorize a sex change without parental consent. The FDA has not licensed puberty blockers for trans youths, and no clinical trial has been conducted for this purpose. Literature aplenty states that puberty blockers are mostly safe, with the not incidental caveat of unknown long-term effects. Available science shows that puberty blockers cause lower bone density and may affect brain development. Cross-sex hormone therapies can cause irreversible changes, including infertility and may contribute to forms of cancer. Like puberty blockers, they are not FDA approved for transgender youth. Blockers and hormone therapies are leveraged because gender dysphoria can cause depression, but taking these drugs, or even engaging in social transitioning, for example cross-dressing and name and gender changes, also leads to an increased use of drugs and depression as trans youth wrestle with an imposter syndrome. After gender reassignment surgery, the depression obviously doesnt go away. In this population, one study showed that suicide attempts were 4.8X higher than a control group, suicides 19X higher, and psychiatric hospitalizations 2.8X higher. Trans advocates have discounted the outcomes and pointed to other research that shows positive outcomes, but these studies are qualified with comments like, the evidence base for sex reassignment is of very low quality due to the serious methodological limitations of included studies, and research limitations preclude solid and generalizable conclusions. The solution is to increase the number of people that have taken cross hormones and had gender reassignment surgery. The problem with this is that these actions should never be encouraged, even for the admirable aim of advancing science. Potentially millions. According to a 2021 Gallup survey 1.8% of Gen Zers (19-24) identify as transgender. With an 80% desistence rate, for youth (under 18) the percent of youth transgenders is likely to be 9%. This compares with 0.3% to 0.6% for the general population. The vast majority of trans youth later decide they are comfortable in their birth bodies. In eleven studies conducted between 1972 and 2013, 20% of trans youth chose to continue their transgender transition as adults or to be cross dressers, 12% specifically chose to be homosexuals, 6% to be straight, and 55% to be cisgender without specifying sexual orientation. In most of the world it is legally forbidden to change your gender. Many forbid changing your name to one that reflects a non-birth sex. Some permit both if you have undergone gender reassignment surgery, and some require sterilization with surgery. However, many nations forbid this surgery, of which 2/3rds criminalize changing your sex, people that identify as transgender without reassignment surgery, or cross dressing. Americas vigorous approach to reaffirming a youths choice of gender and later sex is quite different in the world. A story on the May 23 edition of Sixty minutes on Sunday illustrated that for some youths, the approach causes debilitating outcomes. There is so much unknown about the medical and social side effects of transgender therapies, social transitioning exercises, and reassignment surgeries. Or even why children choose to identify as trans youth. It would be a tragedy if children who once declared a cross-sex pronoun but later desisted, in the interim were diagnosed transgender and encouraged by government officials to undergo experimental medical therapies or social conditioning, or to experiment with sex, with results that impacted their mental or physical health, ability to procreate, chance of dying, living on the street, or being sexually assaulted. The House of Representatives has passed H.R. 5, the so-called Equality Act and H.R.7, the Paycheck Fairness Act. The MOMMIES (Maximizing Outcomes for Moms through Medicaid Improvement and Enhancement of Services) Act is up for a vote. All these acts provide encouragement for transgender people by saying that the government reaffirms your choice. They dont know enough to have their backs. But they know enough to say that what we are doing in schools to encourage transgender youth can have many dangerous consequences; and we need to exercise extreme caution until we have more data, and this cannot mean using our children as guinea pigs. Even in the interest of science. Image: Pixabay
|
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/does_america_want_to_be_the_transgender_leader_.html
|
Did Zulfi Bukhari and Shoaib Akhtar just have a Twitter duel?
|
Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a former special assistant to the Prime Minister for overseas Pakistanis and human resource development, and former Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Akhtar just had an interesting chat on Twitter. A few days ago, Akhtar had challenged actor and host Fahad Mustafa on Twitter, saying that if he played six balls by him [Akhtar], he would give Mustafa a motorcycle as a reward. On Tuesday, Bukhari accepted the challenge given to Mustafa and wrote to Akhtar on Twitter that he was ready to accept the challenge. But Akhtar was confused. The cricketer replied back, asking Bukhari if everything was alright. Bukhari confidently responded that all was well and that he would donate a bike for every ball he missed. It got even more interesting as Akhtar then said he would donate a bike on every ball Bukhari is able to touch with a bat. The former bowler ended his tweet asking Bukhari when he wants to do the challenge. Bukhari has yet to respond to Akhtar's latest tweet.
|
https://www.geo.tv/latest/353088-did-zulfi-bukhari-and-shoaib-akhtar-just-have-a-twitter-duel
|
Will the Olympics go ahead as planned? Should they?
|
In todays Big Story podcast, less than two months from now, unless something changes, the postponed 2020 Olympics will begin in Tokyo, Japan. Unless the countrys government listens to both its populace and its doctors, all of whom are urging them not to proceed. Japan has vaccinated less than three percent of its population. A medic this week warned of the Olympics spawning a new Tokyo olympic variant of Covid-19. The games could be exactly what the world needs to mark the beginning of the end of this pandemic. Or they could be exactly what the virus needs to keep it going. And we wont know which, until they happen. If they happen. GUEST: Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.
|
https://www.680news.com/2021/06/02/will-the-olympics-go-ahead-as-planned-should-they/
|
Do Arsenal want Andre Onana so that they can sell Leno?
|
We are all waiting impatiently for Arsenal to make their first moves in the transfer market, but there is very little concrete news so far, although there are more than enough rumours! But perhaps Mikel Arteta is starting at the back, as it has already been reported that Mat Ryan is going to be joining us on a free transfer from Brighton, but if that is true then it looks like the Gunners are trying to sign two keepers this month. Andre Onanana certainly looks like a good deal as his price is much reduced thanks to his current ban for taking Furosemide (which he maintains was a simple mistake on his part), and as he is only 25, I am sure we can happily to wait a few months before we can see him in action. I actually think we do, as if you cast your mind back just six weeks ago, Leno said on Arsenal.com: I know that I still have two years left on my contract and Im also 29. For a goalkeeper, thats not too old. Ive still got some years to go. Im very happy at the club. I dont know what will come in the future, but Im open to everything. Maybe for a new adventure or to stay at Arsenal. Like I said, I dont think about my future because two years is a long time. At the moment there are no conversations with the club or anything else. So, logic is telling me that if we secure both Onana and Ryan this summer, then it must be obvious that Arteta is considering letting Leno go and have a new adventure elsewhere. If Onanas ban is upheld and he cant play for us until the end of the year, then we could simply offload Leno in January rather than in this transfer window.
|
https://www.justarsenal.com/do-arsenal-want-andre-onana-so-that-they-can-sell-leno/283843
|
Is Gideon Levy the most hated man in Israel or just the most heroic?
|
Gideon Levy is the most hated man in Israel and perhaps the most heroic. This good Tel Aviv boy a sober, serious child of the Jewish state has been shot at repeatedly by the Israeli Defence Force, been threatened with being beaten to a pulp on the countrys streets, and faced demands from government ministers that he be tightly monitored as a security risk. This is because he has done something very simple, and something that almost no other Israeli has done. Nearly every week for three decades, he has travelled to the Occupied Territories and described what he sees, plainly and without propaganda. My modest mission, he says, is to prevent a situation in which many Israelis will be able to say, We didnt know. And for that, many people want him silenced. The story of Gideon Levy and the attempt to deride, suppress or deny his words is the story of Israel distilled. If he loses, Israel itself is lost. I meet him in a hotel bar in Scotland, as part of his European tour to promote his new book, The Punishment of Gaza. The 57 year-old looks like an Eastern European intellectual on a day off tall and broad and dressed in black, speaking accented English in a lyrical baritone. He seems so at home in the world of book festivals and black coffee that it is hard, at first, to picture him on the last occasion he was in Gaza in November, 2006, before the Israeli government changed the law to stop him going. He reported that day on a killing, another of the hundreds he has documented over the years. As twenty little children pulled up in their school bus at the Indira Gandhi kindergarten, their 20 year-old teacher, Najawa Khalif, waved to them and an Israel shell hit her and she was blasted to pieces in front of them. He arrived a day later, to find the shaking children drawing pictures of the chunks of her corpse. The children were astonished to see a Jew without weapons. All they had ever seen were soldiers and settlers. My biggest struggle, he says, is to rehumanize the Palestinians. Theres a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and Im a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that its very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard. So he describes the lives of ordinary Palestinians like Najawa and her pupils in the pages of Haaretz, Israels establishment newspaper. The tales read like Chekovian short stories of trapped people, in which nothing happens, and everything happens, and the only escape is death. One article was entitled The last meal of the Wahbas family. He wrote: Theyd all sat down to have lunch at home: the mother Fatma, three months pregnant; her daughter Farah, two; her son Khaled, one; Fatmas brother, Dr Zakariya Ahmed; his daughter in law Shayma, nine months pregnant; and the seventy-eight year old grandmother. A Wahba family gathering in Khan Yunis in honour of Dr Ahmed, whod arrived home six days earlier from Saudi Arabia. A big boom is heard outside. Fatma hurriedly scoops up the littlest one and tries to escape to an inner room, but another boom follows immediately. This time is a direct hit. In small biographical details, he recovers their humanity from the blankness of an ever-growing death toll. The Wahbas had tried for years to have a child before she finally became pregnant at the age of 36. The grandmother tried to lift little Khaled off the floor: thats when she realised her son and daughter were dead. Levy uses a simple technique. Once, in Jenin, his car was stuck behind an ambulance at a checkpoint for an hour. He saw there was a sick woman in the back and asked the driver what was going on, and he was told the ambulances were always made to wait this long. Furious, he asked the Israeli soldiers how they would feel if it was their mother in the ambulance and they looked bemused at first, then angry, pointing their guns at him and telling him to shut up. I am amazed again and again at how little Israelis know of whats going on fifteen minutes away from their homes, he says. The brainwashing machinery is so efficient that trying [to undo it is] almost like trying to turn an omelette back to an egg. It makes people so full of ignorance and cruelty. He gives an example. During Operation Cast Lead, the Israel bombing of blockaded Gaza in 2008-9, a dog an Israeli dog was killed by a Qassam rocket and it on the front page of the most popular newspaper in Israel. On the very same day, there were tens of Palestinians killed, they were on page 16, in two lines. At times, the occupation seems to him less tragic than absurd. In 2009, Spains most famous clown, Ivan Prado, agreed to attend a clowning festival on Ramallah in the West Bank. A devastating punch line to Hamas? Yet the absurdity nearly killed him. In the summer of 2003, he was travelling in a clearly marked Israeli taxi on the West Bank. He explains: At a certain stage the army stopped us and asked what we were doing there. We showed them our papers, which were all in order. They sent us up a road and when we went onto this road, they shot us. They directed their fire to the centre of the front window. Straight at the head. No shooting in the air, no megaphone calling to stop, no shooting at the wheels. Shoot to kill immediately. If it hadnt been bullet-proof, I wouldnt be here now. I dont think they knew who we were. They shot us like they would shoot anyone else. They were trigger-happy, as they always are. It was like having a cigarette. They didnt shoot just one bullet. The whole car was full of bullets. No. They dont know and dont care. He shakes his head with a hardened bewilderment. They shoot at the Palestinians like this on a daily basis. At first, he was just like them: his argument with other Israelis is an argument with his younger self. He was born in 1953 in Tel Aviv and as a young man I was totally nationalistic, like everyone else. I thought we are the best, and the Arabs just want to kill. I didnt question. He was fourteen during the Six Day War, and soon after his parents took him to see the newly conquered Occupied Territories. We were so proud going to see Rachels Tomb [in Bethlehem] and we just didnt see the Palestinians. We looked right through them, like they were invisible, he says. It had always been like that. We were passing as children so many ruins [of Palestinian villages that had been ethnically cleansed in 1948]. He must be alive. He must be somewhere. It was part of the landscape, like a tree, like a river. Long into his twenties, I would see settlers cutting down olive trees and soldiers mistreating Palestinian women at the checkpoints, and I would think, These are exceptions, not part of government policy. Levy says he became different due to an accident. He carried out his military service with Israeli Army Radio and then continued working as a journalist, so I started going to the Occupied Territories a lot, which most Israelis dont do. Plenty of Israelis go to the territories not least the occupying troops and settlers without recoiling. I think it was also you see, my parents were refugees. I saw what it had done to them. So I suppose... I saw these people and thought of my parents. Levys father was a German Jewish lawyer from the Sudetenland. At the age of 26 in 1939, as it was becoming inescapably clear the Nazis were determined to stage a genocide in Europe he went with his parents to the railway station in Prague, and they waved him goodbye. He never saw them or heard from them again, Levy says. He never found out what happened to them. If he had not left, he would not have lived. For six months he lived on a boat filled with refugees, being turned away from port after port, until finally they made it to British Mandate Palestine, as it then was. My father was traumatised for his whole life, he says. He never really settled in Israel. He never really learned to speak anything but broken Hebrew. He came to Israel with his PhD and he had to make his living, so he started to work in a bakery and to sell cakes from door to door on his bicycle. It must have been a terrible humiliation to be a PhD in law and be knocking on doors offering cakes. He refused to learn to be a lawyer again. He became a minor clerk. He lived here sixty years, he had his family, had his happiness but he was really a stranger. A foreigner, in his own country He was always outraged by things, small things. He couldnt understand how people would dare to phone between two and four in the afternoon. It horrified him. He never understood what is the concept of overdraft in the bank. Every Israeli has an overdraft, but if he heard somebody was one pound overdrawn, he was horrified. His father never talked about home. Any time I tried to encourage him to talk about it, he would close down. He never went back. There was nothing [to go back to], the whole village was destroyed. He left a whole life there. He left a fianc, a career, everything. I am very sorry I didnt push him harder to talk because I was young, so I didnt have much interest. Thats the problem. When we are curious about our parents, they are gone. Levys father never saw any parallels between the fact he was turned into a refugee, and the 800,000 Palestinians who were turned into refugees by the creation of the state of Israel. Never! People didnt think like that. We never discussed it, ever. Yet in the territories, Levy began to see flickers of his father everywhere in the broken men and women never able to settle, dreaming forever of going home. Then, slowly, Levy began to realise their tragedy seeped deeper still into his own life into the ground beneath his feet and the very bricks of the Israeli town where he lives, Sheikh Munis. It is built on the wreckage of one of the 416 Palestinian villages Israel wiped off the face of the earth in 1948, he says. The swimming pool where I swim every morning was the irrigation grove they used to water the villages groves. My house stands on one of the groves. The land was redeemed by force, its 2,230 inhabitants were surrounded and threatened. They fled, never to return. Somewhere, perhaps in a refugee camp in terrible poverty, lives the family of the farmer who plowed the land where my house now stands. He adds that it is stupid and wrong to compare it to the Holocaust, but says that man is a traumatized refugee just as surely as Levys father and even now, if he ended up in the territories, he and his children and grandchildren live under blockade, or violent military occupation. The historian Isaac Deutscher once offered an analogy for the creation of the state of Israel. A Jewish man jumps from a burning building, and he lands on a Palestinian, horribly injuring him. Levys father really was running for his life: it was Palestine, or a concentration camp. Yet Levy says that the analogy is imperfect because now the jumping man is still, sixty years later, smashing the head of the man he landed on against the ground, and beating up his children and grandchildren too. 1948 is still here. 1948 is still in the refugee camps. 1948 is still calling for a solution, he says. Israel is doing the very same thing now... dehumanising the Palestinians where it can, and ethnic cleansing wherever its possible. 1948 is not over. Not by a long way. II The scam of peace talks Levy looks out across the hotel bar where we are sitting and across the Middle East, as if the dry sands of the Negev desert were washing towards us. Any conversation about the region is now dominated by a string of propaganda myths, he says, and perhaps the most basic is the belief that Israel is a democracy. Today we have three kinds of people living under Israeli rule, he explains. We have Jewish Israelis, who have full democracy and have full civil rights. We have the Israeli Arabs, who have Israeli citizenship but are severely discriminated against. And we have the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, who live without any civil rights, and without any human rights. I dont have to tell you how many Jewish towns and villages were established. Not one Arab village. How can you say Israel is a democracy when Jerusalem invests 577 shekels a year in a pupil in [Palestinian] East Jerusalem and 2372 shekels a year in a pupil from [Jewish] West Jerusalem. Four times less, only because of the childs ethnicity! Every part of our society is racist. I want to be proud of my country, he says. I am an Israeli patriot. I want us to do the right thing. So this requires him to point out that Palestinian violence is in truth much more limited than Israeli violence, and usually a reaction to it. The first twenty years of the occupation passed quietly, and we did not lift a finger to end it. Instead, under cover of the quiet, we built the enormous, criminal settlement enterprise, where Palestinian land is seized by Jewish religious fundamentalists who claim it was given to them by God. Only then after a long period of theft, and after their attempts at peaceful resistance were met with brutal violence - did the Palestinians become violent themselves. Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda. Nobody would give any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they had not behaved violently. He unequivocally condemns the firing of rockets at Israeli civilians, but adds: The Qassams have a context. They are almost always fired after an IDF assassination operation, and there have been many of these. Yet the Israeli attitude is that we are allowed to bomb anything we want but they are not allowed to launch Qassams. It is a view summarised by Haim Ramon, the justice minister at time of Second Lebanon War: We are allowed to destroy everything. Even the terms we use to discuss Operation Cast Lead are wrong, Levy argues. That wasnt a war. It was a brutal assault on a helpless, imprisoned population. You can call a match between Mike Tyson and a 5 year old child boxing, but the proportions, oh, the proportions. Israel frequently targeted medical crews, [and] shelled a UN-run school that served as a shelter for residents, who bled to death over days as the IDF prevented their evacuation by shooting and shelling... A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organisation. They say as a justification that Hamas hides among the civilian population. As if the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv is not located in the heart of a civilian population! As if there are places in Gaza that are not in the heart of a civilian population! He appeals to anybody who is sincerely concerned about Israels safety and security to join him in telling Israelis the truth in plain language. A real friend does not pick up the bill for an addicts drugs: he packs the friend off to rehab instead. Today, only those who speak up against Israels policies who denounce the occupation, the blockade, and the war are the nations true friends. The people who defend Israels current course are betraying the country by encouraging it on the path to disaster. A child who has seen his house destroyed, his brother killed, and his father humiliated will not easily forgive. These supposed friends of Israel are in practice friends of Islamic fundamentalism, he believes. Look at Gaza. Gaza was totally secular not long ago. Now you can hardly get alcohol today in Gaza, after all the brutality. Religious fundamentalism is always the language people turn to in despair, if everything else fails. If Gaza had been a free society it would not have become like this. We gave them recruits. Levy believes the greatest myth the one hanging over the Middle East like perfume sprayed onto a corpse is the idea of the current peace talks led by the United States. There was a time when he too believed in them. At the height of the Oslo talks in the 1990s, when Yitzhak Rabin negotiated with Yassir Arafat, at the end of a visit I turned and, in a gesture straight out of the movies, waved Gaza farewell. Goodbye occupied Gaza, farewell! We are never to meet again, at least not in your occupied state. How foolish! Now, he says, he is convinced it was a scam from the start, doomed to fail. There is a very simple litmus test for any peace talks. A necessity for peace is for Israel to dismantle settlements in the West Bank. They carried on building them all through Oslo. And today, Netanyahu is refusing to freeze construction, the barest of the bare minimum. It tells you all you need. He says Netanyahu has like the supposedly more left-wing alternatives, Ehud Barak and Tzipip Livni always opposed real peace talks, and even privately bragged about destroying the Oslo process. How can you leave out Hamas and Gaza? These fake peace talks are worse than no talks at all, Levy believes. If there are negotiations, there wont be international pressure. Quiet, were in discussions, settlement can go on uninterrupted. That is why futile negotiations are dangerous negotiations. Under the cover of such talks, the chances for peace will grow even dimmer... The clear subtext is Netanyahus desire to get American support for bombing Iran. To do that, he thinks he needs to at least pay lip-service to Obamas requests for talks. Thats why hes doing this. After saying this, he falls silent, and we stare at each other for a while. Then he says, in a quieter voice: The facts are clear. Israel has no real intention of quitting the territories or allowing the Palestinian people to exercise their rights. No change will come to pass in the complacent, belligerent, and condescending Israel of today. This is the time to come up with a rehabilitation programme for Israel. III Waving Israeli flags made in China According to the opinion polls, most Israelis support a two-state solution yet they elect governments that expand the settlements and so make a two-state solution impossible. You would need a psychiatrist to explain this contradiction, Levy says. Today, the Israelis have no reason to make any changes, he continues. Life in Israel is wonderful. You can sit in Tel Aviv and have a great life. Nobody talks about the occupation. The majority of Israelis think about the next vacation and the next jeep and all the rest doesnt interest them any more. They are drenched in history, and yet oblivious to it. In Israel, the nations town square has been empty for years. If there were no significant protests during Operation Cast Lead, then there is no left to speak of. He says he is very pessimistic, and the most likely future is a society turning to ever-more naked apartheid. With a shake of the head, he says: We had now two wars, the flotilla it doesnt seem that Israel has learned any lesson, and it doesnt seem that Israel is paying any price. The Israelis dont pay any price for the injustice of the occupation, so the occupation will never end. It will not end a moment before Israelis understand the connection between the occupation and the price they will be forced to pay. They will never shake it off on their own initiative. It sounds like he is making the case for boycotting Israel, but his position is more complex. Firstly, the Israeli opposition to the boycott is incredibly hypocritical. Israel itself is one of the worlds most prolific boycotters. Not only does it boycott, it preaches to others, at times even forces others, to follow in tow. Israel has imposed a cultural, academic, political, economic and military boycott on the territories. The most brutal, naked boycott is, of course, the siege on Gaza and the boycott of Hamas. At Israel's behest, nearly all Western countries signed onto the boycott with inexplicable alacrity. This is not just a siege that has left Gaza in a state of shortage for three years. It's a series of cultural, academic, humanitarian and economic boycotts. Israel is also urging the world to boycott Iran. So Israelis cannot complain if this is used against them. He shifts in his seat. But I do not boycott Israel. I could have done it, I could have left Israel. But I dont intend to leave Israel. Never. I cant call on others to do what I will not do... There is also the question of whether it will work. I am not sure Israelis would make the connection. Look at the terror that happened in 2002 and 2003: life in Israel was really horrifying, the exploding buses, the suicide-bombers. But no Israeli made the connection between the occupation and the terror. For them, the terror was just the proof that the Palestinians are monsters, that they were born to kill, that they are not human beings and thats it. And if you just dare to make the connection, people will tell you you justify terror and you are a traitor. I suspect it would be the same with sanctions. The condemnation after Cast Lead and the flotilla only made Israel more nationalistic. If [a boycott was] seen as the judgement of the world they would be effective. But Israelis are more likely to take them as proof the world is anti-Semitic and will always hate us. He believes only one kind of pressure would bring Israel back to sanity and safety: The day the president of the United States decides to put an end to the occupation, it will cease. Because Israel was never so dependent on the United States as it is now. Never. Not only economically, not only militarily but above all politically. Israel is totally isolated today, except for America. He was initially hopeful that Barack Obama would do this he recalls having tears in his eyes as he delivered his victory speech in Grant Park but he says he has only promoted tiny steps, almost nothing, when big steps are needed. It isnt only bad for Israel it is bad for America. The occupation is the best excuse for many worldwide terror organisations. Its not always genuine but they use it. Why not you solve it once and for all when the, when the solution is so simple? For progress, the right-wing American Jews who become orgiastic whenever Israel kills and destroys would have to be exposed as Israels enemies, condemning the country they supposedly love to eternal war. It is the right-wing American Jews who write the most disgusting letters. They say I am Hitlers grandson, that they pray my children get cancer It is because I touch a nerve with them. There is something there. These right-wingers claim to be opposed to Iran, but Levy points out they vehemently oppose the two available steps that would immediately isolate Iran and strip Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh of his best propaganda-excuses: peace with Syria and peace with the Palestinians, both of which are on offer, and both of which are rejected by Israel. They are the best way to undermine Iran. He refuses to cede Israel to people who wave their Israeli flags made in China and dream of a Knesset cleansed of Arabs and an Israel with no [human rights organisation] BTselem. He looks angry, indignant. I will never leave. Its my place on earth. Its my language, its my culture. Even the criticism that I carry and the shame that I carry come from my deep belonging to the place. I will leave only if I be forced to leave. Oh, very easily, he says. Its already taken from me by banning me from going to Gaza, and this is just a start. I have great freedom to write and to appear on television in Israel, and I have a very good life, but I dont take my freedom for granted, not at all. If this current extreme nationalist atmosphere continues in Israel in one, two, three years time He sighs. There may be new restrictions, Haaretz may close down God forbid I dont take anything for granted. I will not be surprised if Israeli Palestinian parties are criminalized at the next election, for example. Already they are going after the NGOs [Non-Government Organizations that campaign for Palestinian rights]. There is already a majority in the opinion polls who want to punish people who expose wrong-doing by the military and want to restrict the human rights groups. There is also the danger of a freelance attack. Last year, a man with a large dog strutted up to Levy near his home and announced: I have wanted to beat you to a pulp for a long time. Levy only narrowly escaped, and the man was never caught. He says now: I am scared but I dont live on the fear. But to tell you that my night sleep is as yours... Im not sure. Any noise, my first association is maybe now, its coming. But there was never any concrete case in which I really thought here it comes. He laughs and for the only time in our interview, his eloquent torrents of words begin to sputter. I wish I could! No way I could. I mean, this is not an option at all. Really, I cant. No way. I feel lonely but my private, er, surrounding is supportive, part of it at least. And there are still Israelis who appreciate what I do. If you walk with me in the streets of Tel Aviv you will see all kinds of reactions but also very positive reactions. It is hard but I mean itsitswhat other choice do I have? He says his private life is supportive in part. For the past few years, he says, he has dated non-Israeli women I couldnt be with a nationalistic person who said those things about the Palestinians but his two sons dont read anything he writes, and they have different politics from me. No, no, no, nothing like that. As they get older, they are coming to my views more. But they dont read my work. No, he says, looking down, they dont read it. The long history of the Jewish people has a recurring beat every few centuries, a brave Jewish figure stands up to warn his people they are have ended up on an immoral or foolish path that can only end in catastrophe, and implores them to change course. The first prophet, Amos, warned that the Kingdom of Israel would be destroyed because the Jewish people had forgotten the need for justice and generosity and he was shunned for it. Baruch Spinoza saw beyond the Jewish fundamentalism of his day to a materialist universe that could be explained scientifically and he was excommunicated, even as he cleared the path for the great Jewish geniuses to come. He nods faintly, and smiles. Noam Chomsky once wrote to me that I was like the early Jewish prophets. It was the greatest compliment anyone has ever paid me. But... well... My opponents would say its a long tradition of self-hating Jews. But I dont take that seriously. For sure, I feel that I belong to a tradition of self-criticism. I deeply believe in self-criticism. But it leaves him in bewildering situations: Many times I am standing among Palestinian demonstrators, my back to the Palestinians, my face to the Israeli soldiers, and they were shooting in our direction. They are my people, and they are my army. The people Im standing among are supposed to be the enemy. It is... He shakes his head. But then, as if it has been nagging at him, he returns abruptly to an earlier question. I am very pessimistic, sure. Outside pressure can be effective if its an American one but I dont see it happening. Other pressure from other parts of the world might be not effective. The Israeli society will not change on its own, and the Palestinians are too weak to change it. But having said this, I must say, if we had been sitting here in the late 1980s and you had told me that the Berlin wall will fall within months, that the Soviet Union will fall within months, that parts of the regime in South Africa will fall within months, I would have laughed at you. Perhaps the only hope I have is that this occupation regime hopefully is already so rotten that maybe it will fall by itself one day. You have to be realistic enough to believe in miracles. In the meantime, Gideon Levy will carry on patiently documenting his countrys crimes, and trying to call his people back to a righteous path. He frowns a little as if he is picturing Najawa Khalif blown to pieces in front of her school bus, or his own broken father and says to me: A whistle in the dark is still a whistle." Gideon Levys book The Punishment of Gaza is available from Verso Books. You can buy it HERE. You can watch Johanns speech to the Protest the Pope rally HERE. You can follow Johann Haris updates on Israel and other issues HERE.
|
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gideon-levy-most-hated-man-israel-or-just-most-heroic-2087909.html
|
What are the rules around using other peoples images and lyrics on garments?
|
Anything that is applied to a garment as an embellishment such as a drawing, logo, lyric, photo or picture will be protected by various IP rights. Those rights will be owned by the original creator of the embellishment, unless they have sold the rights to another person. If an employee creates something such as a drawing, then under the rules of employment any IP rights in the drawing are automatically owned by their employer. When deciding if you can use particular lyrics, photo or picture on a garment, you need to find out who owns the IP and ensure you have a licence from the rights owner to apply it to clothing and sell that clothing for a profit. The embellishment might be protected not only by copyright, which protects artistic works from being copied, but also by registered trademark protection, which protects a brand, logo or badge of origin. A rights owner can get a trademark for any sign including a drawing, logo or phrase that serves to identify the origin of the product in the minds of the public. This is how famous fictional characters such as Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse are protected, since trademark protection is potentially forever they simply have to be renewed every 10 years, whereas copyright protection runs out after a set period of time. There are some limited instances where you do not need a licence including if the lyric, photo or picture is so old it has fallen out of the period of copyright protection. Copyright protects a work for 70 years from the date of death of the author, and this is why artistic works such as quotes from Shakespeare can be reproduced without permission. Another important consideration is where the garment will be sold. Lyrics can be protected by copyright and could also be registered trademarks. This is particularly the case in other jurisdictions like the US. For example, the lyric This sick beat from the Taylor Swift song Shake It Off is protected in the US by a trademark registration, but not in the UK where the registration rules are different. Its a good idea to check the rules in the country you are selling the garments. There are also occasions where you may want to follow a trend and be inspired by the zeitgeist and reference a popular TV show or song. If the images you want to use are from the show directly, such as a screenshot, then they cant be used without permission. If its fan art that merely pays tribute to the show and you have permission to use it, then this is fine as long as no registered trademarks are included. We have seen Game of Thrones fan art T-shirts that show an artistic drawing of one of the central characters, Daenerys Targaryen, which is fine as long as it does not include the name of the character: HBO has a registered trademark for Daenerys Targaryen for items including clothing, meaning the company can stop anyone else using that name on clothing. You need to take particular care using photographs of public figures. A well-known IP case concerned the use of pop star Rihannas photograph on a T-shirt sold by Topshop. Topshop had a licence for use of the photo from the photographer who took a photo of Rihanna at a shoot for one of Rihannas music videos, but it did not have a licence from Rihanna. The courts held that because of her fame and widespread reputation, Topshop did not have the right to use Rihannas image without her knowledge or agreement. Rihanna had signed an exclusive deal with River Island for use of her image on clothing and so, in using her image on a T-shirt, Topshop was held to have confused the public into thinking Rihanna was in some way connected with Topshop, which she wasnt. The courts held that in doing this Topshop had infringed her commercial rights and committed the intellectual property offence of passing-off, and was made to destroy all the offending T-shirts it had left in stock and pay its profits for the sale of the T-shirt to their rightful owner, Rihanna.
|
https://www.images-magazine.com/what-are-the-rules-around-using-other-peoples-images-and-lyrics-on-garments/
|
Is Dan Really Dead in Lucifer?
|
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they'll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time. Sign up fornow for the biggest moments from morning TV Lucifer season five, part two was filled with shocks, surprises and emotional moments. It was exactly what fans were hoping it to be and more. !, Detective Dan Espinoza (played by Kevin Alejandro) was seemingly killed. Dan was shot during a murder investigation, making his death appear clear cut for most fans. However, Lucifer is no stranger to bringing character back from the dead in a world where the afterlife is real and angels and demons walk the Earth, anything is possible. His death appeared to be a way for the writers of the series to give fans a dramatic moment just before the season finale, raising the stakes to their highest possible level. Yet, actor Alejandro has been doing the rounds and revealed some key details about the character's supposed death in season five. [INSIGHT]
|
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1444322/is-dan-really-dead-in-lucifer-season-6-netflix-video
|
Are we better off?
|
Every once in a while I take a crack at the question How much, if any, have typical Americans material living standards improved since the 1970s? So here I am, trying again. Its become something of an article of faith on the political left and not just the radical left, but regular Democrats that living standards in the U.S. have stagnated since the days before Reagan, when unions were strong and finance was restrained. But no matter what measures I look at, I always find the reality to be much more complex. Often, when people tell the story of Americas economic fall from grace, theyll show you a graph of real average hourly compensation for production and nonsupervisory workers in the private sector. That looks like this: Now that certainly does look like a fall from grace, doesnt it! An absolute economic catastrophe for two decades straight. But there are some problems with using this measure. First, its not clear whether the definition of a production and nonsupervisory worker changed during this time. If a bunch of higher-wage workers were reclassified as supervisory, it would make average wages for the ones who remained in the production and nonsupervisory category go way down. Also, this measure includes only money wages, not benefits like health care or pension contributions. When you look at real total hourly compensation, it looks like this: Now we see a bit of a slowdown, but certainly no catastrophe; on the eve of the pandemic it was up by about half since the early 70s. Something weird is going on in that hourly earnings data. Problem: The total compensation measure includes executives and managers, so it could be that they captured all the gains while regular workers got screwed. In fact, this is a problem that bedevils almost every measure of living standards averages are a hell of a lot easier to measure than medians, so theres always the possibility that the line youre seeing is skewed by inequality. To find the living standards of a typical American or a typical American family, we have to use survey measures. Fortunately, one of the things where we do have good survey data is income. I like to look at real median personal income, because this is how much a typical American makes. Unfortunately, this data only goes back to 1974: Here we see some ups and downs, but the ups outweigh the downs, so income rises by about 50% between the late 70s and 2019 (the last year for which survey data is available; COVID is obviously going to change things). If we want to compare to other periods, theres something else we can use, called real median family income. This is different than the median household income you see quoted in the press a lot. I dont like to use household income, because it depends pretty crucially on the number of people in the average household. Since median family income only includes households with two or more members, its much more stable with regards to these changes. In fact, over the time period since 1974, median family income and median household income have tracked each other extremely closely: So we can probably use real median family income to get a slightly longer-term picture of the trend: Now finally we have a picture that we can rely on to tell us a pretty clear story about how typical American living standards have done since the 50s. In the 50s and 60s the golden era that everyone wants to return to we had steady income growth. But after 1969 it sort of petered out into a decade-long stagnation. People remember the 70s as a bad economic time for good reason! In the 80s we get a surge during the Reagan years, but then near the end of the decade theres another decline that coincides almost exactly with the presidency of George H.W. Bush (poor H.W.!). After four years of that, growth picks up again under Clinton, only to flatten and stagnate entirely under Bush (its downright eerie how closely a lot of these trend breaks seem to match up with presidential administrations). Then in Obamas first term income crashes because of the Great Recession, but then bounces back strongly in his second term and continues rising rapidly under Trump. 2019 was the best single year on record. In general, real median income measures contradict the standard left narrative of the neoliberal age as an economic disaster for regular people. Income goes up and down, but it goes up more often than it goes down, and by the end of the 2010s the typical American is making about half again as much as in the early 70s. Unfortunately, theres no good data on how much people making median income work. But if we look at the average, we see that American workers actually work a lot fewer hours each year than they used to: So this could mean that living standards are actually rising more than the income numbers measure! If this average trend also holds for people making median income, it means the typical American would be earning ~50% more than in the early 70s, while working about 13% fewer hours! Thats not a solid conclusion, but its encouraging. Working less while earning more is good (Please subscribe to my Substack for more brilliant insights like this one! Heh). Of course, income itself is not a perfect measure of living standards. For one thing, it doesnt count benefits like employer health care contributions (these are included in the real hourly compensation measure I showed earlier). These have gone up a lot, mostly because health care has gotten so expensive. If you think the rising cost of health care is just price gouging and cost bloat for the same quality service, then this doesnt matter much to the discussion of living standards; its just waste. But if you think some of that spending has gone to actually better health care and there is some evidence that thats true then typical living standards have increased by even more than the income numbers imply. Also, income numbers dont include taxes; if the government takes away $1 and then gives it back to you, your income does go up, but your standard of living doesnt go up. Also, income measures only include government benefits that are paid in cash, not things like health care and housing and government services. People do calculate disposable (i.e. after-tax) income, and thats kind of interesting, but it doesnt include things like the government buying you health care; also, I cant find a good median disposable income measure that goes up through 2019 and also measures at the personal or family level. So whether the typical Americans tax burden has gone up and remember, that includes Social Security contributions, sales taxes, property taxes, and other stuff that affects the middle class is not clear. Federal tax receipts per person have gone up in real terms by about 40% since 1990, but its highly variable from year to year, and much of that is probably paid by rich people. So we have to regard taxes as a bit of a black box here, as well as non-cash government benefits. One other thing you can measure is consumption or, more specifically, real personal consumption expenditures per capita. This is arguably a better measure of true living standards than income, since consumption is actual stuff you use, while income is just dollars. Heres what that looks like: Here we see a steady increase consumption goes up by 140% since the 70s! Now, thats an average rather than a median, so this could easily be skewed by high-income people buying a ton of stuff. But rich people consume less of their income, so maybe its not as skewed as other averages. But one complaint about rising consumption is that it might not be sustainable. If the typical Americans income went up by 50% since the 70s and their consumption went up by 140%, or even 80% or whatever the number is for the median earner, that means savings rates have fallen. If people are spending down their nest eggs to buy stuff (and theres evidence that they were doing this, for a long time), its just a momentary increase in living standards, not a durable one. In any case, whether we look at compensation, income, or consumption, the general trend is that yes, the typical American is substantially better off at least in material terms than in the 1970s. The narrative of stagnant or falling living standards in the neoliberal age is false. BUT. (You knew there was a BUT, right?) Another, more circumspect leftish narrative that rising inequality drastically reduced the amount that the typical American was able to share in the economic growth of the neoliberal age is definitely true. For example, just look at how median family income has grown relative to GDP per capita: The two grow in lockstep until 1975 or so, then they start diverging. Of course, this doesnt tell the whole picture, because again it leaves out non-cash employee compensation and non-cash government payments and services. Some of this gap is just rising health care costs. But a lot of it is just rising income inequality, which figures prominently in pretty much any economic measurement you look at. In other words, average Americans ARE better off than they were at the start of the neoliberal age. Dont let anyone tell you living standards have gone down. But by the same token, Americans arent as MUCH better off as they could be, given how much the country has grown economically. The people on the left who want to recapture the magic of the 50s and 60s, where rapid growth came without raising inequality, are thinking along the right lines. If we really could recapture the income trends of that era (but obviously without the social inequalities that went along with them), it would be a much better country. Share
|
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/are-we-better-off
|
Are blimps the future of green air travel?
|
HAV's Airlander 10, Courtesy: HAV Key Highlights Safety remains a major concern especially due to the well documented past misadventures of airships. Reversal in the carbon footprint due to airships needs to be considered to turn back the effects of climate change. British company Hybrid Air Vehicles has other products in the pipeline as well that offer as much as 90% carbon emissions by 2025 Blimps have generally been seen as one of the most dangerous ways of travelling, especially since the popularity or infamy of the Hindenburg disaster that took place on 6th Mat, 1937. The image of the airship burning to the ground while trying to dock with a mooring mast in New Jersey, USA is practically burnt into our collective memory by being seen in history books or shared on the internet or on social media apps at some point in your life. Whats changed is the advent of British hybrid airship manufacturer, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) that promises an environment-friendly alternative to traditional air travel. HAV has developed a new commercial airship that claims to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Their latest creation, Airlander 10 can hold 100 passengers and will start with options for travel between Liverpool to Belfast and Barcelona and Balearic Islands as well as Oslo to Stockholm and Seattle to Vancouver. Blimps look cool but they are also an obsolete technology which can go at speeds which were fine a century ago but not today. Think of it like a cruise ship for the skies, its never going to be known for speed but opulence and a chance to sit back and relax while you poodle along to reach your destination. HAV claims that despite previous airships flying at lower speeds, their rendition will take roughly the same amount of time for journeys like catching a flight as long as travel times to and from airports is also considered. Thats a big claim even with the ride to and from an airport, but it remains to be seen if they can show us proof and surprise us with similar results to air travel because its definitely a much more stylish and unique way for travelling, which has been absent from the skies due to obvious troubles mentioned earlier. The best reason, at the moment, to even consider travelling by an airship if it is proven to be safe is the claimed 75% cut in carbon emissions. There is no hidden technology, the hull is kept afloat mainly by helium, the entire design of the airship is much lighter than a conventional aircraft and lower speeds mean better fuel economy as well. The company will also showcase their hybrid-electric airship by 2025 which will be provide up to 90% reduction in carbon dioxide as compared to traditional air travel options. But one major problem is the amount of Helium needed for this seemingly sustainable next step for air travel. Airships need huge amounts of the gas, and the planet has precious reserves that are running out.
|
https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/industry/article/are-blimps-the-future-of-green-air-travel/765171
|
How Will Europeans Kiss In a Post-Pandemic World?
|
ROMEWith the crushing lockdowns ending and summer finally in sight, Europes kissing countries are in a bind. It has been more than a year since medical experts begged those who greet with such physical affection to stop, with then-Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte pleading last March that citizens stay apart today to embrace each other more warmly tomorrow. But now that the opportunity to be close is nearly here, people are nervous. For others, the cheek greeting is a kiss of death. It seems risky to get that close to anyone, Marisa Di Giacomo, a tightly masked vaccinated pensioner, told The Daily Beast. I dont want to go back to lockdowns and fear. Better to just smile and wave. In Europe, there is something awkward about not touching at all upon meeting a close friend or relative; such frigidity is generally served to enemies. The fist bump just never quite caught on in intimate Europe, where personal space often feels like an invitation meant to be breached. And the elbow bump just doesnt really work with tight European tailored suits and designer handbags. Early on in the pandemic, Italians tried the luckily-short-lived heel bump, and the French tried toe-to-toe, but nothing says hello or good-bye quite like rubbing jowls. Even for the traditionally reserved British, the notion that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now allowing cautious hugs as the U.K. opens up, underscores the importance of touch. In Italy, where face masks will soon be abandoned in outdoor spaces, the first post-lockdown opportunities to see friends have been met with a rather awkward compromise, the breast bump, whereby the two people greeting each other essentially try to touch hearts with their heads turned as far away from each other as possible. The French have gone for a slightly more elegant bicep bump, which minimizes contact and the chance that someone might accidentally forget and plant a fatal smooch. There are also the rogues and rebels whofar too soonattempt the traditional contact cheek kiss anyway, often preceded by an Im vaccinated, dont worry! And often met with the terrified recipient ducking the advance with a raised arm and pulling their mask up tight. Fabrizio Pregliasco, a virologist with the University of Milan, has issued several public service announcements in Italian media to warn Italians not to let their guard down as they come out of their shells. Certainly the most risky gesture is the one that leads to contact with the breath of another, that is the cheek kiss, he says, adding that if one must touch cheeks, the air kiss is the only safe way to do it, but suggests no direct skin contact. "We need to gradually reintroduce a safe kiss, but not yet. Pregliasco also suggests that vaccinated grandparents hug their unvaccinated grandchildren from behind, but suggests they hold their breath while doing so. He strongly warns against the aunts kiss which is a full-lipped cheek plant, because he says the receiver might touch contagious saliva with a finger and then accidentally lick it or touch their eye. Until more is known about the transmissibility of COVID among the vaccinated, its just not worth the risk. At the Tram Bar, a popular bar converted from a rail car in the Roman district of Testaccio, the aperitivo culture has also gone through a painful transformation. The traditional pre-pandemic summer pastime generally involves crowding around tiny tables for intimate conversations. But with restrictions only recently loosened enough to let people sip past 6 p.m., the tables are all rearranged with people sitting in what amount to rows, sideways talking, masks lowered and raised between slurps. The usual grabbing of a friends arm to underscore a point now replaced with non-contact gesticulation. People are just so happy to be able to be out at all, a waitress says. No one wants to go backwards, so even if it's not as intimate, at least we are here. Last summer, Italy glided through the season largely unscathed after having endured harsh lockdowns early on while Europe lagged behind. But then the crushing resurgence of the virus hit and sent Italians back into lockdown. The winter across all of Europe was brutal, with the second wave killing more people than the first and shuttering many businesses for good. Europeans hope vaccines will spell the end of the pandemic, and that the worst is over. But until that, a kiss is not just a kiss.
|
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-will-europeans-kiss-in-a-post-pandemic-world
|
Is Glenn Greenwald the New Master of Right-Wing Media?
|
DISGUSTING & DANGEROUS, screamed the banner headline at the bottom of the television screen, just under the blonde-sheathed visage of Fox News Laura Ingraham. GREENWALD BLASTS INTERCEPT FOR SMEARING INGRAHAM GUESTS. And so during a recent episode of The Ingraham Angle, Glenn Greenwaldwho is so familiar to the top-rated cable channels millions of viewers that he requires only a surnameput on a suit and tie in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives, to continue doing what has occupied his energies for much of the past month. Thats deploying every conceivable platformfrom Twitter (where he has 1.6 million followers) to YouTube to Substack to an array of popular conservative websites to the very top of the ziggurat, Rupert Murdochs corporate cash cowto denounce former friends and colleagues at The Intercept, the left-leaning digital news and opinion site he co-founded with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill in 2013. These millennial digital liberal outlets like the Intercept, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, so many of themthey think that if youre a conservative, youre not really a journalist, the 54-year-old Greenwald intoned (a tad weirdly, because most of his targets are in their late forties and fifties), while Ingraham could barely contain a gleeful grin. They think that youre part of this crypto-fascist movement, that youre the enemy, he addedreferring to two young conservative videographers whose coverage of Black Lives Matter and other protests came under The Intercepts withering scrutiny. This past month has occasioned spectacular success, of a sort, for the pugnacious contrarian pundit, an erstwhile leftist journalist-turned-Donald Trump defender who once again is proving his mastery of the right-wing media ecosystem. Indeed, in a self-perpetuating feedback loop that runs from Twitter to Fox News and back again, Greenwald has managed, like Trump before him, to orchestrate his very own news cycles. Last year, following his exit from The Intercept, Greenwald admitted to The Daily Beast that Fox News airs its share of horrific, toxic, damaging, destructive, and bigoted content. However, he defended his frequent Fox hits, saying, I have no doubt that some people at the Intercept were upset that I was going on Fox, but I would no sooner allow anyone to dictate to me which shows I can go on than I would allow anyone to censor my opinions. And now he is effectively operating as something of a Fox News assignment editor, as indicated by The Daily Beasts spot check of the frequency with which Greenwalds online musings on social media and elsewhere, especially his Substack page, have served as the basis for dozens of articles on Fox News website. Hes become a practitioner of manufactured controversy in the service of the hard right in this country. Betsy Reed, The Intercept editor-in-chief For the most part, the FoxNews.com stories have tended to celebrate Greenwalds slashing critiques of non-Fox media personalities, such as a recent article inspired by his tweet trashing MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace for misreporting, along with other media outlets, that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was warned by the FBI that he was the target of a Russian disinformation campaign. (MSNBC and other outlets ultimately corrected the error.) A similar piece, written a couple weeks later, highlighted Greenwalds Substack post in which he blasted resistance journalism. Of course, Fox News made sure to identify Greenwald as a progressive journalist, apparently to enhance the man-bites-dog credibility of his claims. Besides obsessively repurposing Greenwalds complaints about other media personalitiessometimes publishing multiple Greenwald-related pieces in the same daythe network also creates entire outrage cycles from Greenwald tweets, transforming tiny kernels into the media equivalent of a bag of popcorn. Advertisement For instance, a January tweet about what Greenwald called the monster of so-called cancel culture not only prompted his appearance on the Fox News Channel but also an online article about him sounding the alarm on the cancel culture mob. The March 7 episode of MediaBuzz, the networks Sunday media analysis show, provides another example of Greenwalds Twitter feed inspiring Fox News segmentsessentially a programming pipeline from social media-to-cable channel. Fox News digital media team had written multiple articles about Greenwalds online complaints concerning CNNs junior high hall-monitor tattling reporters, New York Times tech reporter Taylor Lorenz, and MSNBC host Joy Reids criticism of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Greenwald was then brought on by host Howard Kurtz to weigh in on all three subjects across multiple segments. And just days after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, Fox News devoted multiple on-air segments across both its opinion and so-called hard news programming to discussing a lengthy Greenwald Twitter thread that slammed liberals for being overwhelmingly supportive of Big Tech censorshipspecifically over the social media bans of Trump and the shuttering of Parler. And, inevitably, Greenwalds online comments warranted their own FoxNews.com piece. Fox News in general, and Laura Ingrahams and Tucker Carlsons primetime shows in particular, have also provided Greenwald with a vital perch from which to stir the right-wing media cocktail. A review of television transcripts indicates that Greenwald has racked up at least 72 appearances on Fox since December 201740 of them on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Ingraham, meanwhile, has booked him on 14 different episodes, followed by nine appearances on Fox News Primetime, three on Kurtzs MediaBuzz, two each on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo and Martha MacCallums now-defunct The Story, and one booking each on Watters World, the defunct Bill Hemmer Reports and the now-cancelled midnight show, Fox News @ Night. (Those figures do not include insomniac-friendly replays of Greenwalds segments.) I did not see this coming, said The Nations national affairs correspondent, Joan Walsh, who was editor-in-chief of Salon more than a decade ago when Greenwald gave up practicing law to spend five-and-a-half years as a star writer there. Its kind of sad. He won awards for us. He was a beacon during those dark days [of the Bush-Cheney military adventures and Barack Obamas first term]. He was a lovely colleague, he really was. Whos this? Advertisement Since Greenwald left Salon for The Guardian in 2012, he and Walsh have tangled on Twitterbitterly at times. Last year, when Walsh was skeptical concerning the claims of Tara Reade, Joe Bidens sexual-assault accuser, Greenwald couldnt resist calling his former editor a partisan opportunistic hack sent out to try to smear, demean & discredit her. Greenwalds latest media campaign is ruthlessly marshaling the armies of Twitter, Substack, YouTube and his home away from home, Fox News, to stoke fury against The Intercepts investigation of the far-right social media platform Gab, as well as the news sites documentary short exploring the questionable tactics and deceptive editing of two young videographers for conservative outlets who call themselves the riot squad. Hes reaping rich rewards in attention and publicity from the right-wing media ecosystem by targeting his erstwhile Intercept comrades in remarkably personal terms. During a recent appearance on YouTubes The Jimmy Dore Show, where he prosecuted his indictments against the Intercepts reporting, Greenwald called out editor-in-chief Betsy Reed as an example of the shit liberals and liberal DNC hacks who crave nothing more than mainstream media approval; Reeds deputy editors Roger Hodge and Peter Maass, meanwhile, are those little eunuchs she has working under her, he claimed. This is a totally made-up controversy. Its manufactured. Theres no there there, said Reed, who joined The Intercept from The Nation in late 2015 with Greenwalds blessing. Theres no kernel of truth to Glenns crusade. That is what I think is fundamentally different from the old Glenn, who would often kind of overstate the case, and fall into hyperbole, but there was usually a kernel of truth. And I would say this time, he lost the kernelor he doesnt care about having that kernel. Hes become a practitioner of manufactured controversy in the service of the hard right in this country. Advertisement Former New York Times journalist and Riot Squad author Robert Mackeywhom Greenwald had personally recruited to The Intercept on the strength of his Times work live-blogging major news events, making documentaries, and analyzing social mediapractices his journalism while sitting on his fat white ass on the couch, Greenwald told Dore. That was his reportinghere, Greenwald gestured scare quotes"that was so innovative and that led The Intercept to hire him, he added sarcastically. (Needless to say, Greenwald didnt mention his key role in eagerly lobbying Mackey to leave the Times in 2016.) In another curious omission on The Jimmy Dore Show, Greenwald went after one of his favorite targets, Times tech reporter (and former Daily Beast staffer) Taylor Lorenz, for her unhealthy fixation on billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessenbut failed to mention that Andreessen is a major investor, to the tune of $15 million, in Substack, and is leading a new fundraising round of $65 million for Greenwalds latest journalistic platform. Hours later on the same day of his Dore guest-shot, Greenwald donned a suit and tie in Rio de Janeiro to trash Mackey some more on The Ingraham Angle and accuse The Intercept of deliberately inciting antifa members to physically assault TownHall.com videographer Julio Rosas and his Daily Caller counterpart, Jorge Ventura, by dragging their faces into the light. Never mind that the two young men, who clearly revel in the attention, had just appeared on Ingrahams show before millions of Fox News viewers. I dont pretend that my life is some avatar of working class values, Greenwald elaborated in an email to The Daily Beast. I do, though, think thats true of Julio and Jorge. And thats why I find it so repellent to watch a bunch of coddled, highly paid editors and journalists using a billionaires money from their $3 million/year office on the 18th floor of a Park Avenue tower to target actual working class journalists doing dangerous reporting about a violent group (Antifa) with which the Intercept ideologically identifies. Hes tapped into the rage machine. He understands that theres no engagement like rage engagement. Roger Hodge, The Intercept editor Advertisement Greenwalds most astonishing verbal assault, however, was aimed at computer security engineer Micah Lee, director of information security for the Intercepts parent company, First Look Media, and author of the Gab story. Lee had been essential to Greenwalds two greatest journalistic triumphs. As a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2013, Lee connected Greenwald, then at The Guardian, with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden (after Greenwald hadnt responded to Snowdens attempts to contact him), teaching him how to use encrypted communication and helping him navigate Snowdens classified data dump that revealed the NSAs widespread surveillance of private citizensreporting for which The Guardian shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. (The Washington Posts Barton Gellman, whose Snowden reporting also won the 2014 public service Pulitzer, recounted in Dark Mirror, his book about the episode, several instances of Greenwalds alleged duplicity in the throes of competition as the two jousted for scoops and creditoozing charm in a conciliatory email and then bad-mouthing him behind his back to a New York Times reporter.) In 2019, Lee was instrumental in the Intercepts blockbuster Operation Car Wash series exposing official corruption and wrongdoing by powerful politicians in Brazil. (According to knowledgeable sources, after Greenwald began getting serious death threats from supporters of Brazils right-wing populist president Jair Bolsonaroto say nothing of official prosecutorial harassmentFirst Look Media spent lavishly, in the six-figure range, to provide him with a team of bodyguards and an armored vehicle. That was in addition to Greenwalds eye-popping salary of more than $500,000 a year.) A collaborative project involving Brazilian journalists and Greenwald, who is fluent in Portuguese, the Car Wash series depended largely on a massive secret archive (secured, made searchable, and administered by Lee) of private chats, audio recordings, videos, photos, court proceedings, and other documentationprovided to us by an anonymous source, as Greenwald, Reed, and Leandro Demori, the executive editor of The Intercept Brasil, wrote upon publication. Yet after the release of Micah Lees Gab storywhich, contrary to Greenwalds indignant claims, doxed no one and simply documented that the platform hosts a range of Jan. 6 insurrectionists, anti-Semites, QAnon conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and other extremistsGreenwald tweeted a photo of Lee, along with the warning: If you, your relatives, or your friends are Gab users, remember that @micahflee is spending his days and nights trolling through your/their personal data with the intentto expose them if they have the wrong ideology. Lee and members of his family had already been hassled by an Internet stalker with a criminal record soon after the Gab story was posted in early May, but in due course the stalking had fizzledthat is, until Greenwalds tweet which, predictably, inspired a new wave of online harassment. Advertisement Internet trolls tried to uncover the personal data of Lees sister, and succeeded in doxing Lee and his wife, who were targeted by antisemitic and homophobic slurs and threats; they contacted local and federal law enforcement officials but ultimately decided to hire private security and change their phone numbers, especially after Lee received this voicemail message from an anonymous male: Hey faggot. You do understand that doxing works both ways. So go ahead and paint a target on your back and theres lots of people who are willing to take shots at you. Fine. Glenn and I have always disagreed on some things, but at least he used to have consistent principles and respect for basic facts, Lee told The Daily Beast. Its disappointing and tragic that hes gone so far off the deep end, from what seemed to be an honest and fearless journalist into a conspiracy-peddling pundit that spends all his time misleading people. In an email exchange with The Daily Beastwhich Greenwald posted preemptively in its entirety on Substackhe was unapologetic about his attack on Lee because, Greenwald complained, he started it. (He was apparently referring to a May 5 tweet in which Lee mercilessly mocked Greenwalds outrageduly splashed on Fox News websiteat an Intercept fundraising letter touting the Gab investigation.) Precisely because of my long work relationship and friendship with Micah, Greenwald wrote to The Daily Beast, I would never have criticized him personally or even by name under any circumstances. When I co-founded the Intercept back in 2013, Micah was one of the first if not the first people we hired. Thats why I was so disappointed when he decided to start publicly criticizing me by name. After having chosen to do that to great applause from his liberal following, helike the Intercept generallywants to play the victim and whine about how hes being persecuted for something that he himself did. Peter Maass, a noted author, experienced war correspondent and Greenwalds former editor at The Intercept, told The Daily Beast: Glenn can act in the most vicious ways against people who were loyal to him and essential to his best work. He has to know that his attacks on Micah are going to lead to intimidation and threats. Advertisement Indulging his fondness for insult, Greenwald fired back: Its quite hilarious to hear lectures about loyalty from Intercept editors like Peter, making $300,000/year for nothing, when none of them would even [have] jobs if it werent for me and my work in creating the news outlet that they now all leech off of. As for Walsh, she is a Democrat who still cries every night that Hillary Clinton isnt President. Shes just angry that I dont like Democrats, Greenwald emailed. Betsy Reed comes in for the most severe thrashing. [S]hes a pathological liar who makes everyone she works with hate her, Greenwald emailed. I have zero respect for the senior editorial leadership of the InterceptI have contempt for them which I have made quite publicly clearso its hardly a surprise that theyre sniping at me in ways they never had the courage to do when I was there, he added. Seven years after eBay chairman Pierre Omidyar enlisted him to help start the web site and pledged $250 million to the project, Greenwald quit The Intercept in a blaze of acrimony last October, days before the presidential election, claiming Maass, Hodge, and Reed had censored his reporting on the presumed contents of Hunter Bidens laptop to protect their preferred candidate, Joe Biden, and defeat Donald Trump. Greenwalds tabloid-ready departurecoupled with a lengthy manifesto-and-denunciation posted on Substackquickly took on the trappings of a carefully-choreographed media event staged not only for the New York Post, which devoted 1,160 words to the liberal establishments attempt to muzzle a truth teller, but also for such Trump-friendly outlets as The Daily Caller, TownHall.com, Newsmax, The Washington Examiner, The Federalist, and of course Fox News, all of which credited Greenwalds narrative of liberal hypocrisy and suppression. Advertisement Greenwald celebrated his exodus with a seven-minute appearance on Tucker Carlsons show, where he claimed The Intercepts alleged shielding of Joe Biden from scrutiny was all of a piece with an anti-Trump conspiracy in which the CIA and the Deep State operatives became heroes of the liberal left, the people that support the Democratic Party, [and are] now in a full union with the neocons, the Bush-Cheney operatives, the CIA, Silicon Valley and Wall Street. That is the union of power, along with mainstream media outlets, that is fully behind the Democratic Party. I totally agree, Carlson declared. And Im ashamed of the times I made apologies for those agencies or this behavior. I really am. You are telling the truth Glenn Greenwald! Congratulations on getting out of there. The real story of Greenwalds Biden screed and his abrupt departure from the Intercept, however, is a little more complicated. According to several of Greenwalds former colleagues, he had been musing since last July about the possibility of leaving for the richly financed Substackwhere, hed heard, his close friend and former Intercept colleague Matt Taibbi was earning close to a million dollars a year. (It would be inaccurate to say I made anything close to a million, Taibbi told The Daily Beast. I dont know what Glenn told others.) It is absolutely true that I had been talking about leaving the Intercept since at least mid-2020, because I had become disgusted with its servitude to the Democratic Party and the resulting corruption of journalism that that produced, Greenwald told The Daily Beast. However, he wrote, its absolutely false that I was considering going to Substack until 24 hours before making the jump. When Hunter Bidens long-lost laptop became a public issue after Rudy Giuliani shared it with the New York Post, Greenwald proposed writing about it and Betsy Reed agreed on condition that the piece would contain actual reporting, not just opinion, and that Greenwald would submit it to an editing process before publicationterms he accepted. However, after he filed the piece to Maass, his nominal editor, Greenwald strenuously objected to Maass extensive notes (also posted on Substack) calling for changes, deletions and more facts. At that point, according to three sources, Greenwalds Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill read the draft of the Biden piece and made detailed recommendations of revisions designed to satisfy the concerns of both Maass and Greenwald. The sources said Greenwald largely agreed with Scahills suggestions to fix the piece, but instead of submitting a new version, he simply withdrew it, explaining that he had already made the decision to leave the Intercept for Substacka move he announced the same day as his resignation, leaving former colleagues to believe he had been secretly negotiating a lucrative deal with Substack all along. Scahill declined to comment. Advertisement In an email to The Daily Beast, Greenwald confirmed that Betsy was demanding that I submit my article to an editorthe first time in 7 years that she did so, and that Jeremy voluntarily went and made suggestions to the article, all of which I told him were acceptable. But Betsy was furious with Jeremy for doing that, telling him that his suggestions were nowhere near sufficient to render the article publishable. Reed, who said she was not furious with Scahill for trying to broker peace, added that Greenwald abruptly withdrew the piece before she or Maass had the chance even to see Scahills editing suggestions. Greenwald added: I never talked to the Substack people until the day before I announced my resignation from the Intercept - less than 24 hours in advance...And that happened only because it was obvious that they [The Intercept] would only publish my article if I first removed all the parts critical of Joe Bidenthe candidate they were desperate to win the electionand only leave the sections about media criticism. Meanwhile, readers can subscribe to Greenwalds Substack writing under a variety of plans ranging from $5 a month to $50 a year to $150 to become a founding member. Greenwald has already lined up between 20,000 and 40,000 paid subscribers, according to an estimate by the Financial Times that Greenwald said was accurate, and is reportedly on course to earn up to $2 million a year. Not bad for a guy who, as Greenwald put it in his email, grew up in a working-class neighborhood raised by a single mother who worked hourly-wage jobs as a McDonalds cashier and a defensive driving instructor and went to public schools and only could go to college and law school because of a full-time scholarship from the debate team and student loans. Advertisement Intercept editor Roger Hodge theorizes that money is probably behind at least some of Greenwalds adventures in right-wing media. He needs subscribers and hes giving people what they want, which is hatred and rage, Hodge told The Daily Beast. Hes tapped into the rage machine. He understands that theres no engagement like rage engagement.
|
https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-glenn-greenwald-the-new-master-of-right-wing-media
|
How many people has climate change killed already?
|
Every year heat kills tens of thousands of people. Their breathing grows shallow, their heart rates flutter, their muscles spasm, and then they die. Heat killed over 100,000 people in 2018, when high temperatures broiled the European Union. A new study suggests that climate change was responsible for many of those deaths. The paper, published Monday in Nature Climate Change, scrutinized summertime deaths in 43 countries between 1991 and 2018 the largest collection of heat mortality data ever assembled. The researchers estimate that higher temperatures driven by greenhouse gas emissions caused more than half the heat-related deaths in several countries, including Thailand, Peru and the Philippines. On average, climate change was at fault for 37 percent of heat-related deaths. The world has only warmed around 2 degrees Fahrenheit so far, but thats already enough to kill roughly 100,000 people every year, if you apply this papers estimate to the entire world. There are, however, some pretty big holes in the data for anyone trying to do that kind of extrapolation. Theres simply no data on heat-related deaths from huge swaths of the world, including major population centers in equatorial Africa, and India. The main point of this paper is that the map is mainly empty! wrote Friedi Otto, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the study, in an email. And Ottos own research suggests that that heat is particularly deadly in these places that dont have sophisticated systems to record the cause of deaths. In other words, reality could be worse than the estimates. The countries where we do not have the necessary health data are often among the poorest and most susceptible to climate change, and, concerningly, are also the projected major hotspots of future population growth, according to Dann Mitchell, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol, in a piece accompanying the study. To make their estimates, the authors analyzed 29,936,896 death records from around the world, zeroing in on the heat-related deaths. Then they did some fancy modelling to determine how much cooler it would have been if our pollution hadnt wrapped round the planet like an overheavy comforter. And they finished it off with a little more math to estimate the number of people who would not have succumbed in that alternative (read: one without climate change) world. These kinds of studies are compelling for motivating the policy process because you can show there has been some number of deaths from climate change, said Kristie Ebi, a professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. Still, models that gin up these kinds of alternative worlds are never foolproof. There has been some acclimatization, Ebi said. In high-income countries there have been declining heat related deaths because of better air conditioning and better health care. But if you want to make the best estimate of how many heat deaths were caused by climate change, youd use the methods in this study, Otto said. So the numbers here are a conservative lower bound estimate of the true heat deaths due to climate change, she said. Heat kills, and climate change is an absolute game changer when it comes to heat, and we do not talk about this enough.
|
https://grist.org/climate/how-many-people-has-climate-change-killed-already/
|
Are Homebuyers Happier After Moving to a New Metro?
|
We know that a large number of homeownersoften motivated by the newfound freedom of remote work or the desire for spaciousnessrelocated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority, eight out of every 10 according to a just-released Redfin report, seem satisfied with the decision to make a new metropolitan area home and are reporting improvements to their financial situations. Agents say they are seeing the evidence. I recently worked with a couple that listed their home in Los Angeles and moved to Ohio because the wife was able to work remotely, said Los Angeles Redfin agent Lindsay Katz. The house sold for more than $1 million and they bought a nice home in Ohio for around $400,000. The husband had been a teacher in Los Angeles, but now hes able to stay home and raise the kids because theyre saving so much money. Their mortgage is half of what it was, taxes are lower, even food costs less. Remote work allowed them to re-evaluate their living situation and their finances. And the numbers support the anecdotes. In the first two weeks of April, Redfin surveyed about 500 Refin.com users who moved to a different metro area from March 2020 through March 2021: 78% have the same or more disposable income after their move. 68% have the same or lower housing costs than before their move. 64% moved into a home thats the same size or bigger than their previous residence. 80% have no regrets about their decision to relocate. 80% are happier post-move. Redfin researchers point out that "there has been a fair amount of speculation about the psychology of pandemic homebuyers, with some wondering whether homebuyers will regret making such a major life decision in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime global crisis." Team Redfin added that rocketing house prices and intense competition have led some homebuyers to do things they wouldnt do in a typical year, such as waive inspection and appraisal contingencies and buy homes sight unseen in an area they dont yet live in. Although 15% of respondents said they had some regrets about moving, the survey showed a large majority standing by their choices. For most people, relocating to a different metro area probably wasnt a knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic, said Redfin lead economist Taylor Marr. A lot of Americans had already been considering relocating, but they were blocked from actually making the move because they had to stay close to their office or wanted to live near friends or their childs school. The pandemic and resulting work-from-home culture have removed some of those barriers, allowing many people to choose where they live based on factors like affordability, proximity to family, and weather. And the loosening of social ties that come with remote work, remote schooling, and a lack of in-person events made it somewhat easier for families to leave their comfort zone and try somewhere new. Those people are likely to be satisfied with their moves because the circumstances of the pandemic have allowed them to chase their dreams. View the results in their entirety at Redfin.com.
|
https://themreport.com/news/data/06-01-2021/are-homebuyers-happier-after-moving-to-a-new-metro
|
How Tata Motors became India's third-largest carmaker?
|
Shailesh Chandra, President - Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Tata Motors at Ahura Centre, Mumbai; Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India S On a consolidated basis, however, Tata Motors had a difficult year largely due to a one-time restructuring underway at Jaguar Land Rover. The company reported a consolidated loss of Rs 7,605 crore in the March quarter, as it had to write off some Rs 15,000 crore at JLR as part of the electric powertrain-focused Reimagine strategy underway at the British automaker. For the full financial year 2020-21, the company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 13,395 crore, against a net loss of Rs 11,975 crore in the previous year. hailesh Chandra knows the importance of staying afloat even when the chips are down. He has seen that play out very well at Tata Motors where he has been a lifelong veteran and serves as the president of the passenger vehicle business.Over the past decade, the Rs 1.05 lakh crore automaker has seen its fortunes tumble in the Indian market, even prompting questions about its relevance in the countrys $104 billion automobile industry, before it began staging a whirlwind comeback.From a paltry market share of 4.6 percent in 2016, and 4.8 percent in 2020, Tata Motors is now Indias third-largest carmaker, boasting a market share of well over 9 percent in the worlds fourth-largest automobile market. In FY21, the company sold 222,025 units of passenger vehicles, a 69 percent growth in comparison to the year-ago period. In contrast, the countrys passenger vehicle sales in the fiscal fell by 6.2 percent. This April, the company accounted for 9.16 percent of the domestic market, up from 8.77 percent in the previous month, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association.The phenomenal turnaround also comes at a time when the countrys automobile industry has been stuck in a quagmire for the past few years, with sales dwindling due to a slowing economy, transition into eco-friendly engines, and the Covid-19 crisis. Incidentally, the reversal in fortunes also came after a decade of turbulence when Tata Motors, which made iconic Indian vehicles such as Tata Indica, Tata Sumo, and Tata Safari in the early parts of the millennium, was left on the fringes in the highly competitive Indian car market. With dwindling sales, mostly catering only to the fleet taxi market, the carmaker had fallen out of the radar with personal buyers.A slew of second-generation vehicles that replaced the companys much successful first-generation models in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Indica, Safari, and Sumo had failed to entice buyers and replicate its initial success, forcing the automaker to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new strategy to revive its struggling passenger vehicle business. A decade ago, Tata Motors held more than 13 percent in the domestic market, which it kept losing steadily to domestic and foreign carmakers.And through it all, Chandra knew the key was to see through the tough times with his head down and focus on the final outcome. The commitment of the leadership and the board to the passenger vehicle business was never in question, and it was unfortunate that the second generation (of vehicles) did not work, says Chandra. We knew if we hit the sweet spots of the market, it will work. There was a phase we had to go through, and it was a time we had to make sure that we're never forgotten in the market.In the past year, perhaps, in a strong show of confidence among investors, Tata Motors share price has more than tripled, with a market capitalisation of over Rs 1.05 lakh crore. In May, rating agency Moodys upgraded the outlook from negative to stable largely due to a continued recovery in the companys consolidated revenue and profitability, in addition to stronger credit metrics at the company. "The rating affirmation and change in outlook to stable reflect the continued recovery in TML's (Tata Motors Limited) consolidated revenue and profitability from the trough during the pandemic in the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2021, Kaustubh Chaubal, vice president and senior credit officer at Moodys said in a report. We expect the recovery to sustain over the upcoming 12 to 18 months, strengthening TML's credit metrics.Much of the turnaround over the past few years is largely on the back of the increased sale of four vehicles that have now become the mainstay of the carmaker. Together, they form part of what Tata Motors call the New Forever range of vehicles, which boast high safety standards, better engine performance, and driving pleasure, aesthetic design, and rich features, in comparison to some of their previous models.The Nexon, which launched in 2017, the Harrier in 2019, and the Altroz in January 2020, contributed to as much as 60 percent of the sales in the last fiscal. Of that, Altroz and Harrier were manufactured on the Alpha and Omega platforms, respectively. The two platforms, the first of which was introduced in 2018 on the Harrier and later the Altroz, marked a shift in the companys practice of developing specific platforms for every model. There is also the companys hatchback, Tiago, which was initially christened Zica, that has been holding steady in terms of sales, and clocking over 6,000 units a month since the past few years.Platforms are design architectures that include the underfloor, engine compartment, and frame of a vehicle. Having just two platforms helps streamline manufacturing, reduces development and manufacturing costs, unlike earlier when there were multiple platforms for various models. It also helps with capacity utilisation, reducing risks, and improving vehicle reliability, and reducing time to market. The Omega platform was based on the wildly successful SUV Discovery, owned by Tata Motors subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover.Out of the many SUV platforms available at Land Rover, D8 was evaluated and found to be most suitable for the evolving Indian market, Chandra says. The optimisation of the platform in terms of materials and innovative manufacturing technologies helped the team to keep the costs under control without touching the core characteristics, thus leading to the development of our Omega Architecture. The Altroz was built on the indigenously developed Alpha platform.While the shift to the new platform began only in 2018, Tata Motors also saw off a period post-2016, when it had to rely on what it calls bridge products that would help bring traffic to the showrooms, and in the process, recall value for the brand. Much of those bridge products relied on the companys new design philosophy and safety features.There was a period where we had to bring bridge products to bring excitement among personal consumers, and the backbone of that became impact design and safety, Chandra says. The bridge products were the Tiago, Tigor, and Nexon of which the Nexon was in between the old and new architecture, and that helped us come back strongly. But even that was only to a limited extend.The Nexon has truly changed the fortunes of Tata Motors. In many ways, it was the game-changer, says Puneet Gupta, the director for automotive forecasting at market research firm IHS Markit. Somehow it managed to understand the pulse of the customer. There is no doubt that the past five years have seen a significant turnaround and most of their launches during this time have been timely and targeted the mass segments. Along the way, they also ensured they addressed issues of quality and even brought on board global suppliers which helped quality standards. In the last fiscal, Nexon was the top-selling vehicle for the group. Of course, much of the credit for the recent turnaround at Tata Motors passenger vehicle business must also go to the companys CEO Guenter Butschek, who joined the automaker in February 2016. The month before, Tata Motors sold a paltry 10,728 units of passenger vehicles in the country. By the time he came on board, the company was selling 149,420 units of passenger vehicles a year. That grew to 172,504 in 2017 and 210,200 in 2018. By 2019, the company was selling almost 100,000 units more than what it did in 2016 to close at 231,572. However, 2020 was a lacklustre year as vehicle purchases across the country fell significantly on the back of poor credit and the Covid-19 crisis.After the company began sales in May 2020, it clocked well over 21,000 units every month. Last year, Tata Motors sold 222,025 units despite much of April and May not seeing any sales due to the nationwide lockdown. It also helped that an ongoing resentment against China as a result of the border skirmishes in 2020 led to a push for more domestic products. Tata Motors meanwhile unleashed a digital campaign, Atmanirbharta by Tata Motors, highlighting localisation in the companys products.The journey of winning back our market share has been on the back of a long-term strategy, which took into consideration the changing market trends, in terms of changing customer preferences, segmental shifts, regulatory changes, and technology shifts, Chandra told Forbes India. That also meant understanding the key differentiating pillars and a renewal of the product portfolio to become future-ready. There was also a shift in our focus towards world-class quality in product development and manufacturing systems. Among others, the company also began offering world-class brands and components such as JBL or Harmen in its vehicles.In 2018, the companys hatchback, Tata Nexon, became the first made-in-India, sold-in-India car to achieve Global NCAPs coveted five-star crash test rating. That was followed by the Altroz, which in 2020 became the second car from the Tata Motors stable to win five stars in the ratings.The genesis of the repeated success in meeting global safety norms lies in the groundworks that the company laid out in 1998, Rajendra Petkar, the chief technology officer at Tata Motors had told Forbes India earlier. If you look at it, its not that we made some structural changes in the past few years, Petkar had said. It dates back to the time of the Tata Indica in 1997. Tata Motors was the first Indian manufacturer to invest in a crash test facility in 1997, a time when there were no crash-testing benchmarks in India.Yet, none of that would have worked had it not been for the rethinking of the companys rather tasteful designs, helmed by Pratap Bose who has now left the company after 14 years. Introduced in January 2018. Impact Design 2.0 is a sharper, more contemporary expression of Tata Motors Design language, which immediately captures the attention of the customers, says Chandra.Then, last July, Tata Motors upgraded its flagship SUV, the Harrier, giving it more power as part of the companys plan to meet Indias environmental norms. The Nexon too got a facelift and an engine upgrade. Our strong comeback in FY21 and reclaiming our 3rd rank has been on the back of unleashing the full potential of every product in our portfolio, Chandra says. Re-imagining the front end has created a strong foundation entailing robust channel health and engagement. The Tata brand is also witnessing a jump in terms of, awareness and consideration. There has been a fostering of a culture that focuses on retail, and bringing end-to-end value-chain alignment and systematic micro-market actions.This will go a long way in roping in more buyers, especially across various price points. At the downstream side, Tata Motors has been upping its ante with simplification and digitising of customer journeys and by offering an array of financing options with low EMIs, longer tenures, and up to 100 percent on-road funding, says Harshvardhan Sharma, the head of automotive retail practice at Nomura Research Institute Consulting & Solutions. This means that now Tata Dealers have products starting from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, so effectively theres a car for everyone, making the mix sustainable for dealers.It also helps that most of the current models have 10 to 14 variants, which allows for a choice for the buyer at every Rs 20,000 mark. Whats even remarkable is that average selling price has been growing and tactical offers (discounts) have come down significantly, indicating a shift to value-based selling instead of price point-based approach, adds Sharma.All that only means the brand has now returned to being among the top considerations while making a purchase. Five years ago, the brand had very little recall value, says Gupta of HIS Markit. Many had stopped considering it while purchasing vehicles. But there were a lot of changes to the process that were made in addition to ensuring quality. Tata Motors also kept refurbishing their dealer network, bringing in new energy. Today, there is no doubt that the company is among the real frontrunners in the passenger vehicle market.Of course, the lessons from the past decades have a significant role in what lies ahead.To begin with, the company will certainly have to ensure it doesnt lose its share of personal buyers once again, in addition to continuing to churn out products that can excite the market. Among others, future launches from the Tata stable include the Tata HBX, codenamed Hornbill, a new micro-SUV, apart from electric variants of its popular models including the Altroz. In February, the company had launched its iconic Safari, which sits above the Harrier.Tata Motors is a classic turnaround story, one of an Indian brand that not only survived but thrived among the behemoths of auto industry globally, adds Sharma of Nomura. The strategy of expanding their portfolio and faster time to market seems to have worked well combined with gains from focusing on customer-centricity and cost rationalisation.That was something, that was certainly missing earlier. We did not even address 50 percent of the market because we had no product, Guenter had told Forbes India. We invited the competition to take our space, and it had nothing to do with changes in the regulatory environment. It was just our inability to take quick actions and translate changes into a proper product. That meant, with the company losing out on the domestic market between 2006 and 2017, and profits taking a serious hit, its suppliers and dealers too were being hit hard by sluggish sales. That also brought with it some serious domino effect of heavy discounting that was followed by a vicious cycle of even more profit erosion. An even greater concern was that the majority of sales were attributed to the fleet segment which, as most OEMs would agree, is a taxing segment to operate in, says Sharma.Meanwhile, Chandra who took charge last May, reckons the carmaker, with its current portfolio of six vehicles, is already doing much better than many of its rivals who have eight or nine products in their portfolio in the domestic passenger vehicle market. With five or six products we are doing much better than players with the 8-9 products and in an addressable market which would be between 50-55 percent of the total industry volume (TIV), Chandra says.All that has meant that the company is on a reasonably strong footing now, compared to a few years ago. During the January-March quarter of FY21, it posted a net profit of Rs 1,646 crore on a standalone basis, as against a loss of Rs 4,871 crore in the year ago period. Revenues on a standalone basis more than doubled to Rs 20,045 crore during the same period. Passenger vehicle absolute Ebitda is the highest in last 10 years, the company said while announcing its results. Cash savings of Rs 9,300 crore was delivered against a target of Rs 6,000 crore.JLR's restructuring efforts and its solid growth in China, as well as the recovery in other key markets such as Europe and North America over the coming quarters, will improve its profits and leverage, Moodys said in its May report. Success from new product launches earlier this year such as The New Safari and HBX expected to be launched later in 2021 along with its other products such as Altroz, Nexon, Harrier and its variants constitute a wide offering across hatchback, sedans and SUVs, which should help TML to further strengthen its market position.The company is now looking to hive off its passenger vehicle business into a separate subsidiary to look at partnerships and alliances as it looks to its next phase of growth in the new decade. The subsidiarisation process is currently ongoing and expected to complete over the next few months. It will enable PV business to explore and forge mutually beneficial strategic alliances for access to products, architectures, powertrains, new-age technologies, and capital, says Chandra. While securing a mutually beneficial alliance is a priority, it is not an imperative for today but an opportunity to be secured for tomorrow.Now, as the Covid-19 crisis rampages through, Chandra and Tata Motors know its not an easy task to sustain the turnaround. Going forward, our strategy will be to ensure the strengthening of our product portfolio in terms of competitiveness, and a comprehensive set of powertrain and technology options, says Chandra. That means further enhancing the portfolio towards a higher addressable market, including strengthening the SUV portfolio. Then, there is also a focus on the electric vehicle business, which Tata Motors sees as a considerable play in the future. Already, the Nexons electric variant has leapfrogged to one of Indias top electric vehicle models.The last decade and this decade are different, Chandra says. This is the most difficult decade for the industry with multiple transformations with technology, safety, and climate changes driving the changes. That would mean further investment and one needs to manage the investments carefully. At the same time, the market is ruthless in terms of what the consumer wants to buy. We want to get into the double-digit zone of market growth, Chandra says. In the next 6-7 years, differentiating ourselves on safety, design, and driving pleasure will be a priority. We have not unleashed our full potential, and we are one of the manufacturers with the highest levels of pending orders, which means the potential is huge.The rough tide has passed. Tata Motors has managed to stay afloat and anchor itself well. Now for the smooth sailing.
|
https://www.forbesindia.com/article/take-one-big-story-of-the-day/how-tata-motors-became-indias-thirdlargest-carmaker/68297/1
|
Can the Worlds Best Rum Convince Me Rum Tastes Good?
|
If youre one of those people who buy wine or spirits based on how many shiny medals are on the label (no judgement here), then this is the ultimate get: the worlds best rum. Now Im a big fan of adding rum to cakes, especially fruit cakes and any festive baking. But Im not a massive fan of it as a drink whiskey is my favourite child. But when you tell me youve made the worlds best rum then of course Im going to give it a crack. Australian distillery Mt Uncle was awarded that very title at the 2021 World Rum Awards for its Fnq Rum Co Iridium. How to make a Dark and Stormy rum cocktail What youll need: 60mL Fnq Rum Co Iridium (aka the worlds best rum) 90mL ginger beer Juice of half a lime Directions: Get yourself a nice glass (because cocktails taste better in a posh glass), the short style is best. Pour the lime juice, rum and ginger beer (dont skimp here, use the good stuff) over a large ice cube and give it all a stir. Thats it. If you want to dress it up a bit you can add a slice of lime to the rim of the glass. Now I got four cocktails out of one 375mL bottle of Bundaberg ginger beer, so perfect if you have a friend (or a few) over. Its an incredibly easy cocktail to drink. You could guzzle it down, but its best to take your time and savour the flavour of the worlds best rum. If you tend to avoid super sweet cocktails like I do (I dont want lolly water with my booze, thanks) then this is the perfect cocktail for you. The balance of alcohol, tartness and a little bit of sugar from the ginger beer is delightful. It would be ideal for an Aussie Christmas party, with some fresh prawns, slice ham, salad and a slice of pudding. Yum yum and cheers!
|
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2021/06/real-life-review-worlds-best-rum/
|
How Hurela Wigs Make Modern Life More Beautiful And Joyful?
|
Throughout history a wig has been used as a status symbol, one early wig-making technique was to use goatskin to simulate a skull and hook hair into it with an embroidery needle. Today animal skin is no longer used but some big wigs used natural hairs. These days hair wigs could be synthetic but they can look so real. To make a custom wig the wig maker measures the clients head because different clients have different shapes and sizes. The wig is real or synthetic hair worn on the head disguises baldness for cultural and regional reasons for fashion or by actors to help them better resemble the character they are portraying. Wig can be defined in different types and different forms as required in this modern world. In modern times wigs are necessary to make yourself confident and look beautiful. It develops personality when you have one on your head. Many companies provide different kinds of wigs. Hurela is one of the best companies to provide different kinds of wigs with natural hair, synthetic hair, and different kinds of Colour shapes and sizes. Some Hair Products By Hurela 134 lace wig is one of the most demanded wigs among the hair wig where 13 means lace from left to right are 13 inches long and cover ear to ear and 4 inches long from your forehead to back. This type of wig is considered a 134 lace frontal wig because lace is in the front. It allows you to do hairstyle anywhere within those 13 inches across and those 4 inches back. A unit like this will require the type of adhesive whether its glue or whether its just some type of adhesive that is going to hold this unit down to your skin and allow a flawless natural look by 134 lace frontal wigs. Cheap human hair wigs, this type of wigs are commonly known as human hair wigs which are popular due to there was broad variety and used cheap lace front wigs come in different shape and sizes, there are categories according to use like human hair weaves and bundle with closer and according to their densities cheap wigs human hair wigs based on the density too, Hurela provides natural hairs with high quality and best with his strength. Hurela human hair weave is one of the types of hair wigs provided by Hurela with different texture and hair length. Hurela also provides natural colors with different patterns and a vast section of looks and texture. Conclusion Human hair wigs are an important part of todays modern life which affects the look and personality of a person. Hurela plays an important role in human hair wigs companies which provide the best hair wig among them with different categories and sizes. Hurela is a leading hair wig company to provide high strength and best product in the market with huge discount and hot deals going on online store. Hair wigs make someones life more beautiful and joyful.
|
https://wheon.com/how-hurela-wigs-make-modern-life-more-beautiful-and-joyful/
|
What Should Entrepreneurs Know In Order To Attract Private Equity Or Venture Capital Investments?
|
ARTICLE To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. On 20 May 2021 Schoenherr together with Romanian Business Leaders organised the "M&A | why do it now?" webinar. The event focused on trends in dealmaking in Romania and the region, and targeted entrepreneurs interested in attracting private equity (PE) or venture capital (VC) investments. The panel discussion was moderated by Claudiu Vrnceanu, Project Manager, Scale Out, and the speakers were: Markus Piuk, Partner, Schoenherr; Mdlina Neagu, Partner, Schoenherr; Bartosz Kwiatkowski, Vice President, Enterprise Investors; Stefan Kalteis, Founder & CEO, Kailuana GmbH; and Iulian Crciumaru, Managing Partner, V7 Capital. The speakers agreed that this is a good moment for founders to attract investments as both the investors' interest and necessary funds are available. "We see an active interest from both strategic investors and from PE and VC investors on the market. And on the other hand, we see more and more entrepreneurs ready to raise funds and to team up with these investors." said Claudiu Vrnceanu at the opening of the event. Some markets are more appealing than others for investors, and Bartosz Kwiatkowski mentions e-commerce as a booming sector that his fund is particularly interested in at the moment. But regardless the sector, PE and VC funds look for particular features in target companies that founders should be aware of when preparing to attract investments. According to Bartosz Kwiatkowski, Enterprise Investors is looking for "companies that can somehow differentiate themselves from others" and he adds that "the management team is also very-very important." And that does not apply only to the current management team, as "founders should be aware that if they plan to sell their business and step down, they need to prepare a second line of managers." added Bartosz Kwiatkowski. V7 Capital, says Iulian Crciumaru, is ready to deploy capital with "companies whose business models have an element of innovation". He adds that the fund is also interested in companies that look at internationalisation but advises the founders to consider having "a scalable business model in order for their companies to be ready to address international markets." Talking about the way the pandemic has impacted the current M&A landscape, Mdlina Neagu said that things are actually very far from the dark scenarios anticipated a year ago. She pointed out that: "we actually see little distressed M&A, but rather consolidation of businesses and new acquisitions." As the two Schoenherr lawyers mentioned, the actual dealmaking has not changed that much in terms of structure, except for more attention being paid to some clauses that are now experiencing a "sudden revival", as Markus Piuk puts it, talking for instance about force majeure provisions. What has changed are the communication channels: "everything is done remotely now, with just about no physical meetings, and entire transactions are run purely remotely. And it works." added Markus Piuk. The speakers also talked about key negotiation points and frequent deal breakers, as well as how entrepreneurs can prepare to attract PE or VC investments. "It all comes down to having the house in order, and this mostly boils down to good corporate governance." said Mdlina Neagu, who added that "if you are, for example, in the tech business, you should know that intellectual property rights are something a buyer would look at from all angles." But the paperwork is not all to consider, and Stefan Kalteis, an experienced investor and entrepreneur, says it is very important for founders to make sure they are well prepared before starting to negotiate with an investor. "The legal due diligence is a good tool for investors to get a confirmation of their investment decision, but this decision is already made before that stage. Founders need to prepare for the commercial discussions with the investor, they need to take the time to understand what the buyer is interested in and to get ready for that." The speakers also discussed changes in the investors' landscape, and Markus Piuk described what SPACs are and how we might expect them to change M&A deals in the future. The Romanian Business Leaders Foundation is a community of Romanian entrepreneurs, managers and professionals from various fields. What unites the community is the desire to contribute to the public good beyond the interests of a company, industry or field. Romania and its people will benefit from this. The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
|
https://www.mondaq.com:443/corporate-governance/1074922/what-should-entrepreneurs-know-in-order-to-attract-private-equity-or-venture-capital-investments
|
Should we be forced to see more Canadian content on TikTok and YouTube?
|
Imagine scrolling through your newsfeed or vising YouTube and suddenly seeing a lot more Canadian content than you did before content you werent used to seeing or even wanting to see. Canadas law-makers are debating a bill that could make this happen. Much of the controversy about Bill C-10 thus far has been about its potential to bring user-generated content on sites like Instagram and YouTube under the regulatory thumb of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). But the bill poses a more serious threat on another front. It will enable the CRTC to force platforms like YouTube and TikTok to make Canadian content more discoverable by promoting it over other content. Some fear this could skew search results, the content we stream and what comes across on our feeds, jeopardizing the open and global nature of the internet. The government says its constitutional. I join other lawyers and law scholars in saying thats wrong the change would violate both our right to freedom of expression and the right of a site like YouTube itself. Courts in Canada and around the world have long held that search index results can be forms of expression that can engage the right to free speech. Large platforms like YouTube and TikTok show us content based in part on our consumption patterns. In this way, the platforms converse with us. YouTube asks me: What sort of stuff are you interested in? and I respond by clicking on certain thumbnails and not others, forming a pattern. YouTubes curated response constitutes an implied statement: if you like tech reviews, check this out as well The conversation on some platforms can often get stale, like Googles notorious filter bubble or Spotify and the blandness of so many similar recommendations. Or, as some have noted, it can lead, on a site like YouTube, down rabbit holes of more extreme or fringe content. Yet, for most people, most of the time, the curation that big platforms offer is a service that until now, we have been free to enjoy. And to work well, YouTube and other sites have to be free to show content from anywhere in the world. (Shutterstock) Bill C-10s needless interruption Bill C-10 would disrupt this conversation by forcing YouTube, TikTok and other sites to show me not more of what I like wherever on the web it might come from but more of what I like that happens to be Canadian. This would be a serious intrusion on our conversation. It would affect not only sites like YouTubes freedom of expression, but also mine. Canadian courts have held that the constitutional right to free speech includes not only the freedom to say something but also the freedom to hear it. Thirty years ago, when the Broadcast Act was last amended, the government may have been justified in forcing Canadian content on creators and audiences alike. There was a real fear that without propping up our own content, we would be overwhelmed by Hollywood and content coming out of the United States. But in the age of the internet, digital diets are more diverse, and Canadian creators are just fine without Ottawas help. A recent study from Ryerson University found some 40,000 Canadians earn income from YouTube, with many earning a living from it as leading creators. Some argue that Indigenous and French-Canadian creators still need protection and support from Ottawa, and that in their case, the need is pressing enough to justify these limits. Courts will make the final decision, and much depends on how the CRTC chooses to exercise its new powers. But its hard to see how the two goals can be reconciled: favouring Canadian content and preserving the open and global nature of the web. The government should abandon its nationalistic content promotion plans as bad policy that is likely unconstitutional. And I say this for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that YouTubes single most popular tech reviewer happens to be Canadian.
|
https://theconversation.com/should-we-be-forced-to-see-more-canadian-content-on-tiktok-and-youtube-161318
|
How to Play WhatsApp Voice Note at 1.5x/2x speed?
|
It has become the tradition of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp to come up with amazing and handy features for its users. Recently, the popular messaging platform WhatsApp launched an update after which the users will be able to adjust the playback speed of voice notes both in iOS and Android platforms. In addition to that, the latest update is also available on the WhatsApp Web version. However, WhatsApp already rolled out the playback speed option on voice notes for beta users last month. Earlier, the feature was launched only for limited users in order to avoid server congestion, but it has now been made available to all users. The new playback speed option enables users to change the speed of voice notes ranging from 1x to 1.5x and 2x speeds. The latest playback speed feature is particularly useful for those if youve received a voice note that lasts has a long duration, but you dont have time to listen to it in peace. Point to Remember: One thing you must remember is that the latest feature is only available for WhatsApp version 2.21.9.15 for Android and WhatsApp version 2.21.100 for iOS. On the other hand, for desktop users, the new feature is rolled out on Web version 2.119.6. The latest Android version on which you can access the new playback speed update is mentioned above in the given image. Launch WhatsApp on your phone, and click on the three dots at the top right corner of the screen. Now from the sliding menu, click on the Settings option. From the settings menu, now click on the Help option as illustrated in the image. Afterward, tap on the App info and the Whastapp version will reveal. For Desktop Users: In order to check your WhatsApp web version, visit web.whatsapp.com. Now after logging in, click on the three dots above the chat heads and visit the settings menu from the slider. Afterward, from the settings menu, click on help and your WhatsApp web version will reveal as illustrated in the image. If you are not seeing the version mentioned above, and operating on an older version of WhatsApp as you can see in the given image, then we can guide you to fix that problem. There is a possibility that you may have turned off the auto-update feature due to which your version of WhatsApp is not updated. But you dont need to worry as some simple steps can resolve your problem. Just Visit the play store on your phone, and search for WhatsApp. If your phone happens to support the update then an Update; option will already available as you can see in the given image. After updating WhatsApp to the latest version, now we move on to the main guide. So, heres how the new playback speed toggle for voice notes works. First, open a WhatsApp chat in which you have received any voice note. Now play the voice note, and automatically 1x option will appear on the right side of the voice note in place of the senders display picture as you can see in the given image. If you want to change the playback speed, click on 1x and the speed will be changed to 1.5x as illustrated in the image. Then again, if you want to further speed up the voice note, click on 1,5x and it will be automatically converted to 2x speed. For iOS: Similarly, if you want to access the latest playback speed feature of WhatsApp for iOS, you will first need to check for the update. If its not updated to the latest version, then you can visit the App store to do it. After updating the app, you can follow the same manual for adjusting playback speeds as mentioned above. Video Demonstration: The video demonstration will allow you to quickly learn about how to adjust the playback speed of the voice note at 1x, 1.5x, and 2x. Feedback from celebrities: A few celebrities also turned to social media to share their thoughts about the new update of WhatsApp. Famous drama star Ushna Shah shared her thoughts and said that the voice-note fast forward feature is a blessing. Conclusion: The afore-mentioned guide is made after hours of research. If you find this guide helpful or have any queries regarding it, do share them in the comment section! WhatsApp Will Not Limit Features for Users who Havent Accepted New Privacy Policy
|
https://www.phoneworld.com.pk/how-to-play-whatsapp-voice-note-at-1-5x-2x-speed/
|
Will Samsung Replace Bixby with 3D assistant named Sam?
|
Many rumors are circulating on the internet and social media platforms about the replacement of the Samsung Bixby assistant. One of the rumors came from a reliable source, a Twitter user who handles Tech Agent. According to him, the upcoming assistant is very beautiful. The name of the new assistant is SAM and it is designed by a visual production firm, Lightfam. Ligthfam has released many renders and photos of the assistant which further confirms Samsungs plans regarding launching a new assistant. Sam- The New Assistant in Town While it is confirmed that Samsung is working on bringing a new assistant, whether it will be the replacement of Bixby or not, is still unknown. While telling about Sam, the assistant, Lightfam said: Throughout the process, the team devoted itself to developing realistic materials, mainly for the characters hair and clothing, so that Sam appeared aesthetically pleasing. Sam was an incredible partnership between the Cheil Agency and Lightfarm, and we are thrilled to be part of this project! Samsungs first phone to have a personal assistant S Voice was Galaxy S III and it was included on May 30th, 2012. S voices final version was included on August 18, 2017. Bixby was debuted on April 21st, 2017, however, it was delayed. While Samsung has not shared its plans regarding digital assistants, but if Sam s legit, it would definitely be the top digital helper. Also Read: Google Assistant Replaces Dialogue Balloon having dull text with large bolded print
|
https://www.phoneworld.com.pk/will-samsung-replace-bixby-with-3d-assistant-named-sam/
|
Is Surveillance The Solution To A Better Connection With Staff?
|
ARTICLE To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that one of the biggest challenges of lockdown was how to stay connected to family, friends and colleagues. At work, we all had a part to play in keeping in touch with our colleagues, checking in on their well-being, keeping one other motivated and inventing novel ways to work together. As employers start planning for the future of work, there is a general expectation that most employees will prefer to work remotely for all or part of the working week, on a permanent basis, aka 'hybrid working'. The challenge of staying connected will therefore continue. Business leaders will need to think creatively about how best to manage such flexible arrangements so they can continue to motivate, train and supervise staff and maintain a positive work culture, with staff wellbeing, collaboration and productivity also high on the agenda. Some employers are asking whether surveillance technology has a part to play in their planning. This is a grey area which needs careful thought. The boundaries are even more blurred. Surveillance and monitoring is not a new issue. Rather, the technology has developed to allow more innovative ways to survey, monitor and track employees. For many, the idea of cameras and scanning software installed on home computers to monitor employee whereabouts and measure productivity is a step too far, an invasion of privacy and overstepping personal boundaries. Recent examples show the limitations on employers trying to stay connected with their employees in this way, calling into question whether surveillance does more harm than good. In 2020, Barclays faced a backlash from employees when it upgraded the Sapience software in its banking investment division, to track staff movements and how they spent their time at work, sending warnings to staff who spent too long on breaks. The pilot system was swiftly scrapped following staff complaints and Barclays was investigated by Britain's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, to see if they had breached privacy laws. In March this year, the French company, Teleperformance, came under fire for introducing software in its call centres which it states is for collaboration purposes (meetings, training sessions, scheduled calls) but staff felt was too much like 'big brother'. In short the surveillance kit monitors and tracks real time behaviour and detects any violations to pre-set business rules. Too much time away from the computer is logged and reported to the employee's manager. Another feature is a home webcam which recognises the user's face, tags their location and scans for breaches of rules at random times during the day. A photo is then taken and stored as evidence of a breach of the rules. Whilst its purpose may be to stay better connected to its employees, not surprisingly it has been widely reported that staff feel they are being spied on. To have your employer see into your bedroom, kitchen or study on a scheduled zoom call is one thing (something most of us have got used to over the last 12 months) but to have a camera fitted to allow for random checks is not the same. Some employers will already routinely monitor Internet use and intercept employee emails when appropriate to do so, in line with their company polices. They may already have software in place to track the date, time, duration and names of Internet sites visited, the number of clicks on each site and the total time spent Internet browsing. Other employers, where justified, might go a step further and use software to track unusual behaviour and/or possible misconduct, to assist in the investigation of disputes (such as customer complaints in call centres), or to comply with legal or regulatory obligations. Employers will need to weigh up the negatives and the positives and ultimately have answers for employees who will question the true motives for introducing more intrusive software. There is little doubt that although increased employee surveillance may have a role to play in some sectors, most employees will say they feel less trusted and unnecessarily managed if it is introduced. In a year when many employees have been trusted to get on with their jobs, employers will want to strike a balance so as not to undermine that trust whilst effectively staying connected with their employees. Originally published 7 May 2021. The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
|
https://www.mondaq.com:443/uk/privacy-protection/1072908/is-surveillance-the-solution-to-a-better-connection-with-staff
|
How many goals will Osimhen score for Napoli next season?
|
Goal readers have had their say on the number of goals the striker will contribute for the Parthenopeans in next seasons Serie A campaign Victor Osimhen will score between 15 and 20 goals for Napoli during the 2021-22 Serie A campaign, according to the majority vote conducted by Goal readers. The Nigeria international was highly impressive during his stint at Belgiums Royal Charleroi as he managed 36 goals in 37 appearances, which earned him a 14m (13m/$17m) move to Lille in 2019. His imposing form continued in Ligue 1 as he found the net on 18 occasions in 38 appearances for the Stade Pierre-Mauroy giants. That fuelled his move to Naples in a deal reported to be worth 50 million (45m/$59m) a year later. In his maiden season at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Osimhen scored 10 goals in 29 appearances across all competitions. As his Italian outfit look to begin life without Gennaro Gattuso next term, we asked our readers how many goals the Super Eagles star would turn in for Luciano Spallettis side. Goal Africa (@GoalAfrica) May 31, 2021 In a poll conducted on the Goal Africa Twitter handle, a tiny 3.2 percent of total votes cast claimed Osimhen would score a maximum of seven goals for Napoli. This is understandable because he scored seven times in his first full season in Europe. In the last three seasons, the striker has scored a minimum of 10 goals in a league campaign. Little wonder, 17.9% of voters think the Super Eagle would find the net between eight and 14 times. A huge 43.7% percent of the total votes cast predicted he would score between 15 and 20 goals for the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona giants. Lastly, 35.3% feel he will score at least 21 goals for the Campania-based outfit. Article continues below Plausible as this optimism may sound, this mark looks unlikely having in mind that the 2015 Fifa U17 World Cup winners highest tally ever remains 13 goals a figure he achieved in 2019-2020 at Lille. Spallettis appointment was confirmed on Saturday and Osimhen's agent William D'Avila praised the recruitment of the 62-year-old while backing the 22-year-old to shine under him. It will be great for the team to have a top coach like him [Spalleti]. 4-2-3-1 will be the formation and Victor will be the offensive force, DAvila told Kiss Kiss Napoli.
|
https://www.goal.com/en/news/how-many-goals-will-osimhen-score-for-napoli-next-season/k5s7eelu72ju1vyv5qzqmiwvz
|
Where are the Trumpghazis?
|
Remember that it was the Republican House majority's spurious and endless Benghazi inquiry that uncovered former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email practices. The subsequent drumbeat of stories about a completely inconsequential scandal helped torpedo her favorability numbers and led the media to cover the inquiry to the exclusion of almost any other policy issue in 2016. But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. Her numbers are dropping." McCarthy was even forced to drop his bid to be speaker after admitting to the partisan abuse of power. That was back when there were still some consequences in politics. The news that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance had convened a grand jury in the criminal investigation of the Trump Organization last week was a reminder that the 45th president and his con-artist clique have so far faced almost no consequences for their misdeeds. As the former president, who has done more than any human being alive to imperil American democracy, continues to tease another destructive presidential run in four years, it is long past time for Democrats to launch their own congressional investigations into the malfeasance of the 45th president and his allies, both to reveal the unvarnished truth of what happened under the Trump administration and to help derail Republicans' chances of getting back into power in 2024. Once again Democrats need to emulate their tormentors not by having President Biden illegally strongarm Attorney General Merrick Garland into investigating whatever he asks him to, or by wasting taxpayer time and money on frivolous committee hearings, but by understanding that legitimate congressional investigations will both establish the truth for the record and also likely turn up all kinds of additional damaging information about Trump and his associates. If Trump had overseen a squeaky-clean executive branch, there would be no moral or legal justification to go on these fishing expeditions. But that's obviously not the case. The four years of the Trump administration were among the most spectacularly corrupt in American history, but because Trump installed a smarmy loyalist named William Barr as attorney general in 2019 and shamelessly fired the executive branch's internal watchdogs whenever they made a peep, it all went mostly uninvestigated, or at least unacted upon. It's not just that Barr improperly misled the public about the sprawling Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election it's that, among many other things, he sat on his hands as Trump and his officials engaged in a wide variety of corrupt and abusive tactics. All recent attention has been focused on the (obviously futile) effort to create a bipartisan investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Now that GOP overtures have been proven conclusively hollow, Democrats should simply create "select committees" (those formed to probe something specific, as opposed to "standing committees" like Veterans Affairs) in both chambers of Congress. In particular, those committees should seek to understand the inexplicably slow response of federal authorities to the sacking of the Capitol, what role Trump played in inciting the mob and then delaying reinforcements, and whether any other Trump administration officials or members of Congress aided and abetted the insurrectionists. But they shouldn't stop there. Democrats should form a series of select committees to investigate the administration's crimes and abuses of power. They can start with all the improper taxpayer spending and foreign influence-peddling at Trump-owned properties, including Mar-a-Lago, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and the former president's other private clubs for rich people, where he spent an inordinate amount of time in office. As a Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) report points out, "346 executive branch officials made 993 visits to Trump properties" during his time in office, to say nothing of the 361 visits by 143 members of Congress. Because Trump used the presidency in large part as an integrated marketing opportunity for his holdings, Congress should also look into the illicit use of government offices to build the family's brand. Then there's the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in partisan activity using their official titles or deploying the federal government and its resources for campaign purposes. An October 2020 report from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) alleges that 14 Trump officials violated the Hatch Act more than 50 times, perhaps most egregiously when Trump himself delivered his acceptance speech for the 2020 Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House. Beyond the insurrection itself, Congress should be asking about the full scope of Trump's plot to overturn the 2020 election, including whether improper pressure was applied on state and local officials to interfere with democratic outcomes. A committee would also be the perfect place to ask the Michigan state legislators who traveled to D.C. to meet with Trump two weeks after the election whether the former president or any of his advisors tried to get them to illegally overturn President Biden's victory there. Perhaps no statutory crimes were committed, but it is essential that Democrats keep this conspiracy in the headlines and in the public's consciousness, since the GOP will be running the same playbook in 2024.
|
https://theweek.com/donald-trump/1001043/democrats-trump-investigations
|
What happens when we sell a house with mixed ownership?
|
Q. My wife and I, both seniors, have owned a house in New Jersey since 1988. Ten years ago we bought a house in Florida. I retired, moved to Florida and became a resident there. But my wife works in New Jersey, stays in New Jersey 11 months per year and pays New Jersey tax. I have stayed in the New Jersey home for 24 months during the past five years. Uncertain A. There are two tests one must pass to qualify for the capital gains exemption. In short, you are correct. Your wife qualifies for the exemption, but you do not, said Laurie Wolfe, a certified financial planner and certified public accountant with Peapack Private Wealth Management in New Providence. Heres how the rules work. Taxpayers may exclude from income $250,000 worth of capital gain associated with the sale of their principal, or main residence if they satisfy two tests, Wolfe said. A married couple can exclude up to $500,000, or $250,000 each, she said. The two tests are the ownership and usage tests. First you should determine which home is your main home, Wolfe said. You can only have one. A `facts and circumstance test is used to determine which property is your principal residence, Wolfe said. This would be where you spend the most time, where your doctors are located, where you vote, where you have a drivers license, and more. In the case of you and your wife, your main home is in Florida and your wifes is in New Jersey, she said. We really could stop right here because you indicated that Florida became your main home shortly after 1988, she said. But lets look at the two tests anyway. The first is the ownership test. This test says that you must have owned this home for at least 24 months out of the last five years with the end point being the date of sale, Wolfe said. For a married couple who files a joint return, only one spouse must meet this test. You and your wife meet this first test. The second test is the usage test. You each must have used the home as your residence for at least 24 months of the prior five years, she said. These 24 months can happen anytime within that five-year period. Your wife passes this test and you state that you both satisfy the condition that in the past 60 months, you both have lived in New Jersey for 24 months. So although you both meet the ownership and use tests, the New Jersey home is not your principal, or main, home and therefore, you are ineligible to exclude your half of the gain on the home, Wolfe said. You should consult with a tax professional who can go over the specifics of your situation. Email your questions to [email protected]. Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.coms weekly e-newsletter.
|
https://www.nj.com/news/2021/06/what-happens-when-we-sell-a-house-with-mixed-ownership.html
|
What constitutes an ideal social media policy?
|
Image: Shutterstock For many decades India has not figured out how to deal with traditional media. Governments of the day tend to display a nave realism, unable to appreciate views other than their own, and a thin skin. That is why our 30-year-old experiment with an independent State-funded media Prasar Bharati has not led to the creation of a BBC or NPR, but broadcast entities that are no more independent than they were, say, in the bad old 1970s. Consequently, it is not surprising that the government struggles to come to terms with another form of media, one that offers instant gratification and provides unimaginable reach, potentially to each of the 1.4 billion Indians. The government may have shown less finesse than governments of the past, but then social media is a wholly-different, quickly evolving (and at times devolving) beast. Right from the get-go and this includes the data privacy Bill still being debated by a parliamentary panel the government has sought to appropriate the strength and data of social media. In its latest action, the social media rules set in February, it sought to take virtual control of the platforms, without quite understanding the unique nature of each or the combined strength of Big Tech. It could have also adopted a different approach while trying to break encryption on messaging platforms , like where other western democracies have continued engagement with Big Tech, and set redress mechanisms fully controlled by government with little scope for judicial oversight. Time is ripe to fix things. This seven-year-old government got a handle on the economy after six attempts. There is no reason it cant come to grips with tech sooner. Arming the government with enormous powers is a double-edged sword for any party in power. The next government might just enjoy the fruits, leaving the then Opposition (which could be the current ruling party) shouting from the side lines. History bears this out, especially with regard to control of Doordarshan and All India Radio. Consequently, the first thing the government ought to recognise is this: a government cannot be at the centre of social media management. If this had been the case in the United States, for example, former US President Donald Trump would have taken over Facebook, Twitter and Google, when they banned him for the riots on Capitol Hill, and perhaps even claimed a second term. That he could not likely saved the oldest modern democracy in the world. The largest democracy in the world would do well to pre-empt such an occurrence. While a total lack of control over Big Tech might seem like a recipe for chaos, a wiser course of action would be to set up an independent regulator for social media with parliamentary oversight, rather than government control. Obviously, it cannot be anything like the Prasar Bharati because a majority of appointments to it are controlled by the government. Once the decision on who regulates social media is out of the way, the rest of the puzzle is not particularly difficult to solve. Current disputes mostly relate to freedom of speech, fake news, fair access, platform bans, privacy, which involves both encryption and data mining, and an established grievance redress process. Most of the issues mentioned above have established juridical principles and can be enforced with a suitable mechanism set by the regulator, rather than by the platforms. Some like fake news and encryption require closer and continued engagement with Big Tech fake news, because social media require near-immediate detection and regulation and cannot wait days and weeks for traditional justices wheels to roll, and encryption because it is still debated around the world. Any regulation would also need to consider how fast the platforms are evolving, not to mention newer platforms that could emerge. Technologies are rapidly advancing too. Consider just artificial intelligence and deepfake, each of which poses unique and unforeseen challenges. Constant oversight, and a fast-evolving set of rules, would be necessary, but that would be in the purview of the independent regulator. On its current path, the governments approach to social media most closely resembles that of Russias. Russia, for example, already has established fines for varied violations, such as non-removal of objectionable content. It has already punished Twitter by deliberately slowing down user access to the microblogging site. On the other hand, India has introduced a rule that criminalises certain violations. Russia might get away with its bad boy behaviour; India cannot (must not) because it is a liberal democracy, and ought to remain so.
|
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/opinion/what-constitutes-an-ideal-social-media-policy-6977421.html
|
Have Meghan Markle and Prince Harry already dropped hints about baby girl names they may consider?
|
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had earlier hinted at a few baby girl names they may have liked. Read on to know more. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will soon be welcoming their second child -- a baby girl, in a few weeks time and fans have already started guessing what names they could possibly consider. While Meghan and Harry are far from reacting to these name suggestions, the couple had earlier hinted at a few baby girl names they may have liked. Back in 2019, when the couple was expecting Archie, Meghan and Harry were visiting the town of Birkenhead and heard name suggestions from a group of school children. At the event, a 7-year-old girl named Megan Dudley spoke with the Duchess of Sussex. They both discovered that their friends lovingly call them "Meg". Later, the school girl spoke to the reporters at the event, and said, "I asked her whether she would call her baby Amy if she has a girl, and she said, 'That's a really pretty name, I like it. We'll have to think about it.' " At the same event, Prince Harry showed an interest in the name "Lily". The Duke of Sussex was seen asking a mother how she spelled her daughter's flower-inspired name, reported People. Meghan Markle is reportedly in her last trimester. Last month, bookies began betting on what would Harry and Meghan potentially name their girl child. UK gambling site Ladbrokes began the name predictions and while there are many options, it was narrowed down. Oddsmakers have predicted that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will pay tribute to one royal family member when they pick their daughter's name. One of the top choices that seems to have emerged is Philippa, after Prince Harrys late grandfather, Prince Philip. Click the link below to find out the other names in contention. ALSO READ: Bookies begin name predictions for Prince Harry, Meghan Markle's to be born girl, THESE royals feature in list Share your comment
|
https://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/hollywood/have-meghan-markle-and-prince-harry-already-dropped-hints-about-baby-girl-names-they-may-consider-761370
|
What Tricks do Boxers Use to Keep Mentally Sharp?
|
June 2nd, 2021 There are many ways to define a talented boxer. Not only will this individual require a great deal of prowess in the game, but the overall mental attitude is just as important. Some even believe that mindset is just as important as the physical skills that one brings into the ring. This is why a well-rounded training programme will often involve much more than footwork, coordination and endurance. Some of the most talented boxers are well aware that honing their mental talents is just as relevant. Online Casino Games Online casinos are popular for numerous reasons. However, one lesser-known attraction involves the ability of certain games to enhance mental acuity. This is particularly relevant when discussing specific platforms such as blackjack and video pokies. Players are forced to think fast within real-time scenarios. They will also need to be able to predict the results of a certain action while taking advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. These are some of the same skills which are required within the ring. It is not enough to rely upon strength and endurance alone. On the contrary, the most prolific boxers are able to understand how an opponent may react to a specific strategy. Mohammad Ali was especially gifted in this sense; often psyching out his enemies before the match even began. As a result, he enjoyed an unrivalled mental edge. Learning from the Greats Every boxer tries to emulate certain personalities. Iron Mike Tyson idolised Ali and in turn, younger boxers hold Mike Tyson in high regards. It is also a very common strategy to view the techniques of the greatest icons in the sport so that these very same skills can be adapted to suit the needs of a specific fighter. This is reason why boxers will spend hours upon hours watching their opponents in previous fights before an upcoming match. Knowing When to Say When Professional athletes tend to walk a fine line between productive training sessions and burnout. This is why it is just as crucial to enjoy a bit of much-needed downtime on occasion. Boxers can therefore avoid overtraining while keeping their mental edge. The only problem is that it can be tough to know when to step away from the ring or the gym. Thus, it is important that athletes listen to their coaches in regards to taking a brief hiatus. Knowing when to say when will provide boxers with the rest and recovery required to ascend to the next level (and beyond). Many individuals fail to realise that boxing is a mental sport. Being able to keep a razor-sharp outlook is one of the best ways to defeat the competition. Whether referring to online games or studying the past greats, adopting the correct mindset early on will enable any boxer to enjoy a lucrative and rewarding career.
|
https://www.worldboxingnews.net/2021/06/02/tricks-boxers-use-keep-mentally-sharp/
|
What makes Digital Gold a safe and profitable portfolio diversifier?
|
Digital gold offers investors control over their gold without the risk or inconvenience of ever leaving home. Gold has historically been used as a hedge against inflation, and it continues to be part of the investment portfolio to mitigate financial risks during inflation, economic, social and geopolitical crises. According to the S&P index, gold performed well in 2020, delivering around 27 per cent in return. Ashraf Rizvi, Founder and CEO, Digital Swiss Gold and Gilded, says Gold offers a unique proposition in comparison to other financial assets it tends to move higher when stocks are in steep decline. When investing in gold, experts say investors should look at the spot price of gold; it is the selling and buying price at the time of investing in gold. The spot price is quoted for every gram, ounce or kilo of gold. Gold investments help the investor spread risk that may arise from other assets such as shares, stocks, real estate or currencies that may not perform too well in a given time. Therefore, Rizvi says, adding gold to your portfolio provides the much-needed cushion to your wealth in uncertain times and partially safeguard it from economic stress. Today, owing to COVID-19 restrictions and ensuing lockdown, experts say investors can buy gold digitally, which offers the same and even more cost benefits to the investors. As an investor, you get what you pay for, unlike in Gold jewellery which includes making charges, middlemen commission, storage costs, etc. Even at the time of liquidating it, the investor gets the full market price as no dealer expenses are owing to the digital platform. Digital gold offers investors control over their gold without the risk or inconvenience of ever leaving home. Industry experts say, gold, bought physically or digitally, can act as an insurance policy for the investors wealth. Rizvi says, When the market crashes, if the stocks invested in by the investors are hit badly but he/she has a considerable amount of gold in his/her portfolio, then if gold follows historic trends, its value could rise. This will ensure at least some wealth preservation. The global appeal of gold and international recognition further makes it a lucrative investment option. For instance, in the case of Digital Swiss Gold, Indians can invest in gold saved in Swiss vaults through their app, all while sitting right here in India. The gold offered on the platform can be bought and sold at the current market price. They also help buyers make sound decisions by showing a gold price movement in real-time on their app in both Indian and global currencies. Rizvi says, Looking at the general demand and supply of gold, the worlds gold production has not kept pace with demand for the yellow metal across countries. Therefore, gold will continue to remain a highly valuable and valued asset in the foreseeable future. Its all about making the right investment at the right time, and today, experts say digital gold platforms are offering investors the opportunity to diversify their portfolios to prevent any adverse impact of covid-19 like events on their wealth.
|
https://www.financialexpress.com/money/what-makes-digital-gold-a-safe-and-profitable-portfolio-diversifier/2263616/
|
Is an ARM loan a good idea in 2021?
|
ARMs are on the rise. Adjustable-rate mortgages are getting more popular. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the spike in ARMs is being driven by rising mortgage rates and increasing home prices. Well, ARMs typically have lower interest rates than fixed-rate mortgages at least at first. So home buyers could potentially lower their monthly payments and increase their budgets. But ARMs come with very real risks, too. So its important to understand the pros and the cons before signing on. An ARM is an adjustable-rate mortgage. In other words, its mortgage rate can float up and down in line with the larger interest rate market. That makes an ARM very different from most mortgages, which have fixed interest rates. With a fixed-rate mortgage (FRM), you can be sure that all your monthly payments will be the same over the life of the loan. But with an ARM, you dont have the same guarantee. Your rate could change down the line, and with it, your monthly payment. Lower cost = greater risk The attraction with ARMs is that they typically start with a lower mortgage rate and thus a lower monthly payment than an equivalent FRM. A lower monthly mortgage payment means you can typically afford a bigger loan amount. So in todays market, where real estate prices are rapidly rising and rates look set to increase, ARMs might seem more attractive to some borrowers. For first-time home buyers an ARM might even look like a lifeline. Thats because the lower initial monthly payments could mean they can still afford to buy a home, though perhaps a more modest one than they were dreaming of. However, borrowers who opt for an ARM are shouldering a lot more risk if rates rise later on. That low rate is typically only locked for the first 5-10 years. After that, its possible for your rate and payment to rise to an unaffordable level. Whether or not you should get an ARM depends on two factors: your appetite for risk and your future plans as a homeowner. Your personality and risk management ARMs are inherently riskier than FRMs, because your rate and payment can change. So your choice depends partly on how much risk youre willing to accept as a homeowner. No one can say for certain. Economists are currently divided over what they think will happen to inflation. And if it ends up increasing in a sustained and sharp way, homebuyers with ARMs could end up exposed to a lot of risk. Understanding ARM caps should be central to your risk management strategy. (If youre unfamiliar with ARM caps, theres more information below.) Even if you have the sort of personality with which risk-taking comes naturally, you still need to be aware of just how high your monthly payments could go. And youll want to be sure you could cope if the worst happens. Personal plans Some home buyers who choose an ARM plan to avoid the risk of higher rates altogether. An ARM can be perfectly safe if youre planning on moving or refinancing the mortgage within your initial fixed-rate period. Because youll close the ARM before higher rates can kick in. However, theres always risk of plans changing. A move could be delayed due to family or work plans changing, or unexpected financial troubles. And theres no guarantee a refinance will make sense in the next few years if rates go up, your next home loan will be more expensive in any case. Thats not to say an ARM is always a bad idea. Many home buyers do move before their fixed-rate period ends, and save a lot of money thanks to their ARM choice. But its important to fully understand the risks before choosing this type of loan. Todays ARM rates versus fixed rates Rates for ARMs are traditionally lower than those for FRMs. But the gap narrows and widens over time. And it also depends on the type of mortgage you want. For example, in April 2021, the average rate across all ARM loans was 3.10%, according to ICE Mortgage Technology. The average rate for all fixed-rate mortgages was 3.22%. However, the gap for conventional ARM loans was more attractive: 3.25% for FRMs compared with 2.1% for ARMs. Lets look at what that means in cold, hard dollars. An example in dollars Using The Mortgage Reports mortgage calculator, we modeled the numbers for a $250,000 home with a $50,000 down payment, making the conventional mortgage amount $200,000: Fixed-Rate Mortgage Adjustable-Rate Mortgage Interest Rate 3.25% 2.1% Monthly Principal & Interest Payment $870 $750 Mortgage Interest Paid in 5 Years $31,300 $20,000 That $120 a month difference looks pretty good. It might make the difference between your becoming a homeowner or continuing to rent. Or it may let you buy a nicer, more costly home than otherwise. On the other hand, if youre buying a forever home (or one you plan to stay in at least 10 years), a fixed rate might look more attractive. The payments are a little higher, but theyre guaranteed to stay the same over the life of the loan. And that offers a lot of peace of mind. How ARM rates work Adjustable rate mortgages are more complex than fixed-rate loans. If youre considering one, youl want to understand the ins and outs of how adjustable rates work. Hybrid ARMs An initial fixed rate Nowadays, most ARMs are hybrid ones. That means they come with an initial period when the rate is fixed. Only when that period ends can the rate float up and down. Youll see ARMs advertised with an x/y designation, such as 7/1. The first numeral is the number of years the initial fixed-rate period lasts. And the second number is the frequency with which your lender can adjust the rate after that initial period ends. Perhaps the most common type is the 5/1 ARM. That means the initial fixed-rate period lasts five years. And the /1 means lenders can adjust the rate every one year (annually). Importantly, most ARMs these days have a total loan term of 30 years. That means, for a 5/1 ARM: Your initial interest rate is fixed for 5 years The rate can adjust each year after that for the remaining 25 years Your home is fully paid off at the end of the 30-year loan There are other ARM flavors, too. You might choose from the most popular ones: 3/1, 5/1, 7/1, and 10/1, though you may find others. But the longer your initial period, the higher the mortgage rate youre likely to be offered. ARM caps Today, most ARMs come with caps. These limit the amount your mortgage rate can rise. ARM caps apply in three ways: Limit the amount your rate can rise at the first adjustment Limit the amount your rate can rise with each subsequent rate adjustment Limit the amount your rate can rise over the entire lifetime of your mortgage loan However, such caps are not legally required. So you should check that the ARMs youre offered have these valuable borrower protections. You should also make sure youre comfortable with the level of protection offered. Thanks to the CFPB, your Loan Estimate (another name for the quote lenders must send you) must show the extent of your exposure to risk. Look on the first page of your estimate for this section: Image: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Youll see that, in this example, your initial monthly payment of $910 could shoot up to $1,467 in year eight. That should only happen if other interest rates rise sharply. But they might. If youre not comfortable with the prospect of higher payments, an ARM likely isnt right for you. Most borrowers who choose an ARM have a fixed rate for the first five years. No one can say for certain. The late Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. And he was right. Because anyone who predicts with certainty where mortgage rates will be next week let alone in five years is more than likely to be proved wrong. What we can do is look at whats influencing rates and guess where they might end up. Right now, thats not looking so good. At the moment, the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates artificially low. Most of the rates you pay (including ARMs that are beyond their initial fixed-rate period) are directly linked to the federal funds rate. And thats currently at its all-time low. But many economists fear that were about to experience a bout of higher inflation as the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic gains traction. That would force the Fed to hike its rates causing ARM rates to rise perhaps sharply and for years or decades to come. Yes, weve grown used to uber-low interest rates over the last decade or so. But theyre not normal or guaranteed. And you certainly shouldnt rely on them staying where they are if you go with an ARM. How to decide between a fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgage To sum it up, now is actually a very risky time to buy your forever home using an ARM. Yes, you can refinance to an FRM or another ARM further down the line. But thats not cheap. And theres a good chance both those rates will have risen by then. So, pay close attention to the caps we discussed above that limit your exposure to risk. You should also question how certain you are that youll move home before your initial, fixed-rate period expires, if thats your plan. What you dont want to do is be dazzled by the savings you can initially make with an ARM and ignore all the risks. This is one of those decisions you want to make with due consideration. Your mortgage lender and loan officer can help you decide. But ultimately, only you can answer the question: Is an ARM loan a good idea? Resources for borrowers: If youre considering getting an ARM, you can download a free PDF of the CHARM booklet (Consumer Handbook on Adjustable-Rate Mortgages) from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Its 12 pages long and is packed with essential information. Verify your new rate (Jun 1st, 2021)
|
https://themortgagereports.com/76818/arm-loan-good-idea-today
|
How Much Do Retired Britons Need For A Comfortable Lifestyle?
|
Retired Britons need a hefty income to enjoy life and pay the bills according to the UKs leading consumer group. A married couple would need to save a private pension pot worth 154,700 and a single person who would only get one state pension and no personal income tax break would need to save 192,290. -- ADVERTISEMENT -- This would cover household bills, some short haul flights, alcohol and donations to charities. Those seeking the finer things in life in retirement s, such as expensive meals, long haul flights and a new car every five years, would need incomes of 41,000 or 31,000 per annum. Did its calculations based on people investing their pension at 65 and drawing on it for decades, with investment growth of 3 percent, inflation at one percent and charges of 0.75 percent. surveyed nearly 7,000 retired people members of the consumer group. At the start of this year, the British state pension rose by just 4.40 per week, the smallest rise possible allowed by legislation. The increase meant that new pensions rose from 175.20 to 179.60 per week, an increase of just 228.80 per year. However, the old basic-rate state pension rose by 3.40 per week from 134.25 to 137.65. Under current rules, pensions rise every year by the highest of prices, earnings or by 2.5 per cent. With earnings reduced by coronavirus and prices rising just 0.5 per cent, that meant the 2.5 per cent figure was used to set pensions in 2021. The Euro Weekly News is running a campaign to help reunite Brits in Spain with their family and friends by capping the costs of PCR tests for travel. Please help us urge the government to cap costs at http://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/04/16/ewn-champions-the-rights-of-brits-in-spain-to-see-loved-ones-again/ Thank you for reading, and dont forget to check The Euro Weekly News for all your up-to-date local and international news stories.
|
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/06/02/how-much-do-retired-britons-need-for-a-comfortable-lifestyle/
|
Did Tammy Taylor Nails SA lie about their good relationship with US company?
|
Ina Opperman A number of South African women paid R345 000 for Tammy Taylor Nails franchises that never materialised, leading to The National Consumer Commission investigating the company. It seems not, even after claiming in a recent press release that its relationship with the US mother company is intact. Notice of intent to terminate license agreement According to a letter dated 18 February 2021, from the mother companys lawyers, Tammy Taylor USA had given notice of intent to terminate its license agreement with Melany and Peet Viljoen who operated the South African company. In their letter, the Californian license holder gave the Viljoens 30 days to cure their default, failing which the license would be immediately terminated. The mother company sent this letter to one of the women who had complained to them, as evidence that it was intent on ending its relationship with the Viljoens. ALSO READ: Its an African thing: Tammy Taylor Nails responds to misleading statements Tammy Taylor SA press release muddies the water After they were questioned about this letter, Tammy Taylor Nails SA responded in a press release that its most recent communication with Tammy Taylor USA received on the 4th of May 2021 confirms the continuation of a Distribution Agreement between the two parties. Tammy Taylor SA is the sole and exclusive distributor of Tammy Taylor USAs products for the African and Australian continents. An excerpt from the above communication has been attached to this statement and the original document will remain available at Tammy Taylor Nails South Africa headquarters for perusal, the press release read. Redacted letter A heavily redacted letter from the lawyers of the mother company to the Viljoens lawyer is then attached, with only one paragraph showing that reads: As you know, the Distribution Agreement, more completely entitled, the International Distribution Agreement, was entered into between our clients on April 11, 2017. Subject to certain terms and conditions, the Distribution Agreement appointed the Viljoens to be TTNs sole and exclusive distributor for the sale of Products within the Territory of Australia and Africa. ALSO READ: Tammy Taylor Nails: empty and broken promises The unredacted letter sent to Tammy Taylor Nails SA However, when copying the letter from Acrobat and pasting the text into Microsoft Word, the redacted part became visible and it paints a completely different picture. It reads: Given the recent termination of the License Agreement, this letter is solely addressed to the Distribution Agreement between my client, Tammy Taylor Nails Inc., a California corporation (TTN), on the one hand, and your clients, Melany and Peet Viljoen (the Viljoens) on the other hand (the Distribution Agreement). On behalf of TTN I initially wrote you about the Distribution Agreement on April 30, 2021. This letter follows up that earlier communication. As you know, the Distribution Agreement, more completely entitled, the International Distribution Agreement, was entered into between our clients on April 11, 2017. Subject to certain terms and conditions, the Distribution Agreement appointed the Viljoens to be TTNs sole and exclusive distributor for the sale of Products within the Territory of Australia and Africa. One of the conditions of the Distribution Agreement is that the Viljoens maintain and furnish to TTN on request, complete, accurate and current business records regarding the distributorship, including but not limited to detailed records on all Product sales and detailed information regarding names and addresses of all customers. This is all specified in paragraph 4e. On April 30, 2021, TTN made such request on the Viljoens, requesting that the information sought be provided on or before May 10, 2021. It is not known what else is contained in the rest of the letter, but it does seem to confirm that the license agreement has in fact been finally terminated. The exact status of the distribution agreement however remains unclear. ALSO READ: Tammy Taylor Nails franchise story goes horribly wrong for SA owners Cease and desist letter to the Viljoens The letters to the Viljoens were sent on to the woman who complained by Yiza Malave, director of international relations at Tammy Taylor Nails USA, who said in her letter that It has proven necessary to give 30 days notice to terminate the Master License Agreement between Tammy Taylor Nails, Inc. (TTN) and Melany and Peet Viljoen (the Viljoens), by letter sent by legal counsel. A copy of the letter sent in that regard, dated February 18, 2021, is attached hereto. Absent the Viljoens curing their breach, after 30 days TTN will no longer provide or authorize the Viljoens to sell TTNs products or use its trademarks. According to the letter of 18 February, regarding Termination of Master License Agreement, the lawyer writes that, For the reasons stated below, TTN demands that the Viljoens, their Sublicensees, any and all persons or entities acting under their purview and authority, and any and all others in South Africa, unless given future, express written authority by TTN, hereinafter and forever cease and desist from selling, marketing, using, or otherwise promoting the Products, the Taylor Trademarks, and the Trademark Indicia (collectively, the TTN IP), in South Africa and/or anywhere else in the world. The lawyer states in the letter that the License Agreement gives the mother company the right to audit the books and records of Licensee, including Licensees computer records and tax returns, with respect to the Salons and compliance with this Agreement. He also points out that on or about October 19, 2020, Susan Grueneberg, a lawyer on behalf of TTN, sent the Viljoens a Notice of Audit. Since then, now about four months, no responsive documents have been received. Accordingly, the Viljoens are, and have for some time been, in breach of paragraph 8.1.1. of the License Agreement. Grueneberg said in her letter, sent by email and also supplied by the mother company, that the licensor is conducting an audit and demands that they produce all business and personal records, bank statements, financial statements, tax returns, financial statistics, reports and any other relevant document and data containing true, accurate and complete information on: Gross sales reports for all salons for the past 24 months Product sales to each salon during the past 24 months Copies of all agreements between you and each existing salon and all other salons that have operated during any portion of the past 24 months Any communications from government or regulatory authorities you or the salons have received during the past 24 months Copies of any disclosure documents or other information you provided to salon owners prior to entering into agreements with them Default notices or warning letters or emails sent by you to salon owners Any litigation or other disputes between you and any salon during the past 24 months. This information had to be provided no later than October 30, 2020, which apparently, it was not, prompting the 30-day final demand in February. Judging by the redacted May letter, that demand was also not met, resulting in the termination of Tammy Taylor SAs license. When The Citizen visited the Viljoens at their offices, they told her that the women who appeared in the Carte Blanche programme which initially blew the lid on the situation at Tammy Taylor, had all been refunded. The women on Monday, however, denied that they have been refunded. Various requests for comment to the mother company as well as its lawyers and Tammy Taylor Nails SA went unanswered for almost two weeks. Tammy Taylor Nails SA shows on its website, under giving back, that staff made masks that were handed out to various groups, including the police. The card below seems to allege that even president Cyril Ramaphosa wrote to thank them. The presidency did not answer a request for confirmation.
|
https://citizen.co.za/business/2510458/tammy-taylor-nails-sa-caught-in-a-lie-over-relationship-with-mother-company/
|
Has Public Protector and Ramaphosas relationship gone sour?
|
Siyanda Ndlovu 'The president also promised to meet with all chapter 9 institutions, so we are still waiting with other institutions.' Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane remained silent when asked about her relationship with President Cyril Ramaphosa when speaking to 702s Clement Manyathela on Wednesday. She was asked about her relationship with the president and if Ramaphosa had played a role in getting his executive members to respect the Office of the Public Protector. Mkhwebane answered: I dont know. He should be asked this and what he thinks of the institution. Mkhwebane suggested that tensions between her and Ramaphosa continue. She said Ramaphosa hadnt responded to her emails she sent three years ago asking for a meeting to resolve issues. Mkhwebane has been criticised by Police Minister Bheki Cele, Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe and Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula going so far as calling her a hired gun. Weve written to the president about Minister Mbalula, Minister Cele and Mbalula has repeated his hired gun comments so we have opened a criminal case against him. We have not received any response to the written complaints, said Mkhwebane. The president also promised to meet with all chapter 9 institutions, so we are still waiting with other institutions [to meet him]. On detractors Mkhwebane said she is being persecuted because she has touched the nerves of those who thought they were untouchable. For me to be taken on review there are 16 cases set aside from over 100 reports. If a person who does work like that is incompetent, I dont know what to say. Eight reports have been successfully defended in court. So you are busy following up with the person who is there to help you. So for me to be the first one, it is because I have touched the untouchables. ALSO READ: Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane divides ANC She was referring to a high court case in Pretoria in December which overturned a report by her office finding then minister of finance Pravin Gordhan had irregularly approved the early retirement of former SA Revenue Service (Sars) deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay with benefits in 2010. Mkhwebane and the office of the public protector launched an application for leave to appeal the judgment except for orders favourable to them. I am not a politician Mkhwebane also disputed claims that she was interfering in the work of politics. She said it may look likely that she was interfering but purely because her work was in a political sphere. I am not a politician. But it is the responsibility of everyone, said Mkhwebane. The issue of poverty is politics by saying I am not a politician, I am not, but I operate in a political space. We are supporting constitutional democracy. You cant be a judge or anyone working with the Constitution without understanding what people at grassroots need. Your work needs to empower South Africans, Mkhwebane said.
|
https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/government/2510666/has-public-protector-and-ramaphosas-relationship-gone-sour/
|
Is Jasper Wiese going to be one of the surprise Bok picks?
|
Rudolph Jacobs Along with the Leicester Tigers man the names of the former Sharks players, twins Jean-Luc and Dan du Preez, have also been linked to the Boks. The 45-man Bok squad for the tour by the British and Irish Lions is due to be named on Saturday and Wiese could be one of the new caps named after a number of sterling performances in England where he plays for Leicester Tigers. The first choice loose-trio for the Boks in the opening Lions Test is likely to be kept intact with captain Siya Kolisi and Pieter-Steph du Toit on the flanks and the influential Vermeulen at No 8. The younger brother of former Stormers lock Cobus Wiese, who is also playing in England, Wiese has been mentioned as the likely backup to Vermeulen with his powerful ball-carries and relentless work on defence having caught the eye. Along with Wiese the names of the former Sharks players, twins Jean-Luc and Dan du Preez, have also been linked to the Boks following their strong and physical performances for the Sale Sharks in England. What counts in the favour of this trio of players is that they can all also cover at lock, while Wiese is also very capable to help out at blindside flank with his imposing frame of 110kg and 1.90m in length. ALSO READ: Specmans Bok test run set for old stomping ground Loftus The 25-year-old Wiese came to prominence after joining the Cheetahs shortly after finishing school in Upington. Wiese, who also starred for CUT Ixias in the Varsity Cup, played senior rugby for the Cheetahs from 2017 to 2020 and was a member of the squad which won the Currie Cup in 2019. But everything happened for Wiese when he joined the Tigers. He made his debut against Gloucester after only four days with his new team and immediately impressed with his powerful carrying. He was named Man of the Match by broadcaster BT Sport for his performance against Bath in January 2021 and his performances have drawn comparisons with Vermeulen. In February Wiese scored Leicesters first try in a win against Wasps but he was sent off in the first half for hitting an opponents head with a dangerous ruck clear out and was subsequently banned for four weeks. Now Wiese is on the verge of a first Bok call-up.
|
https://citizen.co.za/sport/2510754/is-jasper-wiese-going-to-be-one-of-the-surprise-bok-picks/
|
Has a fight date been announced for Hasbulla Magomedov vs Abdu Rozik?
|
In recent weeks, Hasbulla Magomedov (aka 'Mini Khabib') has been posting videos of himself training for his upcoming fight with Abdu Rozik. The TikTok star was seen grinding it out in the gym with MMA fighter Asxab Tameav in several viral videos on Twitter. Respect for Abdu but Hasbulla is just on a whole other level https://t.co/sukSn0QINP pic.twitter.com/RhmHI54EpT Hasbulla (@HasbulIah) May 24, 2021 It's no secret that a huge segment of MMA fans will tune in to see Hasbulla, who has turned into a cult hero during the pandemic. But his opponent, Abdu Rozik, will stop at nothing to spoil his popular rival's MMA debut. He, too, is taking the fight seriously, as is shown in the video above. An official date for Hasbulla Magomedov vs Abdu Rozik hasn't been announced yet. MMA fighter Tamaev, who served as a mediator during the viral face-off video, is reportedly putting together the fight. Though fans will have to wait a little longer for an official date announcement, Hasbulla has promised that he will not disappoint his supporters. "No worries guys, the time will come. And I will show you one bombic, spectacular fight. I'm going to break Abdu Rozik," Hasbulla Magomedov said through a subtitled video. A huge segment of MMA fans have been eagerly awaiting the upcoming MMA bout between the two internet personalities. However, Russias Dwarf Athletic Commission criticized social media interests and fanfare surrounding the upcoming fight between Hasbulla Magomedov and Abdu Rozik. Speaking to Russian media outlet Gazeta.ru, Ulyana Podpalnaya, the head of the Russian Dwarf Athletic Association, said: "It's not even like a show fight they get paid a lot of money and its a show to make people laugh. Theres nothing serious about this, this isnt sport. This is unethical, wrong, from my point of view. It seems to me that only on the one hand it can be correct and beautiful if martial arts among small people are made a Paralympic sport. It could be judo, karate, and people will understand that this is a serious sport, serious performances, and not some kind of laughing show." "Events like this dont draw attention to the sport of little people. If interest in this appears, its only because a lot of money is being invested in it. And from the point of view of the sports career growth of these guys, there are no prospects," Podpalnaya added. Please take 30 seconds to answer this survey so that we can better understand how to serve your MMA needs.
|
https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/news-has-fight-date-announced-hasbullah-magomedov-vs-abdu-rozik
|
Which weight division does the Tyron Woodley vs Jake Paul matchup take place in?
|
ESPN's Ariel Helwani recently took to social media to reveal details about the Tyron Woodley vs. Jake Paul boxing match. The Canadian opened up about the weight limit and details about the fighters' apparel. The journalist revealed the matchup will take place at 190 lbs (86 kgs) in professional boxing's cruiserweight division. Tyron Woodleys first pro boxing bout will be contested at 190 pounds and with 10-ounce gloves, sources told @arielhelwani pic.twitter.com/2Cb2UN6OcZ ESPN MMA (@espnmma) June 1, 2021 In addition to the weight limit for the fighters, Helwani also revealed details about their gloves. Woodley and Paul will don 10 oz gloves when they take to the squared circle come August 28th. The former UFC welterweight champion is used to fighting at a championship weight of 170lbs. Therefore, a weight limit of 190 means that Woodley, during his fight camp, will not have to indulge in a laborious weight cut. In a previous interview with Ariel Helwani, Tyron Woodley admitted that he tends to weigh 205lbs outside of his fight camps. This essentially means that 'The Chosen One' goes through an overly aggressive weight cut to ensure that he weighs in at the appropriate weight during his fights in the UFC. Aggressive weight cuts result in issues like fatigue more often than not. However, if Woodley were to fight at 190lbs, the weight cut involved would be much more convenient than what he's used to. It's safe to assume that the version of Tyron Woodley that walks in to face Jake Paul will most likely be a better specimen compared to the one who has accrued a regrettable losing streak in the UFC of late. Also read: 'Woodley's not much different than Askren'- Stephen A. Smith's take on Jake Paul's next fight may split opinion Why Tyron Woodley needs to err on the side of caution Although 'The Chosen One' will walk into the fight with a ton of confidence on his back, he needs to ensure that he does not make the same mistake Ben Askren did, underestimating Jake Paul. While Jake Paul has not fought any boxers of worth, he proved his mettle against a former champion in Ben Askren. Triller Fight Club: Jake Paul v Ben Askren Woodley must also remain wary of Paul's legitimate KO power. 'The Problem Child' has a tally of three wins, all coming by way of TKOs in the early stages of his fights. Tyron Woodley, on the other hand, has suffered four losses on the trot with one coming by way of TKO at the hands of Colby Covington. Let us know in the comments! Also read: "Gotcha soul" - Tyron Woodley confirms boxing match with Jake Paul as date of bout is revealed Please take 30 seconds to answer this survey so that we can better understand how to serve your MMA needs.
|
https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/news-which-weight-division-tyron-woodley-vs-jake-paul-matchup-take-place-in
|
Is Coco Gauff a contender to win Roland Garros 2021?
|
"I don't want to be known as Serena Williams' heir, or Serena Williams' next thing. I just want to be known as Coco Gauff." That was Coco Gauff's answer when she was asked last week about the frequent comparisons between her and Serena Williams. And it was as clear an indication as any that Gauff is ready for the next step in her evolution as a tennis player. The 17-year-old prodigy is not just the new teenage sensation in town anymore. She is also a legitimate contender at most tournaments she enters - and might possibly be one at the ongoing Roland Garros too. Coco Gauff announced herself to the tennis world back in 2019, when she was all of 15. Having won her first WTA main draw match on debut at the 2019 Miami Open, Gauff mapped a remarkable journey to her first tour title at the Linz Open later that year. Juggling school, homework and tennis, the American became the youngest qualifier (15 years and 3 months) to ever reach the main draw of Wimbledon. Gauff has often spoken about how the Williams sisters inspired her to pick up a tennis racket and perform her absolute best whenever she was on court. So when her first main draw match at The Championships ended with a stunning win over Venus Williams, life seem to have come full circle for the talented teen. What followed was an incredible run to the fourth round of the tournament, which made people reconsider the kind of competition players her age can bring to the tour. But now, Coco Gauff is consistently superseding what her young self was capable of doing on a tennis court. She is playing her first Grand Slam as a seed at this years Roland Garros, and is looking every bit the part. Gauff registered some terrific results in the tournaments preceding the French Open this year. A semifinal exit in Rome, followed by a singles and doubles title sweep at the Emilia-Romagna Open in Parma, was the perfect warm-up for the Parisian fortnight. Its worth noting that Coco Gauff's love for clay isn't something new. Gauff was the 2018 Roland Garros girls singles champion; she produced a near flawless run to the final, where she beat good friend and regular doubles partner Caty McNally. Coco Gauff's Roland Garros campaign is off to a solid start Coco Gauff at Roland Garros 2018 Coco Gauff's start to Roland Garros 2021 gave yet more evidence of the fight and mental fortitude she is known for. Strong service games, a destructive backhand and active reflexes at the net - the key facets of her game were on full display in her first-round match against Aleksandra Krunic. After producing some clutch shot-making to save four set points in the first set, Gauff wrapped up a 7-6, 6-4 win over the valiant qualifier to advance to the second round. And in her next match, Gauff will face the same opponent she played 10 days ago. The Roland Garros second rounder will be a repeat of the final in Parma, where Coco Gauff beat Wang Qiang 6-3, 6-1. Wang comes into the match in Paris with an 8-12 win-loss ratio for the year, which is another factor that should give the 17-year-old an edge. Seeded 24th at the tournament, Coco Gauff finds herself in the same quarter as World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty. And although it would be unwise to look too far ahead, fans are eagerly awaiting the potential blockbuster fourth-round clash between the two. Barty is currently leading the tour in match wins and WTA titles for 2021, and is many people's pick to win the title in Paris this year. But Gauff does have the game to pull off an upset. To do that, the American would have to first and foremost serve confidently and accurately. She has been plagued by double faults in the recent past, but her serve can be lethal when she is finding her spots with it. Coco Gauff would also have to trust her dynamic net game and take time away from Ashleigh Barty. Her aim would be to play aggressively and yet keep the error count low, as the Aussie wont give many points for free. Speaking at the pre-tournament press conference earlier this week, Coco Gauff expressed how she was feeling stronger and calmer mentally. "I think I have been playing a lot freer, and I think you can see it while Im on the court," Gauff said. "That's how Im going into this tournament. I just feel like even now when the score is a little bit tough, instead of stressing out I think Im really just enjoying the pressure and enjoying the moment." It is clear that Coco Gauff is enjoying every moment she is on the court. She will now be hoping that she can also do some real damage to the draw while she's enjoying herself, and firmly establish herself as a Slam contender.
|
https://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/is-coco-gauff-contender-win-roland-garros-2021
|
Should everyone be trained in mental health first aid?
|
Mental Health First Aid techniques were first developed in 20 years ago in Australia, but at a time when more people seem to be suffering from poor mental health and the police seem less suited than ever to respond to them, the ideas behind them have never been more relevant. Its the mental health equivalent of CPR: the more likely a certified individual is nearby to intervene, the better the situation will be by the time professional aid arrives. To Mamun Rahman, a public health educator with New York Citys Department of Health who used to teach the eight-hour certification course, the main difference is that the outcome of CPR doesnt depend much on the relationship between whos administering it and whos having the emergency. Mental health CPR does. Rahman breaks it down this way: say someone is experiencing delusions in the middle of the street near where she lives. Shes holding a baseball bat, a crowd is forming, and shes getting increasingly panicked. 911 will be called sooner or later, and either law enforcement or medics will need to calm her down and remove her from the situation. Maybe the neighbor has brought her some groceries before. Maybe hes just a familiar face from the corner store. If someone from within her community is able to help her out until first responders arrive, the outcome is going to be much better.
|
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/mental-health-first-aid
|
Can Andrew Yang save New York City?
|
The good news is that New York will elect a new mayor in November (the primaries happen in June) and the strong favourite is Andrew Yang, a Taiwanese-American tech entrepreneur brimming with original ideas. Last year, Yang ran an eccentric campaign to be president, which centred on his promise to give all Americans a Freedom Dividend, or a universal basic income of $1,000 (725) a month. He didnt get many votes. He did, however, generate a national profile and a youthful fanbase: the #YangGang. He was adept in his use of social media and memes, so much so that he was called the internets favourite candidate. He also intrigued disgruntled Trump supporters as much as millennial progressives, because he talked eloquently about post-industrial problems and the hollowing out of Western economies. Asian-Americans are now persecuted for their success. They are eager to strive Best of all, Yang didnt take himself too seriously. He made jokes about his ethnicity, which came as a blessed relief in the paralysingly PC world of Democratic Party politics. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math was one of his big applause lines. MATH Make America Think Harder became one of his slogans. Yang was too amusing for the White House. He may be better suited to the New York City mayors office. He is a local boy: he grew up in Westchester County, an hour north of the city, then went to Columbia Law School. His wife is from Queens and he lives in Hells Kitchen. He seems genuinely concerned about New Yorks decline and has lots of proposals for bringing the metropolis back to life. He remains a big fan of government stimuli and wants to give New Yorkers cash handouts to help them recover from the pandemic. He has a plan for the transport system and is keen to have a deputy mayor focused entirely on public safety. He wants to create a casino on Governors Island and a peoples bank for the city, plus improve schools and healthcare. His campaign ad promises to revive our incredible culture. If elected, he hopes to put on a massive post-Covid street party across all five boroughs.
|
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/andrew-yang-new-york-mayor
|
Is de werkgever aansprakelijk na verplichte installatie 2FA app op mijn privtelefoon?
|
Stuur je vraag naar [email protected]. Elke week geeft ict-jurist Arnoud Engelfriet in deze rubriek antwoord. Juridische vraag: Mijn werkgever heeft het gebruik van tweefactorauthenticatie verplicht gesteld, en gebruikt daarbij de Microsoft Authenticator app. Alleen, wie geen werktelefoon heeft moet deze maar op de privtelefoon installeren. Ik maak me zorgen over de rechten die deze app heeft (foto's, camera, locatie, contactpersonen en ga zo maar door) en bovendien vraag ik me af of ik mijn werkgever aansprakelijk kan stellen als er iets misgaat met die app. Antwoord: De vraag over het installeren van apps op je privtelefoon is natuurlijk al vaker langsgekomen. In 2018 zei ik nog dat dat eigenlijk niet kan, dat de werkgever maar voor een werktelefoon moet zorgen. Maar ik realiseerde me later dat je vanuit goed werknemerschap best verplicht kunt zijn iets kleins zelf te regelen, ook al is dat strikt gesproken met een privtelefoon. Zo'n authenticator app komt over als iets kleins: het ding produceert authenticatiegetallen waarmee je een inlogpoging afmaakt. Er is geen netwerkverbinding nodig, de app is buitengewoon klein en er zit verder weinig bijzonders aan. Vanuit dat perspectief lijkt me deze app prima passen in dat idee van "doe dat gewoon even, kom op nou" oftewel goed werknemerschap. Ik zie inderdaad dat deze app ontzettend veel permissies vraagt, en ik zou ook niet direct weten wat die app allemaal van plan is. Geen idee, daar kan ik als privpersoon weinig over zeggen. Gelukkig voor de werknemer is de werkgever aansprakelijk voor schade die men tijdens het werk lijdt (art. 7:658 lid 2 BW), behalve bij opzet of bewuste roekeloosheid door de werknemer. Dat is vrijwel nooit het geval (en nee, je updates vergeten te bijwerken zie ik niet als bewuste roekeloosheid) dus als de authenticator app die de werkgever voorschrijft schade bij jou veroorzaakt, dan kun je verlangen dat de werkgever die vergoedt. Arnoud Engelfriet is Ict-jurist, gespecialiseerd in internetrecht waar hij zich al sinds 1993 mee bezighoudt. Hij werkt als partner bij juridisch adviesbureau ICTRecht. Zijn site Ius mentis is n van de meest uitgebreide sites van Nederland over internetrecht, techniek en intellectueel eigendom. Hij schreef twee boeken, De wet op internet en Security: Deskundig en praktisch juridisch advies.
|
https://www.security.nl/posting/705876/Is+de+werkgever+aansprakelijk+na+verplichte+installatie+2FA+app+op+mijn+priv%C3%A9telefoon%3F?channel=rss
|
Will a plant-based diet prevent the next pandemic?
|
Viruses such as COVID-19, SARS, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, swine flu, and bird flu all have something in common. Read again | Climate change has forced Indians to move far from their homes However, these illnesses are not really animal-caused. After all, its not like animals plotting against humans and throwing COVID-19 over the backyard fence. When this pandemic says comes from animals, it means that these diseases are due to the way society raises, harvests, and eats animals. Comprehensive policy strategies to avoid the next pandemic should include reducing demand for animal products. Fortunately, an effective approach doesnt have to mean that the government tells people what to eat and what not to eat. Many Canadians are already aware of the benefits of a plant-based diet. Better support for those who are already trying to change their diet can be an effective approach to government policy. Zoonotic diseases and food production The ever-growing list of pandemics is occurring exclusively in the animal and agricultural sectors, which is not new to a small but growing group of independent scientists. The United Nations recently expressed similar concerns. In that report Prevention of the following pandemics: Zoonotic diseases a How to break the chain of transmission, The United Nations has set some necessary steps to improve health governance in relation to food production. Policy options include expanding scientific research into the environmental aspects of zoonotic diseases and developing and implementing stronger biosecurity measures. It calls for policies that enhance animal health (including wildlife health services) and enhance the capacity to monitor and regulate food production. Read again | Scientists are trying to save seagrass, an ally of climate change The report also recommends that the state find ways to reduce the demand for animal protein. Reducing meat demand is not often heard as a possible policy option. Origin of the pandemic Early cases of COVID-19 were associated with the Chinese market where wildlife was sold. Pangolins and bats have been identified as potential sources of infection, but neither is on the average consumer shopping list worldwide. But the deeper roots of this pandemic are more complex. Many of the early viruses come from the livestock industrial production chain. In the 1980s, British cattle production began to identify the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and its human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In 1997, bird flu (H5N1) was found to have occurred at a chicken factory in China. In 2009, swine flu (H1N1) occurred in pig farms in Mexico and North Carolina, USA. Recently, a new species of COVID-19 has been discovered on a Danish farm where mink may be bred for fur coats. Read again | Cooking for peace with insects It is clear that the sources of these pandemics are not limited to specific countries or practices, such as wet markets. For some researchers, including Professor Bjorn Olsen, a Swedish doctor and professor of infectious diseases, stopping the growing demand for meat and dairy products is necessary to reduce the risk of a pandemic. Well-known for his early criticism of the governments response to COVID-19, Olsen is now known for another early warning. In a recent interview in Swedish, Olsen said that all pandemic viruses occur where animals meet humans and are affected by feeding billions of animals. Think of all this in reverse. There is no plant-induced pandemic in human history. Strengthening regulatory and surveillance capabilities is an important part of an effective policy strategy, but it also reduces the risk of future pandemics when society replaces animal food sources with plant-based foods. Olsen is concerned that the link between rising demand for animal proteins and pandemics has not received enough attention from politicians. As a policy of eating habits centered on vegetables The reason politicians do not consider the transition to a plant-based diet as a viable policy option may be that it may depend on changes in peoples behavior, and the government chooses a diet. Some argue that you shouldnt be involved in the business youre trying to force. Still, there is good reason to think that people are already willing to move to a plant-based diet. According to a recent United Nations survey, 30% of the world favors plant-based diets as a climate policy. Canadians are no exception. In fact, a 2018 study led by Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University, found that nearly 10% of Canadas total population is already vegan or vegetarian. The number of is increasing rapidly. In an interview, Charlevoix said: In 2018, we estimated that 6.4 million Canadians were already eating a diet that partially or completely restricted meat, but now this number has already been revised to 10.2 million. Is changing really fast and faster than ever. With these changes in dietary preferences already happening, the Government of Canada needs to look beyond removing barriers for people to continue making decisions on their own. To support their transition and reduce the demand for animal products, the Government of Canada should do its best to reduce what many find inconvenient in a plant-based diet. Read again | Greta Thunberg calls for agricultural change This can begin by reviewing food sourcing and nutrition standards so that public facilities such as schools, hospitals, prisons and long-term care facilities provide plant-based diets as the standard for daily menus. Food guide focus Governments should also consider implementing their own food guides to make plant-based foods more accessible, including low-income, rural and northern residents. When the Government of Canada revised the Canadian Food Guide in 2019, it had extensive discussions with nutritionists and scientists. As a result, more attention has been paid to plants as a source of protein, and less attention has been paid to meat and dairy products. The Canadian Food Guide says choose more plant-derived protein foods. However, despite this and the fact that consumption has been steadily declining in Canada since 2009, fresh milk is a federal program aimed at ensuring adequate nutrition in the north, Nutrition North Canada. We still receive the highest level of subsidies. We need a move to subsidize food that is kind to people and the planet. We know that eating habits affect not only health but also the environment. Given the clear link between animal product consumption and zoonotic diseases, there are additional reasons for policy makers to help those who want to move to a plant-based diet. Read more | More climate-friendly menus Its never too early to try to prevent the next pandemic. Experts warn that they may arrive at any time. Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, the zoonotic virus epidemics have been shorter. Its not about when the next pandemic will happen, but when it will happen. Curtis Boyer, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
|
https://exbulletin.com/world/health/959301/
|
What was Robert Hogans cause of death?
|
FRIENDS, family and fans are mourning the death of beloved New York actor Robert Hogan. The TV star has passed away aged 87 at his home in Maine. Robert was born in Jamaica, Queens in 1933 and joined the US Army to serve in Korea. He then studied engineering in New York before making the switch to a career in acting. Robert starred in more than 100 primetime shows throughout his career. He featured in programs such as Law & Order and the soap Peyton Place in a career that spanned six decades. 3 The TV star's career spanned six decades Credit: Getty The New York actor played retired shipwright Louis Sobotka in the TV series The Wire. Robert also starred in soaps Days of Our Lives, Another World, and The Young Marrieds. He appeared in 1970s comedy-drama series M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Operation Petticoat. He played Dr Wylie Graham on Murder, She Wrote, and appeared as a guest actor in dramas Knight Rider, Magnum, P.I., and Quincy M.E. According to his family's announcement in the New York Times, Robert died due to complications from pneumonia. He passed away at his home in Maine on May 27, 2021. Robert had been living with vascular Alzheimer's disease since 2013. Most read in Celebrity PERRY SAD Matthew Perry, 51, SPLITS from fiance, 29, days after 'worrying' Friends reunion 'ENOUGH' AGT fans slam Howie Mandel for giving choir group Golden Buzzer due to 'sob story' 'TRAPPED' Hillsong's Carl Lentz accused of 'sexually abusing nanny in front of his kids' REALITY STAR GONE Wahlburgers star Henry 'Nacho' Laun 'dead at 54 after medical emergency Exclusive DEFENDING ELLIE Ellie Kempers Veiled Prophet Ball rejects racism despite backlash 'speak up!' Robert is survived by his wife of 38 years Mary, after marrying in 1983. He was previously married to Sharon Lynn Harper, who he wed in 1957. They had three children together before they divorced in 1982.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/3000134/robert-hogan-cause-of-death-actor/
|
Who is Samuel Olsons step mom Theresa Balboa?
|
MYSTERY surrounds the case of a missing six-year-old boy who vanished from Houston, Texas. While cops believe the little boy disappeared weeks ago, the boy's stepmom, who claimed she saw the boy on Thursday, May 27, 2021, has also gone missing. Therese Balboa is Samuel Olson's dad's fiance. She has also been reported missing on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. The boy's father, Dalton Olsen, told FOX 26 that she hasn't been seen since Monday when they went out to post flyers about Samuel's disappearance. According to court records, Balboa was charged with assaulting and "impeding [the] breathing" of Samuel's dad in November 2020 and allegedly choked Olson, Click2Houston reported. He was granted a restraining order against her, barring Balboa from having direct contact with Olson or his family but the couple claims they have resolved their issues. This is about Sam, Olson said when asked about the incident, insisting his son wasn't around at the time of the alleged choking incident. Samuel Olsen was reported missing on May 27, 2021, though cops believe he may actually have vanished a month ago. Police fear the body found in a motel room inside a tote bag on Tuesday June1, 2021, may be of Samuel Olson. Jasper police Chief Gerald Hall told FOX 4 that police believe the body is likely that of Samuel, who was reported missing in the Houston area. The chief said the child's body appeared to be in the motel for some time. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner tweeted: "It is with great sadness that I share with you that a body - of who we believe to be 6-year-old Samuel Olson - was recovered in a motel room in Jasper, Texas, earlier this evening. "A possible suspect is in custody and will be interviewed by our homicide investigators. More details will be provided at a news briefing tomorrow. "I ask the entire Houston community to join HPD in sending prayers for Samuel and his family." Before her disappearance Therese Balboa had claimed she saw the boy on Thursday, May 27, 2021. Balboa said she last saw Samuel in the 8800 block of McAvoy Drive in Houston, Texas, telling KTRK: "I was going to take Sam to school when his mother showed up with the police officer..." "Or who I was under the impression to be a police officer, and they demanded me to release Sam," she continued, noting that she had to hand over the child because she's no legal rights to him. However, Houston Police Department Executive Assistant Larry Satterwhite confirmed that cops have not verified that version. Satterwhite said Samuel's last known sighting was at Holbrook Elementary School as far back as April. Samuel's father, Dalton Olson said he has "literally tried to do everything from the very beginning to do what's best for my son." "That is my whole world and I can't imagine if anything happened to him and I believe he's still out there," said Dalton Olson, who shares custody of his son with Samuel's biological mom. He also credited his fiancee with helping him care for the little boy while he was at work, adding: "I feel like I'm having a bad dream that I can't wake up from. The boy's mother, Sarah Olsen, has denied Balboa's claims that she and a man dressed as a cop picked Samuel up last week through her attorney. She told cops she doesn't know where the missing child is. During a press conference, Attorney Marco Gonzlez said that Sarah Olsen had custody of the child, but had not seen him since January 2020. Gonzlez alleged that the boy's father and grandmother weren't responding to her attempts to see her son, according to Click2Houston.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/news/2999733/samuel-olsons-step-mom-theresa-balboa/
|
Who is Hasbulla Magomedov and whats his net worth?
|
HASBULLA Magomedov became known as Mini Khabib after he went viral posting videos of himself to TikTok. Hasbulla is a blogger and TikTok star from Makhachkala, Russia. He has a genetic disorder that gives him childlike characteristics such as stunted growth and a high voice. Although it has not been officially confirmed, it is believed that he has a form of dwarfism. Hasbulla has been posting content to Instagram since last November but only recently went viral on TikTok this year. It has not yet been revealed what Hasbulla's net worth is but over recent months the 18-year-old's wealth has grown considerably with his newfound fame. The Russian native is 18-years-old. According to an interview that Hasbulla did with SportsKeeda, he is 3ft 4inches. The average height for an adult with dwarfism is 4ft with the general defined height being 4ft 10inches. Hasbulla became a cult hero in the MMA community after several videos of the blogger went viral. He gained the nickname Mini Khabib after he recreated Khabib Nurmagomedov's iconic UFC weigh-in. His pre-fight "press conference" with fellow social media personality Abdu is today one of his most popular videos. Rozik, 17, has a similar growth disorder which is believed to be GHD - Growth Hormone Deficiency. MORE RUSSIAN NEWS FINAL MOMENTS Moment parachute jumper, 41, is killed after losing control during fall KREMLIN CLASH Russia warns US it could take 'countermeasures' before Biden & Putin showdown TOT HORROR Girls, 3 & 4, fighting for life after bouncy castle EXPLODES hurling them 25ft Exclusive PUTIN ON THE RITZ Putin 'lovechild' drinks champagne at $1.4k Paris hotel despite Covid ban SEIZING POWER Syrian President Assad elected for 4th term despite 10-year conflict Due to the two men's popularity online, Chechen MMA fighter Asxab Tamaev is reported to be organising a mixed martial arts fight between them. However, Uliana Podpalnaya, head of the Russian Dwarf Athletic Association described the fight as unethical and wrong. She said in a statement that the fight was merely planned to make people laugh and that it would only be taken seriously if martial arts with dwarfism is made a Paralympic sport.
|
https://www.the-sun.com/news/3000035/who-hasbulla-magomedov-whats-his-net-worth/
|
What is the consequence of not fighting corruption in societies according to the holy Quran?
|
But the wrong-doers pursued the enjoyment of the good things of life which were given them, and persisted in sin (and they were destroyed). According to the above holy Ayah, fighting corruption is the duty of any one in the society in order to keep the society healthy. In this Ayah one basic social principal for saving the societies has been mentioned, and that is when responsible thinkers exist in a society and they do not remain silent against corruption, that society will not be destroyed. But when the thinkers of the society remain silent and do nothing, the society will be dominated by corruption and destruction of that society is certain to happen.
|
https://en.shafaqna.com/215842/what-is-the-consequence-of-not-fighting-corruption-in-societies-according-to-the-holy-quran/
|
What does it mean when its reported that Pa. state parks are full?
|
Pennsylvanias campgrounds, cabins, cottages, yurts and other overnight rentals were booked solid for the Memorial Day weekend. Theyre already about 80% reserved for the coming weekend, and big chunks of camping possibilities in the parks are already taken for every weekend right through fall. Noting that the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources saw twice as many campers this year as last year already in April, which was before the unofficial beginning of the camping season on Memorial Day weekend, press secretary Wesley Robinson said that trend is expected to continue. When its reported that the state parks are full, it means that more than 6,600 rental spaces have been reserved through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources online booking website. That total includes 6,193 campsites, 147 modern cabins, 137 rustic cabins, 77 camping cottages, 34 yurts, 15 deluxe cottages, 7 mansion rooms, 5 unique houses, 2 inn rooms and 2 lodges. Camping during the week is always encouraged, Robinson suggested. In addition, DCNRs Bureau of State Parks recommends that anyone finding the dates they want booked by others should use the availability notification on the reservation website. The site then will notify them if an opening becomes available without having to constantly monitor the site. Once you get a notification of an opening, we recommend registering ASAP so that you get the spot youre looking for, said Robinson. DCNR also has developed a list of lesser-visited parks. There are several parks in every region that showcase the beauty of our park system that are less crowded. We hope people would consider these parks this weekend and throughout the summer, he said. Beyond the booked-to-capacity status of state park campgrounds last weekend, DCNR also issued overcrowding alerts for 14 state parks and two state forest recreation areas for the Memorial Day holiday. They were the first overcrowding alerts issued by DCNR since record visitor numbers overwhelmed some parks last summer as visitors sought outdoor refuge from the pandemic. A number of state parks and forest recreation areas have seen extreme crowding during the weekends and when the weather is warm, DCNR noted in its alerts. The extraordinary number of people is causing these places to turn away visitors. Overflow parking also may be closed. For more outdoor coverage, subscribe to Marcus Schnecks free, weekly Outdoor Pennsylvania newsletter right here: Enter email: You also can contact Schneck at [email protected].
|
https://www.pennlive.com/life/2021/06/what-does-it-mean-when-its-reported-that-our-state-parks-are-full.html
|
Can a map of the immune system cure disease?
|
Artificial intelligence combined with data can help cure disease through the mapping of the immune system, explained Immunai CEO and co-founder Noam Solomon at the Global Investment Forum. "We have generated tens of millions of clinically annotate immune cells from thousands of patients, and put them in one huge map, mining it with artificial intelligence and ML," he said. Among the questions that can be answered is the question of why some patients respond to therapy and others do not. Technology allows for the era of precision medicine, that relies on big data of biological and clinical data, he said. The normalization of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, he said, has helped expand options for cooperation particularly with UAE hospitals and medical centers. "It is a great time to live, we lived growing up with the peace agreement with Jordan and had been waiting for the next thing to happen," Solomon said. He is hoping that things are "now moving in the right direction" between the Arab world and Israel. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); }); if(window.location.pathname.indexOf("656089") != -1){console.log("hedva connatix");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";}
|
https://www.jpost.com/jpost-tech/can-a-map-of-the-immune-system-cure-disease-669892
|
Is It Seasonal Allergies Or COVID-19?
|
You get the sniffles out of nowhere. One scientist believes if you possess an allergy past may offer your greatest indication. Were not quite concerned about individuals with seasonal allergy as ones signs are dependable year by year, stated Matz in an announcement from LifeBridge. It implies you probably provide temporary allergic reactions mentioned him unless your rose as well as throat continuously happen at the moment of the period. Itching in the mouth or nostrils, which is generally compatible with COVID-19 signs, is a marker of seasonal allergens, also its worth noting that temperature is usually a sign of COVID-19, rather than allergy symptoms. Whether youve attempted to diagnose your concerns but are still confused and arent feeling good, Matz recommends getting checked Unless proved differently, if users are getting those signs and youve never experienced allergy previously, that is indeed COVID, he added. Even though you verify yourself to also have different seasons allergic reactions rather than COVID-19, your signs might make individuals feel unpleasant all over you, which might lead to issues as school systems, workspaces and other sites restart. What Im finding as a source of worry is kids returning to college in reality, Matz added. Most college physicians and instructors notice children with those signs and encourage children to remain home, especially if its simply allergens, says one instructor. If you experience worries about others Matz recommends consulting an allergy and obtaining evidence that you suffer seasonally allergy. If practicable inside the Medical System, continuous enzyme chemotherapy should proceed until a COVID-19 disease is given a diagnosis. The requirement for multiple visits to a doctor or a clinic does not recommend innovative percutaneous therapeutics AIT treatment; even so, it should be favored to initiate sublingual immunotherapy. It is really mandatory only for a first dose supervised, or to swap to SLIT from the SCIT where an adequate option to the SCIT is available, for Only registration allergens that have been demonstrated to be effective shall be made by the AIT. Concerning the exploratory use of medications, COVID-19 managers are appreciative primarily in clinical studies, including latex allergy. In COVID-infected asthma, verbal glucocorticoids may be necessary for serious viral exacerbations under guidance. NSAID-sensitive asthma continues to remain necessary to avoid non-steroidal antispasmodic medication, which was recommended and revoked for all electronic facilities. This treatment (including AIT) is indeed not suppressive and therefore does not increase the chance of COVID-19-induced illness becoming more severe. COVID-19 infections may be helped or prevented by topical and inhalation steroids. Allergic diseases are unlikely to be a health risk for even more severe COVID-19 illness; nonetheless, infectious diseases can exacerbate asthma management. Specialist films broadcast via the EUFOREA social media platforms outline the most recent changes on clinical guidelines for SAR, AIT, and scent loss, enabling the medical profession to stay up to date on scientific consensus and expert analysis addressing COVID-19 and pulmonary allergies treatment.
|
https://powdersvillepost.com/is-it-seasonal-allergies-or-covid-19/
|
Is Downton Abbey a True Story? Is the TV Show Based on Real History?
|
Created by Julian Fellowes and led by an array of brilliant English stage and screen actors with the highlight being the charismatic English dame Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey is a historical drama series of epic grandeur. Set in the Post-Edwardian era Britain, the series follows the daily lives of the Crawley family and their servants through tales of ideological differences, monetary constraints, scandalous secrets, and class conflict. The labyrinthine story is told with conviction, complete with a lavish set design that brings out the peculiarities of the time and the society with commendable insight. However, if, upon watching the story, you were made to wonder about its semblance to reality, we would be obliged to release you from your doubts. No, Downton Abbey is not based on a true story. Characters like Violet Crawley and Isobel Crawley are not to be found in the pages of a history book. The series is created by Julian Fellowes based on a screenplay penned by Fellowes along with Shelagh Stephenson and Tina Pepler. The intricate structure of the series was developed in the vein of American shows like E.R., Chicago Hope, and Thirtysomething. The modern-day comedy of manners follows the scandalous lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their lush estate in Yorkshire Country that finally lends the series with its title. The series explores the story of the fictional Earl of Grantham, his wife, and their servants in the backdrop of the time when the mushroom cloud of World War I hovers over their heads. There is no such estate called Downton Abbey in reality. However, the estate depicted in the series as Downton Abbey is actually Highclere Castle, a decadent stately home that exists in real life. Resembling the series, the castle is ingrained in the history of the British aristocracy, as it has been home to the Carnarvon family of Earls and Countesses for centuries. In accordance with the series, the Highclere castle was also turned into a makeshift hospital during WWI. The story is somewhat inspired by the book called To Marry an English Lord, written by Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace. The book depicts the turn of the nineteenth century, a time when American heiresses would travel to England hoping to earn themselves a title by marrying a suitor of English royal descent. The character of Cora Crawley does the same in the series, earning herself a place among the royalty by investing a generous amount of money. The producers grabbed a copy of the book before beginning to pen the story of the series, as Fellowes divulged in an interview. The story of the novel depicts the time period with much precision, which, in turn, has inspired the series to stay true to its times. There is also a real-life inspiration behind the character of Cora Crawley. The historical figure of Lady Almina, the wife of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, leaves her shadow on the fictional character. Lady Almina, like Cora Crawley, did not belong to aristocracy (although she had her roots in the wealthy Rothschild family) and came with a hefty sum of dowry. But as Lady Carnarvon suggested, the marriage was not one of convenience but was primarily governed by love. With the money, Lady Almina gave the house a modern makeover. Another character, namely Carson, the uptight butler, is influenced by another real-life figure in the Highclere Castle. Colin Edwards, the butler of the Carnarvon family, proved to be an inspiration behind the character. Moreover, according to The Telegraph, the scandalous death of Kemal Pamuk, which kickstarts the first season, is actually inspired by the family history of one of the creators friends! You bet. The series comments upon many of the historic events that happened during the early days of the twentieth century, including the sinking of the Titanic in the first season and the trench warfare of WWI that begins the second season. The second season also reminds us of the subsequent onset of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which took the lives of many soldiers during the war. The third season revisits the tumultuous days of the Anglo-Irish war and the subsequent formation of Ireland as an independent state. The infamous Teapot Dome scandal is also worked into the screenplay. The sixth and the final season sees the rise of a working-class during the interwar years and the resulting demise of the old world order of the seemingly vain British aristocracy. All things considered, even if the story is fictional, the creators stayed true to history to articulately bring out the period piece feel of the drama. It takes some conviction for a series to be watched voraciously by Her Majesty the Queen, and this series ticks all the boxes! Read More: Shows Like Downton Abbey
|
https://thecinemaholic.com/is-downton-abbey-based-on-a-true-story/
|
How Homeliness Helps People Choose The Best Home Appliances In 2021?
|
Homeliness can help buyers make the best home appliance choices without missing out on detailed reviews of the highest quality alternatives available. Most Indians have witnessed a drastic change in their living standards since the advent of technology, especially during the past decade. Nowadays, electronic appliances constitute a large place of most homeowners buying budgets. But along with such rapid technological advancement, there is also a drastic change in the way people purchase the best appliances. Homeliness is an online review platform that focuses on improving the buying preferences of people so that they can make better and well-informed home appliance purchase decisions. Due to the growing availability of technologically advanced home electronic appliances in the market. Finding the best appliance has become quite a task. Buyers have a lot of questions such as, which product to buy, what things to keep in mind, where to buy at the best deals online or offline, etc. Be it the best washing machineor the best water purifier. There are several things buyers want to collect details about before heading to make the final purchase. Homeliness brings together the best home and kitchen appliance reviews and buying guides so that you can order those particular appliances that will best suit your home. Online reviews and buying guides with in-depth details make an important aspect that helps buyers make the right purchase decision. Homelinesss unbiased reviews as well as 100 percent genuine information is going to help you get the best appliances home in 2021. Be it the best refrigerators or the best AC. You will get to know all about the best ones in the market here. Remember, when you are planning to buy a product, you are not just investing your hard-earned money but also placing your trust in the product. With this thought in mind, Homeliness aims to build trust in its readers by offering quality home appliances that are worth buying for their homes. There is no doubt in the fact that you can find several detailed reviews on the internet. But this website provides the best home appliance alternatives as all the product reviews have been uploaded after vigorous product trials. Homeliness offers the most honest customer ratings and reviews to help potential buyers. You can check out how most customers feel about purchasing a product by reading 100 percent unbiased and genuine reviews here. Buying the best home appliance is no less than skill. But for those potential buyers who lack in it, Homeliness is always here to guide you in the right direction. About the Company: Homeliness is an online review platform focused on helping potential buyers find the best-fit home appliance. The website aims to keep buyers well-informed about the best alternatives in the market amongst thousands of choices, so buyers can purchase what is best suitable for them with open arms.
|
https://www.latestly.com/lifestyle/how-homeliness-helps-people-choose-the-best-home-appliances-in-2021-2517916.html
|
Why Are There Coins Embedded Outside The Ford Museum?
|
A post to the Grand Rapids subreddit shows that some random person wanted to leave something behind to honor the late, great Gerald R. Ford at the place built in his adopted home town to honor him. The only person to serve as Vice President and President of the United States without having been elected to either position, Ford was an unique individual who served in the United States Congress for 25 years before he stepped in to fill in first for Vice President Spiro Agnew after he resigned due to scandal, and then became the Commander in Chief a few years later when President Nixon did the same. Outside the Presidential Museum in Ah-Nab-Awen Park are five coins glued the concrete. A quarter, a dime and three pennies. The total of the coins is 38 cents, which is a homage to Ford, who was our 38th President. As noted by a commenter to the Reddit thread shown below, the dates on the coins are from the early 2000s, meaning that someone glued these coins well after the construction and dedication of the Library and Museum. Yes, I know it's part of the playground, but it's the only playground I know that has a shirt button in it.
|
https://wbckfm.com/why-are-there-coins-embedded-outside-the-ford-museum/
|
Why are Jackson Officials Bothering with Hannum?
|
NEW DELHI: The government will take a final decision within the next two days on whether to conduct class 12 board exams amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court was informed on Monday Attorney General K K Venugopal told this to a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari which said if the Centre decides to depart from the last year's policy, wherein the remaining board exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, then it must give "tangible reasons" for it. "No issue. You take the decision. You are entitled to it. If you are departing from the policy of last year, then you must give tangible reasons for it," the bench told Venugopal.
|
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2263929320825/why-are-jackson-officials-bothering-with-hannum-g-sonnenfeld
|
Who is London nail bomber David Copeland and where is he now?
|
Going to Londons museums and art galleries is one of the best ways to spend a day in this city. But, its also a lot of effort. Theres all that standing, the countless thoughtful head tilts, and the anxiety of pretending you know the difference between cubism and expressionism. Thats why its important to go to the right restaurants that are not only nearby, but where you can sit down, relax, refuel, and Google whether that painting you saw was of a fruit basket or a parrot. From a cheap and cheerful Italian spot in Kensington, to Londons original nose to tail dining spot, this is where to eat near Londons best museums and galleries.
|
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2263948674329/who-is-london-nail-bomber-david-copeland-and-where-is-he-now
|
Could a polymer wafer placed under the tongue deliver vaccines?
|
Researchers create new way to effectively deliver and preserve vaccines A team of researchers, led by a University of Minnesota associate professor, have developed a polymer wafer that, when placed under the tongue, can effectively deliver and preserve protein-based vaccines for diseases. The research could open the door for vaccines that can be more easily produced and distributed to communities around the world. The study is published in the Journal of Controlled Release, a biweekly peer-reviewed medical journal. The membrane under the tonguecalled the sublingual sitehas proven to be very effective at absorbing drugs. Several drugs are delivered this way, such as nitroglycerin tablets to treat chest pain that precedes heart attacks. But large molecules, such as the proteins and nucleic acids that make up many vaccines, have historically been too big to enter the body sublingually and have to be injected with needles. These large molecules are also very fragile and must be preserved, which can be a roadblock for vaccine distributionfor example, Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine, which is made up of nucleic acids and requires ultra-cold storage. With the polymer wafers, the researchers have found a solution to both of those problemsand proven that their technology works with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) proteins. While there is not a working vaccine for HIV yet, the researchers have demonstrated a delivery method that could work once one is developed. People have been struggling with creating an HIV vaccine for many years, and one of the problems is how to deliver it, said Chun Wang, corresponding author of the study and a biomedical engineering associate professor in the University of Minnesotas College of Science and Engineering. And it turns out that we have demonstrated it actually can work with a rather simple but elegant material platform. The wafer is mainly made up of two ingredients: alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). The alginate preserves the proteins while the CMC helps the wafer stick to the sublingual membrane long enough to deliver a high concentration of the proteins. The key to making the wafer work, Wang said, was finding the right balance of the two polymers. With further testing, the polymer wafers could also provide avenues for other vaccinesperhaps one day, for COVID-19. This is just a small step in this long journey, Wang said. If we continue this line of work, it can bring us to a point where we will have vaccinesthey could be based on DNA, RNA, proteinsthat can be stored without refrigeration and easily delivered under the tongue at the sublingual site. They will be quickly disseminated throughout the world because they dont rely on certain equipment and preservation and all of that stuff. This will be particularly good for low-resource regions of the world, even in Americarural areas that are lacking certain essential facilities and infrastructure. Original Article: Polymer wafers placed under the tongue could deliver vaccines of the future More from: University of Minnesota | Mayo Clinic | University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
|
https://innovationtoronto.com/2021/06/could-a-polymer-wafer-placed-under-the-tongue-deliver-vaccines/
|
How foreigners practice religion as Taiwan strengthens epidemic-prevention measures?
|
As Taiwan extends its nationwide Level 3 epidemic-prevention measure to June 14, religious rites and rituals are forced to face a longer halt. St Christophers Church () in Zhongshan, Taipei, has been a gathering place for new immigrants as well as migrant workers for many years. The priest John Thiet said in an interview with the 4 way voice that the church has followed the governments epidemic-prevention measures and postponed all physical activities since the local outbreak took place. If it is an event that cannot be postponed, we will use the Internet and broadcast it online, he said. John Thiet also mentioned that the church has set up a Facebook page dedicated to helping the Catholics, foreign students as well as migrant workers by providing online consultation for any questions or problems they might have. They are welcomed to message us regarding any concerns or difficulties. The online Facebook page has been operating just well since it launched. Mr. Lee, an Indonesian Christian who mainly worships at the Bread of Life Christian Church () in Taipei said in an interview, Considering the severity of the epidemic this year, all church services have been changed to online. The good thing about online meetings is that more people can join. The church is strict with the epidemic prevention measures, all prayers should leave contact information and have their temperature checked. As for the Sunday online gatherings, only 5 workers were required at the church to run the equipment. The Taipei Mosque is also closed amid the pandemic, however, they keep in touch with the believers by posting the scriptures and the main sermon script on its Facebook page regularly. Chen Shu-jen (), a priest from a Pingtung Christian Church () who have served many Philippinos also said that she has turned to online meetings to hold prayers and keep in touch with her group members. I have a group of Filipino immigrants in the group that I lead, almost all of them have Taiwan ID cards. Usually, they attend gatherings on the weekends and the English Bible study and prayer meetings hosted by me on weekdays. However, all church readings and prayer meetings were held online now, she said.
|
https://chinapost.nownews.com/20210602-2543399
|
Did China avoid blame for causing the pandemic?
|
The ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic are evident in countries around the globe more so than in the nation of its birth with China ranking among the least affected nations in terms of infection rates and economic effects. It also remains a mystery as to how the country has managed to stay largely unaffected by a virus that originated within its borders, even as all its neighbors currently are grappling with COVID-19 surges. No less odd is the fact that the untold global suffering wrought by the pandemic has allowed China to make major economic gains. Its economy has boomed during the pandemic, while its exports have soared to record highs. In other words, the pandemic-triggered socioeconomic disruptions across the world have worked to Chinas advantage. If another country had let a lethal virus escape from its territory, creating a globally disruptive pandemic, it would today be in the international doghouse. But China thus far has escaped blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. After infecting people across the world, the Chinese Communist Party, through one of its publications, cynically called it a rare example of a shared situation connecting every human being in the world. The CCP has even manipulated online discourse to enforce its narrative on the novel coronavirus. As The New York Times reported, it directed paid trolls to inundate social media with party-line blather and deployed security forces to muzzle unsanctioned voices. Not only has China managed to get away with spawning the greatest global health calamity of our time, it also has successfully stymied an independent and thorough investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Today, despite U.S. President Joe Bidens belated interest in probing the pandemics origins, the international focus is not so much on the genesis as on the threat posed by the viruss different variants. The world is paying the price for Chinas apparent cover-up of the viruss origins and the World Health Organizations mishandling of the pandemics critical early stages. The WHO advised countries during the pandemics initial phase against closing borders or mandating the wearing of masks measures that have since become central to stemming the spread of the disease. After the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, the WHO member states established a set of guidelines known as the International Health Regulations. Article 6 of these regulations oblige every state party, including China, to collect information on any public-health emergency of international concern within its territory and notify the WHO within 24 hours. Yet Beijing blatantly violated this rule. As an international panel appointed by the WHO acknowledged in a recent report, the agency first learned of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan from Taiwan, from news articles, a public bulletin and from an automated alert system that scans the internet for mentions of unexplained pneumonia. In this light, according to Oxford Universitys chancellor and the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, This is the CCPs coronavirus, not least because the party silenced brave Chinese doctors when they tried to blow the whistle on what was happening. Another factor has also aided Chinas apparent cover-up of COVID-19s origins. The Dr. Anthony Fauci-led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health had financed dangerous lab research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) since 2014 to re-engineer bat coronaviruses and make them more infectious for experimental purposes. Biden, for his part, frittered away the leverage his predecessor handed him to reform the WHO by rejoining that United Nations organization on his first day in office. Biden then signed a little-noticed presidential memorandum on Jan. 26 that basically termed as racist any reference to the pandemic by the geographic location of its origin. By ordering federal agencies to stop making references to the pandemic by the geographic location, Bidens memorandum made it official U.S. policy to dissociate the virus from its source of origin China. However, it is still widely considered OK to refer to the viruss variants by their geographic origins. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has acknowledged that its researchers led by Dr. Shi Zhengli, who was proud to be called the bat woman, were engaged in what is scientifically known as gain-of-function research. The term refers to the deliberate enhancement of natural viruses to make them more transmissible, and thus more dangerous, for experimental purposes. In a fact-sheet published on Jan. 15, the U.S. State Department said that the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with Chinas military . The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV. The fact-sheet also declared that China has not demonstrably eliminated its bioweapon research in apparent breach of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention, which entered into force 46 years ago. Investigating the pandemics genesis is critical for another reason this is not the first deadly disease to spread globally from China. China was the origin of earlier influenza epidemics, including, as Chinese scientists have acknowledged, the 1957 Asian flu, the 1968 Hong Kong flu and the 1977 Russian flu. According to new research by a historian in Canada, the 1918 Spanish flu that killed some 50 million people worldwide may have also originated in China. In addition, the current outbreak is not the first coronavirus pandemic to have originated in China or the first case involving Chinese concealment of facts and original samples. A Chinese cover-up during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS (a viral respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus) triggered the worlds first 21st-century pandemic. Still, Chinas persistent refusal to come clean, coupled with the rising international distrust of that country, has helped fuel greater interest in investigating the pandemics true genesis. An increasing number of international scientists have started to debate whether the pandemic occurred because of a lab leak in Wuhan. Last year, Beijing aggressively denounced international voices calling for it to pay compensation for pandemic-inflicted damage. And in 2021, no one is suggesting that China be sued for damages, largely because such action seems unrealistic. Beijings international power and clout are all too visible. But thanks to COVID-19, many countries have learned hard lessons about China-dependent supply chains, and international attitudes toward that country have shifted. And, in a signal that the tide is turning, the lab-leak theory has become mainstream. In a karma-is-a-bitch way, China will indeed likely pay for the pandemic in some manner. The cumulative costs to its reputation and image will likely surpass any possible claims for reparations against it. Brahma Chellaney, a longtime contributor to The Japan Times, is a geostrategist and author of nine books, including Water: Asias New Battleground, which won the Bernard Schwartz Award.
|
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/06/02/commentary/world-commentary/china-avoid-blame-pandemic/
|
Where can I watch Game 3 Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes?
|
After hitting the road for the first two games of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Lightning will be back at Amalie Arena Thursday for Game 3. TAMPA, Fla. The Bolts are back in town. After hitting the road for the first two games of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Lightning will be back at Amalie Arena Thursday for Game 3 against the Hurricanes. For the second round of playoffs, the number of fans allowed at games will go from 9,000 to 13,500. If you're not one of the lucky people to snag a ticket to watch the game up close and personal, don't worry, there are still ways for you to be the "Distant Thunder." From parties at the plaza to the Pepsi Porch Playoff Experience and Cigar City Taproom downtown experience, there are other ways to take part in the home game fun. You can read more about home and away game playoff parties here. The puck drop for Game 3 is set for 8 pm. Thursday. The Bolts are leading the series 2-0.
|
https://www.wtsp.com/article/sports/nhl/lightning/lightning-watch-partries/67-f614a0a5-4394-4884-87dd-76bf6d7eb144
|
What qualities would Albert Adomah bring to Derby County if he signed?
|
Derby County have a lot of work to do this summer under Wayne Rooney and could well be leaning on one of the Championships most experienced players in a bid to turn their fortunes around. Albert Adomah is weighing up his options this summer given his lack of opportunities at Queens Park Rangers since arriving in West London last summer. A source close to Football League World has revealed that Derby are amongst four Championship sides interested in signing the winger, whilst Ipswich Town interest lingers too. It hasnt quite been the spell at QPR that Adomah was after. The 33-year-old made 34 appearances in the Championship, but he started on only seven occasions for Mark Warburtons side and managed just 845 minutes across the season. Despite that, the winger still offers plenty at Championship level, particularly for a club in Derbys position, having avoided relegation into League One by the narrowest of margins. First things first, Rooneys side were shy of goals in 2020/21, ending the campaign as the Championships lowest scorers with 36, three of which came on the final day in a 3-3 draw with Sheffield Wednesday. Despite limited game time in 20/21, Adomah still managed to score twice for QPR and register a further five assists. That, though, by the standards of the winger is quite mediocre. Between 2014 and 2016, Adomah struck 12 times from the flank for Middlesbrough, laying on a further nine assists, helping the Teessiders into the Premier League. On the back of that, Aston Villa called for his service. Between 2016 and 2019, he helped deliver a promotion, with 21 goals and 17 assists across an impressive period, including a goal tally of 14 during 2017/18. Nottingham Forest, Cardiff City and, to a certain extent, QPR havent seen the best of Adomah with regards to his goals in recent years, but theres no denying he knows where the back of the net is, which is something that was sorely missing in the Derby squad in the season gone by. Another real positive that Adomah could bring to the Derby squad is his dribbling ability. Over his many, many years in the Championship, Adomah averages 6.13 dribbles per 90 (Wyscout), with a success rate of over 51%. Simply, with the ball into his feet, in space, Adomah is a threat and, more often than not, the winger beats his man. Thats a trait that gets fans off their seats and creates opportunities in the final third. Again, something that Derby cant exactly boast theyve possessed in the last 12 months. However, perhaps the biggest attribute Adomah would bring is his experience. Over the course of his career, the 33-year-old has made 594 appearances and youd imagine that the 2021/22 campaign will see him pass the 600 mark. Thats a fine achievement for a professional footballer and something that could prove very useful to Derby. Youve only got to look at the impact someone like Colin Kazim-Richards had last season, or the impact Martyn Waghorn had on the final day against Sheffield Wednesday. In a squad still leaning heavily on youth, the elder statesmen stepped up in a tough campaign. More players of that ilk cannot be sniffed at. Derby also have one of the Championships youngest managers in Rooney. The 35-year-old had the world at his feet as a player, but is in at the deep end with regard to management. The last thing he needs is to be managing a team of kids without the helping hand of some experienced pros in his dressing room. Adomah fits the bill in so many ways this summer. Its no surprise to hear hes a player of serious interest at Pride Park.
|
https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/what-qualities-would-albert-adomah-bring-to-derby-county-if-he-signed/
|
What qualities would Jerry Yates bring to Nottingham Forest if he signed?
|
Nottingham Forest are said to be eyeing a move for Blackpool striker Jerry Yates this summer, with Nottinghamshire Live reporting that the 24-year-old is on Chris Hughtons list of potential targets. The former Swindon Town and Rotherham United man has come of age this term and bagged 23 goals across all competitions for the Tangerines as they secured a promotion back to the Sky Bet Championship at Wembley Stadium during the weekend just gone thanks to a 2-1 victory over Lincoln City. Yates has become a key player at Bloomfield Road and is currently under contract with the club until the summer of 2023 as he weighs up his options this summer. 1864 1865 1866 1867 Here, we take a look at the THREE main qualities that Yates would bring to Nottingham Forest if he signed for the club this summer. Link up play The Blackpool man is capable of linking the play up well along the frontline, with Yates having largely played in a front two for much of the campaign just gone. He notched up eight assists during the season as he continuously looked to set up his teammates and he would add something different to what Forest already have up top. His ability to drop deep and pick up pockets of space to receive the ball on the half turn makes him an incredibly difficult player to mark. His movement and tendency to make key passes would add an extra edge to what was a stale Forest attack last season. Dribbling skills Yates also shows a his tendency to dribble at pace with the ball and has the ability to beat a man and get his shot off in tight situations. He would add some much needed pace and drive to the Forest counter attack and is also capable of playing wide on the left of a front three. His versatility and turn of pace means that he could be a good option for Hughton utilise in games where his side may not enjoy the majority of ball possession. The Blackpool man is certainly a lot more nimble than the current striking options that the Reds have at their disposal. Gets in behind His ability to run in behind and move into the channels allows his side to stretch opposition defences when they are on the attack. He would function well in a front two alongside the likes of Lewis Grabban and Lyle Taylor, with the aforementioned duo being strikers who prefer to stay central to the goal. Yates could make runs into areas that defenders dont want to be drawn into, which in turn could open up more space for the likes of Grabban and Taylor to score in. He gets the best out of himself and also the players around him, with his movement off the ball causing havoc.
|
https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/what-qualities-would-jerry-yates-bring-to-nottingham-forest-if-he-signed/
|
Is Bidens Liberalism A Problem For Him?
|
A new poll caught my eye this week by the Republican polling firm Echelon Insights. The pollsters reviewed Bidens performance among registered voters as the president enters the fifth month of his presidency. The president had a solid 56% approval rating, and 54% in another question rated him favorably. The Republican Party was deeply under water with a 38% favorable and 55% unfavorable rating. The comparable numbers for the Democratic Party were 49% favorable, 44% unfavorable. These results are in line with other recent polls. One particular question in the poll piqued my interest: Relative to your expectations when he was elected, would you say Joe Biden has been more or less liberal as president than you expected? In response, 42% said he had been more liberal than expected and 8% less so. Not surprisingly, 60% of Republicans said he had been more liberal than they expected. A surprising 35% of Democrats gave this response. A few days later, Fox News released a poll, also of registered voters, that tapped into a similar sentiment. The bipartisan polling team that conducts the Fox polls found that 46% of registered voters thought the president was too liberal, up ten points from their December 2019 poll. Another 40% said his positions were about right and 10% too conservative. Partisan differences were as expected. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats said he was about right on the issues and 16% said he was too liberal; whereas 78% of Republicans said he was too liberal and only 10% about right. These findings were in the ballpark of an April ABC News/Washington Post poll of adults. Forty percent of Americans said Bidens views on most issues were too liberal and 48% about right. It wasnt that long ago that many Democrats considered the L word a problem for their party, in part because more Americans identified as conservatives than liberals. This is still true, but that obscures some important changes. In Gallups latest poll, 37% of Americans identified as conservative and 24% as liberal. In their over-time trend, Republicans mostly described themselves as conservative, but Democrats have become a lot more comfortable with the liberal label. Democrats identification as liberals has roughly doubled since 25% identified themselves as such in the early 1990s. Today, half of Democrats flirt with the liberal label. Another question asked regularly in an online survey by The Economist/YouGov may provide some clues. The pollster asked people whether they consider Joe Biden very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, or very conservative. A spot check of weekly responses since late 2020 suggests that there has been no significant change in the presidents perceived liberalism. In a poll taken immediately before the election, 54% of registered voters said Biden was a liberal. A month later in early December, 46% gave that response. In January around the time of the inauguration, 46% did again. In the polls thus far in May, the liberal response has ranged between 51% and 53% essentially no movement. Nor have the responses on the very liberal category changed much. This question suggests that Americans made up their minds early about Bidens ideology and havent changed them. The Economist/YouGov responses dont contradict the new findings from the Echelon or Fox polls above. The questions tap different sentiments. President Bidens overall ratings are steady and his personal ones are, too. He is still seen as less liberal than Bernie Sanders and other Democratic challengers, like Elizabeth Warren. Many progressives have described themselves as pleasantly surprised by Bidens liberal agenda. The new polls suggest the general public has been surprised, too, but in a less positive way. These questions will be worth watching going forward. As they have in the past, Republicans will use the L word in campaign ads next year (and the S word for socialist) because of Bidens spending plans. Public reactions in the next few weeks to the presidents tax and spending plans in his $6 trillion budget may provide give us an indication of how much of a problem Bidens perceived liberalism will be.
|
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2021/06/02/is-bidens-liberalism-a-problem-for-him/
|
Are rewards for getting COVID-19 vaccinations really such a great idea?
|
At first, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 seemed like enough of a reward. You got the satisfaction of protecting your health and that of the people around you, and the knowledge that soon you would be able to socialize with other vaccinated people without wearing masks. But as demand for the vaccines waned, the prizes began: Fishing licenses in Maine. Crawfish in New Orleans. Baseball tickets in New York. A shot and a beer in New Jersey plus (perhaps less enticing) a chance to have dinner with the governor. Then, in Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine launched a lottery, Vax-a-Million, with an eye-catching $1-million prize every week. It worked; DeWine reported that vaccinations jumped 49% in the first two weeks. Advertisement Other states followed suit. California went big: 10 grand prizes of $1.5 million each, plus 2 million supermarket cards at $50 apiece. It might seem mystifying that so many Americans need to be wheedled, cajoled and bribed into getting a vaccine thats so clearly in their interest. It turns out that what really motivates people is the chance to strike it rich. Were a proud, unruly, independent people. We dont like the government to tell us what to do a sentiment that holds for Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. But we dont mind snagging a bit of swag; in fact, weve been known to fight over it. I asked one of the nations top medical ethicists, Arthur Caplan of New York University, if theres anything unseemly about entering people in a lottery to persuade them to help end the pandemic. Nah, he said cheerfully. Theres nothing wrong with rewarding people for following healthy practices. And once you start thinking about fishing licenses and free beer, its not a big jump to paying people outright. Lotteries appear especially effective, behavioral economists say, because those big dollar figures are eye-catching and because most of us are bad at evaluating odds, especially long ones. Lotteries are highly motivating if youre trying to convince someone to change a behavior, Katy Milkman of the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School told NPR. People overweight the very low probabilities of winning. Advertisement In one sense, the fact that states are resorting to prizes is a sign that the vaccination rollout has succeeded: Almost everyone who wanted a shot has been able to get one. A poll released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 62% of Americans 18 or older have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and only 4% say they want a shot but havent managed to get it yet. The remaining third of the adult population is the challenge now, but the same poll shows theyre not a monolithic group. A large segment, about 12%, are people who want to wait and see the vaccine-hesitant. Many say they worry that the vaccine might still turn out to be unsafe. Low-income people, including many Black and Latino workers, often cite practical concerns: They say they cant afford to take time off from work if they have side effects from the vaccine. And many young hesitators say they simply dont feel much risk. To be fair, younger people havent been eligible that long, Liz Hamel, who runs the Kaiser poll, told me. Its going to take a bit longer for them to show up. Advertisement Different incentives appeal to some more than others. People who worry about safety told the pollsters it would help if the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval for the vaccines instead of the current emergency-use authorization. For low-income workers, it would help if employers offered one or two paid sick days. And for those kids in Generation Z, incentives like free concerts are more interesting, Hamel said. The biggest challenge, she added, is not the vaccine-hesitant but the vaccine refusers including a hard refusal faction comprising about 13% of the adult population. We havent seen any decline in that group at all, she said. Theyre mostly Republican, mostly rural and mostly white. Many of them are also politically active. Conservative Republicans in the Ohio Legislature introduced a bill last month to outlaw DeWines lottery, even though hes also a Republican (and even though he stipulates, for those with religious objections, that it isnt technically a lottery, since you dont have to pay to enter). The only thing more American than wanting to strike it rich, it seems, is political polarization no matter what the issue. But the resisters and their political champions are making the rest of us more vulnerable to future coronavirus outbreaks, especially from new variants. Epidemiologists arent sure when herd immunity the point at which the virus will die off because it cant find enough hosts might kick in. Estimates range from 70%, a number were approaching, to 90%, a number that looks unreachable. Advertisement So its worth trying anything that might work, from doughnuts to lotteries, to get the problem under control. The good news in that Kaiser poll is that it suggests that an 85% vaccination rate is reachable and it gives us some clues as to how to nudge more people to get vaccinated. For some, it will be the chance to win a lottery; for others, a promise that theyll be able to get into concerts. But for others, it would be a big step forward for employers to offer paid vaccination days. And for everyone, it would be a relief for the FDA to issue those long-awaited approvals. In short, a little bit of everything.
|
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-02/are-rewards-for-getting-covid-19-vaccinations-really-such-a-great-idea
|
Has Fastly Fallen Into Buy Territory?
|
UKRAINE - 2021/05/25: In this photo illustration, Fastly logo of the US cloud computing services ... [+] provider is seen on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Fastly (NYSE: FSLY), is a cloud computing services provider. Their platform edgecloud falls under the category of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It enables developers to build, secure, and deliver digital experiences, at the edge of the internet. Since the start of the year Fastlys stock has nearly halved in its stock price despite recording good growth in 2020. The sell-off started in February 2021 after the company declared Q4 and FY 2020 results as the market was disappointed by the companys guidance for Q1 and FY 2021. A further sell-off was witnessed as the companys Q1 2021 results and Q2 2021 guidance failed to convince investors. The sell-off was accentuated by the news that CFO Adriel Lares will be stepping down after five years with the company. Our dashboard, Buy or Sell Fastly Stock? provides the key numbers behind our thinking, and we explain more below. Stock Prices Trefis Fastlys revenues saw a massive growth of 101% from $144 million in 2018 to $291 million in 2020. In the same period, shares outstanding increased from 24 million in 2018 to 103 million in 2020. This, in turn, saw RPS fall from $5.93 in 2018 to $2.82 in 2020. Fastlys P/S multiple increased to 31x toward the end of 2020, but has decreased to 17x currently. The IT software and service industry saw a boom in 2020 as the onset of the pandemic led people toward digital platforms. This momentum is expected to continue over the years with Fastly expected to benefit with its edgecloud. At the current level Fastlys stock is 65% below its all-time high. The stock saw a fall once the pandemic started easing in certain countries toward the end of 2020. This was combined with unconvincing guidance for 2021. Nevertheless, the company is still expected to post revenue growth of more than 30% for the year. This sell-off has made the stock attractive. Going forward, we believe the company should benefit from many businesses contemplating a shift toward digital transformation even in a post Covid-19 world. For further comparison among peer groups, it is helpful to see how they stack up. Google Comparison With Peers summarizes how Google compares against peers on metrics that matter. You can find more such useful comparisons on Peer Comparisons. See all Trefis Featured Analyses and Download Trefis Data here
|
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/06/02/has-fastly-fallen-into-buy-territory/
|
Will Easing Of Restrictions Continue To Drive McDonalds Growth?
|
McDonald's logo is seen near the restaurant in Krakow, Poland on May 26, 2021. (Photo by Jakub ... [+] Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images [Updated 06/02/2021] McDonalds Update McDonalds (NYSE: MCD), a global fast food chain, has seen its stock rise continuously over the years. It has risen by 36% since the end of 2017 and at the current price of $234 we believe it has a potential upside of around 9%. The company had witnessed a revenue fall from $22.8 billion in 2017 to $21.4 billion in 2019 due to re-franchising nearly 95% of the total restaurants across the world. In 2020 revenue fell to $19.2 billion primarily due to the Covid-19 pandemic which saw various restrictions placed on restaurants globally. Recovery was seen in the second half of 2020 and the momentum continued in Q1 2021 as the company beat consensus estimates by posting revenue of $5.1 billion, up 9% y-o-y while diluted earnings were $2.05 per share compared to $1.47 per share in the same period of the previous year. Our dashboard Buy or Sell McDonalds Stock has the underlying numbers. Stock Prices Trefis We believe the company will see a positive revenue and earnings growth as the restrictions continue to ease and the vaccination drive continues. We expect McDonalds revenues to rise by 10.5% to $21.2 billion in 2021. Further, its net income is likely to grow to $5.5 billion as recovery post Covid-19 gains pace, increasing its earnings per share to $7.48, which coupled with the P/E multiple of 34.3x will lead to McDonalds valuation of around $256, which is more than 9% above its current market price. [Updated 03/05/2021] McDonalds Update At the current price of around $205, McDonalds stock (NYSE: MCD) has a potential upside of around 24%. McDonalds, a global fast food company, saw its stock rise by 16% from 2018 to now, compared to the S&P 500 which has gained 50% since the end of 2018. The company has seen revenues falling in recent years while its P/E ratio has risen. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, McDonalds saw revenue fall by 9% in 2020 to $19.2 billion, while earnings per share fell to $6.35 compared to $7.95 in the previous year. The fall was primarily due to the shutdown of restaurants during the Covid-19 lockdowns and lower footfall due to continuing restrictions in various regions. We expect McDonalds revenues to rise by 10.6% to $21.2 billion in 2021. Further, its net income is likely to grow to $5.5 billion as recovery post Covid-19 gains pace, increasing its earnings per share to $7.48, which coupled with the P/E multiple of 34.1x will lead to McDonalds valuation of around $255, which is nearly 24% above its current market price. After a 10% rise this year, at the current price near $215 per share, we believe McDonalds stock (NYSE: MCD) has a moderate upside in the near term. MCD stock has increased from $197 to $218 since the start of the year compared to the S&P 500 which also increased by 10% in 2020. The stock has performed in line with the market despite a fall in revenues for the first 2 quarters of 2020. For Q3 2020 revenue were nearly flat at $5.4 billion while earnings improved to $2.37 compared to $2.13 in the same period of the previous year. Revenue and earnings recovery were driven by a 4.6% growth in systemwide sales in the US. We expect systemwide sales to continue recovery in Q4 2020 and the stock price to rise along with it. The 27% rise in MCD stock price between 2017 to 2019 is justified by significant growth in earnings during those two years. McDonalds revenue fell 7.6% from $22.8 billion in 2017 to $21.1 billion in 2019. This effect was offset by margins increasing from 22.8% to 28.6% during this period. On a per share basis, earnings went up from $6.43 to $7.95. Higher margins were driven by an overall increase in restaurants and continuous re-franchising. During the same period, the P/E multiple fell from 27x to 25x. The P/E improved in recent weeks as the company and sector are showing signs of recovery. Currently the multiple stands at 27x. The global spread of coronavirus led to lockdown in various cities across the globe, which affected industrial and economic activity. This is likely to adversely affect consumption and consumer spending. McDonalds revenues and earnings took a hit for the first half of 2020, but in Q3 2020 reported flat revenue and a growth in earnings compared to the same period in 2019. Q3 2020 also saw systemwide sales recover (up 4.6% y-o-y) in the US market compared to Q2 2020 where we saw a huge decline due to lockdowns affected across regions. See all Trefis Featured Analyses and Download Trefis Data here
|
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/06/02/will-easing-of-restrictions-continue-to-drive-mcdonalds-growth/
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.