data_id
int64 1
1.12M
| id
stringlengths 32
138
| date
timestamp[s] | source
stringlengths 2
24
| title
stringlengths 12
203
| content
stringlengths 32
65.4k
⌀ | author
stringlengths 2
242
⌀ | url
stringlengths 27
244
| published
stringlengths 14
32
| published_utc
int64 1.55B
1.58B
| collection_utc
int64 1.57B
1.58B
| category_level_1
stringclasses 17
values | category_level_2
stringlengths 3
42
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
45,355 | bbcuk--2019-11-21--Thomas Cook's new owner creates 1,500 new jobs | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Thomas Cook's new owner creates 1,500 new jobs | Hays Travel, which bought Thomas Cook after it collapsed, has announced plans to hire an extra 1,500 staff. The travel agent has already taken on 2,330 former Thomas Cook employees. But now Hays plans to hire another 200 people at its head office in Sunderland, an extra 500 to handle foreign exchange, and an apprentice at each of its 737 branches. The move has been seen as a vote of confidence in the package holiday market. Hays took on all of Thomas Cook's 555 shops in October after the travel agent spectacularly collapsed earlier this year. • Who are the family buying Thomas Cook shops? Since then it has reopened 450 of those stores and hired a lot of its old staff. But now it is expanding further. John Hays, who runs the travel agent with his wife Irene, said: "We're further increasing staffing to ensure we have the highest customer service levels across all of our stores and our head office functions." He said applicants didn't need experience in the sector "just an enthusiasm for travel". The hiring spree will take Hays' workforce to 5,700 people. "The former Thomas Cook managers have said the biggest difference for them is being empowered and valued - as an independent travel agent they are not tied to certain products or scripts and they feel trusted," Mr Hays said. "This is a key principle of our business." It is the latest sign of renewed confidence in the package holiday business. Earlier this week, EasyJet announced plans to relaunch its own package holiday operation in a bid to fill the gap in the market left by Thomas Cook. About 20 million people fly with EasyJet to Europe annually but only 500,000 book accommodation through it. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50501807 | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 15:24:37 GMT | 1,574,367,877 | 1,574,382,304 | labour | employment |
45,355 | bbcuk--2019-11-21--Thomas Cook's new owner creates 1,500 new jobs | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Thomas Cook's new owner creates 1,500 new jobs | Hays Travel, which bought Thomas Cook after it collapsed, has announced plans to hire an extra 1,500 staff. The travel agent has already taken on 2,330 former Thomas Cook employees. But now Hays plans to hire another 200 people at its head office in Sunderland, an extra 500 to handle foreign exchange, and an apprentice at each of its 737 branches. The move has been seen as a vote of confidence in the package holiday market. Hays took on all of Thomas Cook's 555 shops in October after the travel agent spectacularly collapsed earlier this year. • Who are the family buying Thomas Cook shops? Since then it has reopened 450 of those stores and hired a lot of its old staff. But now it is expanding further. John Hays, who runs the travel agent with his wife Irene, said: "We're further increasing staffing to ensure we have the highest customer service levels across all of our stores and our head office functions." He said applicants didn't need experience in the sector "just an enthusiasm for travel". The hiring spree will take Hays' workforce to 5,700 people. "The former Thomas Cook managers have said the biggest difference for them is being empowered and valued - as an independent travel agent they are not tied to certain products or scripts and they feel trusted," Mr Hays said. "This is a key principle of our business." It is the latest sign of renewed confidence in the package holiday business. Earlier this week, EasyJet announced plans to relaunch its own package holiday operation in a bid to fill the gap in the market left by Thomas Cook. About 20 million people fly with EasyJet to Europe annually but only 500,000 book accommodation through it. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50501807 | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 15:24:37 GMT | 1,574,367,877 | 1,574,382,304 | labour | labour relations |
62,993 | birminghammail--2019-06-04--West Brom pair wanted men as ex-boss is tipped for new job | 2019-06-04T00:00:00 | birminghammail | West Brom pair wanted men as ex-boss is tipped for new job | Former West Brom and Aston Villa manager Roberto Di Matteo is the short-priced favourite to take over at Kilmarnock. Di Matteo has been out of work since being sacked by Villa in October 2016 having previously led West Brom to the Premier League in 2010 and guiding Chelsea to the Champions League title in 2012. Interestingly, the man he is now being tipped to succeed is one of his assistants at Villa Park - Steve Clarke. Clarke, who also managed Albion between 2012 and 2014 and led the Baggies to an eighth placed Premier League finish (the club’s best to date), has left Killie in a great place after taking the Scotland job following Alex McLeish’s sacking. It’s not even a month since the 2018/2019 season ended - and already time is starting to drag, writes Brian Dick. The transfer window is already open, that happened on May 16 and teams have been able to trade since. And of course Baggies supporters have already started buying the new Puma 2019/2020 home shirt . So with no World Cup to distract us this summer here are some key dates for your West Bromwich Albion diary. If Jay Rodriguez leaves this summer, West Bromwich Albion will be faced with the daunting task of replacing players who contributed towards over half of their overall goal tally last term, writes Gregg Evans. Dwight Gayle's loan spell at the club has ended and Albion are not in a position to sign him permanently from Newcastle United. And with Rodriguez attracting interest from Burnley once again, the Baggies may be left with Hal Robson-Kanu as the only senior striker. Gayle and Rodriguez bagged 46 times between them last term, strikes directly contributing towards 52 per-cent of the Baggies' goals. Now I understand it’s not the time to be asking West Bromwich Albion fans for patience, writes Gregg Evans. But bear with me. This game that we all love has plenty of ups and downs just like Norwich City, for example, have recently discovered. From Premier League relegation in 2015/16 to Championship winners in 2018/19, their four-year journey has been a tale of contrasting emotions. Despair in that fatal top flight campaign, angst in the two years that followed, and elation this term. Football once again doing its very best to pull at the heartstrings. Daniel Sturridge has refused to be drawn in on speculation regarding his future after Liverpool's Champions League triumph. The 29-year-old was part of the Liverpool squad that lifted their sixth European crown in Madrid on Saturday night. That marked a remarkable 12 month turnaround for the England international, after being relegated with West Bromwich Albion at the end of last season. Sturridge was an unused sub during the 2-0 win over Tottenham and it is likely that it will be the final appearance for the Merseysiders. Rekeem Harper is still ‘likely’ to join Celtic, as the West Brom midfielder ponders his future. Neil Lennon, who has last week been re-appointed the Bhoys manager on a permanent basis after getting the club over the line in their ‘treble treble’ attempt, was spotted in attendance at Albion’s play-off semi-final penalty shoot-out defeat to Aston Villa last month. He and then assistant Garry Parker sat among the Hawthorns hordes as Harper came on in the 75th minute, and played through to the end of extra time. Harper, 19, made 23 appearances for Albion this past season, and scored once - a thunderbolt in the win over Rotherham United at the end of the regular campaign. Burnley could once again look to bring West Bromwich Albion striker Jay Rodriguez back to Turf Moor. The Clarets did launch a bid for the 29-year-old last summer but were knocked back. Burnley Express have now reported that Sean Dyche could re-ignite his interest with a much reduced offer. Rodriguez and Craig Dawson were the subject of a £25m joint bid last summer that Albion chiefs rejected. Twelve months on, with the Baggies need to tighten their financial belts after missing out on promotion, they could be prepared to cash in. | [email protected] (Joseph Chapman) | https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/west-brom-pair-wanted-men-16373290 | 2019-06-04 03:00:00+00:00 | 1,559,631,600 | 1,567,539,142 | labour | labour relations |
62,993 | birminghammail--2019-06-04--West Brom pair wanted men as ex-boss is tipped for new job | 2019-06-04T00:00:00 | birminghammail | West Brom pair wanted men as ex-boss is tipped for new job | Former West Brom and Aston Villa manager Roberto Di Matteo is the short-priced favourite to take over at Kilmarnock. Di Matteo has been out of work since being sacked by Villa in October 2016 having previously led West Brom to the Premier League in 2010 and guiding Chelsea to the Champions League title in 2012. Interestingly, the man he is now being tipped to succeed is one of his assistants at Villa Park - Steve Clarke. Clarke, who also managed Albion between 2012 and 2014 and led the Baggies to an eighth placed Premier League finish (the club’s best to date), has left Killie in a great place after taking the Scotland job following Alex McLeish’s sacking. It’s not even a month since the 2018/2019 season ended - and already time is starting to drag, writes Brian Dick. The transfer window is already open, that happened on May 16 and teams have been able to trade since. And of course Baggies supporters have already started buying the new Puma 2019/2020 home shirt . So with no World Cup to distract us this summer here are some key dates for your West Bromwich Albion diary. If Jay Rodriguez leaves this summer, West Bromwich Albion will be faced with the daunting task of replacing players who contributed towards over half of their overall goal tally last term, writes Gregg Evans. Dwight Gayle's loan spell at the club has ended and Albion are not in a position to sign him permanently from Newcastle United. And with Rodriguez attracting interest from Burnley once again, the Baggies may be left with Hal Robson-Kanu as the only senior striker. Gayle and Rodriguez bagged 46 times between them last term, strikes directly contributing towards 52 per-cent of the Baggies' goals. Now I understand it’s not the time to be asking West Bromwich Albion fans for patience, writes Gregg Evans. But bear with me. This game that we all love has plenty of ups and downs just like Norwich City, for example, have recently discovered. From Premier League relegation in 2015/16 to Championship winners in 2018/19, their four-year journey has been a tale of contrasting emotions. Despair in that fatal top flight campaign, angst in the two years that followed, and elation this term. Football once again doing its very best to pull at the heartstrings. Daniel Sturridge has refused to be drawn in on speculation regarding his future after Liverpool's Champions League triumph. The 29-year-old was part of the Liverpool squad that lifted their sixth European crown in Madrid on Saturday night. That marked a remarkable 12 month turnaround for the England international, after being relegated with West Bromwich Albion at the end of last season. Sturridge was an unused sub during the 2-0 win over Tottenham and it is likely that it will be the final appearance for the Merseysiders. Rekeem Harper is still ‘likely’ to join Celtic, as the West Brom midfielder ponders his future. Neil Lennon, who has last week been re-appointed the Bhoys manager on a permanent basis after getting the club over the line in their ‘treble treble’ attempt, was spotted in attendance at Albion’s play-off semi-final penalty shoot-out defeat to Aston Villa last month. He and then assistant Garry Parker sat among the Hawthorns hordes as Harper came on in the 75th minute, and played through to the end of extra time. Harper, 19, made 23 appearances for Albion this past season, and scored once - a thunderbolt in the win over Rotherham United at the end of the regular campaign. Burnley could once again look to bring West Bromwich Albion striker Jay Rodriguez back to Turf Moor. The Clarets did launch a bid for the 29-year-old last summer but were knocked back. Burnley Express have now reported that Sean Dyche could re-ignite his interest with a much reduced offer. Rodriguez and Craig Dawson were the subject of a £25m joint bid last summer that Albion chiefs rejected. Twelve months on, with the Baggies need to tighten their financial belts after missing out on promotion, they could be prepared to cash in. | [email protected] (Joseph Chapman) | https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/west-brom-pair-wanted-men-16373290 | 2019-06-04 03:00:00+00:00 | 1,559,631,600 | 1,567,539,142 | labour | employment |
96,370 | chicagotribune--2019-12-20--Ask Amy: Fiance's new job inspires high dudgeon | 2019-12-20T00:00:00 | chicagotribune | Ask Amy: Fiance's new job inspires high dudgeon | He is incredibly excited to have a job that, for the first time in his life, directly helps people. He's worked with epileptics whose seizures have stopped, and people with chronic anxiety who are able to manage their symptoms better. He gets thank you letters regularly from people whose lives have changed from this herb. (Note: there are many ways to use marijuana that do NOT involve smoking or vaping.) | Amy Dickinson | http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-ask-amy-1221-20191213-story.html | Fri, 20 Dec 2019 22:00:00 PST | 1,576,897,200 | 1,576,929,738 | labour | employment |
113,119 | cnsnews--2019-06-19--Lockheed Martin Announces 142 Million Expansion of Arkansas Plant More Than 300 New Jobs | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Lockheed Martin Announces $142 Million Expansion of Arkansas Plant, More Than 300 New Jobs | (CNSNews.com) -- Lockheed Martin is investing $142 million in its Camden, Arkansas facility, which will add 326 new jobs by 2024, according to a June 17 Lockheed Martin plans to expand its facility to include two new production buildings that will support manufacturing long-range fires products and PAC-3 missile defense capabilities. Currently, the company’s Camden buildings occupy a combined manufacturing and support function floor space that exceeds 1.9 million square feet spread out over more than 1,800 acres of land. Approximately 650 employees work in the facility’s manufacturing and support buildings. The newly created jobs would growing the Camden facility workforce to more than 900 employees in the next few years. The $142 million capital investment not only supports the new construction but also improves the existing facilities for production, new machinery, and equipment important to the defense of the United States and allies. Frank St. John, the executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control said, “The facility has a long record of precision manufacturing and on-time deliveries, which is the reason we continue to invest in and expand our Camden Operations.” “This expansion will help ensure the availability, affordability and quality of systems we build for our customers around the world,” he said. “Lockheed Martin is a leading technology firm with facilities and clients around the world,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). “Lockheed’s investment illustrates the fact that Arkansas continues to be a global player in the aero-defense industry.” | Ilona Schumicky | https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ilona-schumicky/lockheed-martin-announces-142-million-expansion-arkansas-plant-more-300 | 2019-06-19 16:43:09+00:00 | 1,560,976,989 | 1,567,538,688 | labour | employment |
113,119 | cnsnews--2019-06-19--Lockheed Martin Announces 142 Million Expansion of Arkansas Plant More Than 300 New Jobs | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Lockheed Martin Announces $142 Million Expansion of Arkansas Plant, More Than 300 New Jobs | (CNSNews.com) -- Lockheed Martin is investing $142 million in its Camden, Arkansas facility, which will add 326 new jobs by 2024, according to a June 17 Lockheed Martin plans to expand its facility to include two new production buildings that will support manufacturing long-range fires products and PAC-3 missile defense capabilities. Currently, the company’s Camden buildings occupy a combined manufacturing and support function floor space that exceeds 1.9 million square feet spread out over more than 1,800 acres of land. Approximately 650 employees work in the facility’s manufacturing and support buildings. The newly created jobs would growing the Camden facility workforce to more than 900 employees in the next few years. The $142 million capital investment not only supports the new construction but also improves the existing facilities for production, new machinery, and equipment important to the defense of the United States and allies. Frank St. John, the executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control said, “The facility has a long record of precision manufacturing and on-time deliveries, which is the reason we continue to invest in and expand our Camden Operations.” “This expansion will help ensure the availability, affordability and quality of systems we build for our customers around the world,” he said. “Lockheed Martin is a leading technology firm with facilities and clients around the world,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). “Lockheed’s investment illustrates the fact that Arkansas continues to be a global player in the aero-defense industry.” | Ilona Schumicky | https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ilona-schumicky/lockheed-martin-announces-142-million-expansion-arkansas-plant-more-300 | 2019-06-19 16:43:09+00:00 | 1,560,976,989 | 1,567,538,688 | labour | labour market |
120,960 | crikey--2019-01-30--Where will Morrisons 125 million new jobs go exactly | 2019-01-30T00:00:00 | crikey | Where will Morrison’s ‘1.25 million’ new jobs go exactly? | Scott Morrison's commitment to 1.25 million jobs in coming years is great news for migrants in the health sector. Yesterday, Scott Morrison committed to "see" 1.25 million jobs created over the next five years. If successful, that will represent one of Australia's biggest ever foreign aid programs, because tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of thousands of those jobs will go to foreign workers in service occupations in health and social care. How do we know? Well, we know where these jobs are unlikely to come from. The hitherto buoyant business investment environment in Australia, it's becoming clear, began deflating in the final quarter of 2018 -- the victim of the replacement of Malcolm Turnbull with Morrison, the harm of persistent wage stagnation finally becoming apparent, the Sydney and Melbourne housing price moderation, a slowing global economy, Trump's idiocy and sharemarket gyrations. The closely watched monthly survey of business conditions and confidence from the National Australia Bank this week showed the conditions index falling under its long-term average for the first time in three years. | Bernard Keane | https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/01/30/migrant-workers-new-jobs/ | 2019-01-30 01:45:55+00:00 | 1,548,830,755 | 1,567,550,195 | labour | labour market |
133,626 | dailymail--2019-07-25--Ivanka boasts signing up businesses for 12 MILLION new job training opportunities | 2019-07-25T00:00:00 | dailymail | Ivanka boasts signing up businesses for 12 MILLION new job 'training opportunities' | Ivanka Trump boasted on Thursday she has created 12 million new job 'training opportunities' as the president bragged about his pride in his daughter. The first daughter, speaking before President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a slew of Cabinet officials, touted the one-year anniversary of her Pledge to America's Workers program. 'Over the last year more than 300 businesses - 300 businesses - have signed the pledge and today we celebrate reaching 12 million pledged agreements,' she crowed. 'I think I'm allowed to be proud of my daughter,' he said, 'but the fact is she's worked so hard at this.' 'Nothing like this has been done before,' the president said. 'So congratulations Ivanka. Congratulations and keep it up. When are you going to hit 24 million?' 'At this pace very soon,' she replied. In her remarks, the first daughter echoed her father's talking points about the strong American economy. 'This campaign was born out of a tremendous economic surges happening across our country,' Ivanka Trump said. 'Today more Americans are working than ever before. Virtually every single demographic is achieving historically low unemployment rates,' she added. The 30-minute event was designed to highlight Ivanka Trump's work. She led a discussion with some of the workers and companies that have taken part in the program. She also thanked the president and several of the Cabinet officials in the room, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow. Ivanka's husband, White House Counselor Jared Kushner, was also in the audience. Several CEOs joined the event including: Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America; Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens; Jay Timmons, President and CEO of National Association of Manufacturers (NAM); and Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President and CEO of Lockheed Martin. The companies sign a pledge that promises to 'invest in both students and workers by providing opportunities for education and training that will help more Americans thrive in the modern workplace. Specifically, over the next 5 years, we pledge to create enhanced career opportunities for XX individuals, including through increased apprenticeships and work-based learning programs, continuing education, on-the-job training, and re-skilling.' Ivanka Trump, who serves as counselor to the president, has traveled the country to promote the program and has bragged about it at events and campaign rallies with the president. Earlier this month, the president defended his daughter after she was criticized for her role at the June G20 conference and said she had created 10 million jobs. 'Ivanka has worked on almost 10 million jobs training and going to companies and getting them to hire people. But the people, the foreign leaders really like her a lot,' Trump said of her. The first daughter became the target of online memes after a video - posted by the French government - that showed her interacting with other world leaders went viral. For Thursday's celebration at the White House, Ivanka Trump donned a light-grey, mid-length skirt that featured several long tassels, and a matching long sleeved peplum jacket from Los Angeles-based designer Brock Collection. She also appeared to be sporting a fresh, blunt haircut. | null | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7287261/Ivanka-boasts-signing-businesses-12-MILLION-new-job-training-opportunities.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 | 2019-07-25 22:02:06+00:00 | 1,564,106,526 | 1,567,535,798 | labour | labour market |
129,836 | dailyheraldchicago--2019-11-08--Elgin fire chief taking new job in North Carolina | 2019-11-08T00:00:00 | dailyheraldchicago | Elgin fire chief taking new job in North Carolina | Elgin Fire Chief Dave Schmidt grew up in a firehouse, hanging around where his father worked as a battalion chief in Rolling Meadows. "I knew this (firefighting) is what I wanted to do," the 53-year-old said Friday, the day after he announced he was retiring. Schmidt will leave Elgin Jan. 3 after 30 years with the department and start a new job Jan. 6 as chief of the Carrboro, North Carolina, fire department. "The Elgin community and organization have greatly benefitted from Chief Schmidt's 30 years of service, particularly during his three years as fire chief," City Manager Rick Kozal said in a prepared statement. "The progressive operational and technical efficiencies Chief Schmidt implemented while leading the department will remain a hallmark of his tenure." Schmidt became a lieutenant in 2000, captain in 2005 and assistant chief of operations in 2011. "I wanted to be somewhere big," Schmidt said of his decision to apply for the Elgin job. "Elgin has been very exciting." He is particularly proud of the changes in technology he helped implement. When he started, he said, he was teaching firefighters what a personal computer was and how to use it. Now all Elgin fire vehicles -- including ambulances and fire trucks -- are equipped with mobile computers and Wi-Fi hot spots. Cardiac monitors, for example, can send reports wirelessly to paramedics' tablets for importation into reports rather than having to print out long strips of paper that would be taped to a piece of copy paper. "It is just incredible how the technology has exploded and improved in our craft," he said. Asked for an example of how he learned from a bad call, Schmidt recalled the April 2001 mass shooting at JB's Pub, in which a man shot 18 people, killing two of them. Schmidt's ambulance was the second on the scene and ended up taking the shooter to a hospital for treatment. "But out of that (situation) grew our active-shooter response (training) with police," Schmidt said. Both departments recognized that emergency scenes were changing, and that it behooved police officers and firefighters to have a coordinated response. He is also proud of his 15 years of work with the department's academy, which trained firefighters for Elgin and other cities. "I believe we are the best fire department in the region," Schmidt said. | null | http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20191108/elgin-fire-chief-taking-new-job-in-north-carolina | Fri, 8 Nov 2019 17:35:25 -0500 | 1,573,252,525 | 1,573,258,965 | labour | labour relations |
129,836 | dailyheraldchicago--2019-11-08--Elgin fire chief taking new job in North Carolina | 2019-11-08T00:00:00 | dailyheraldchicago | Elgin fire chief taking new job in North Carolina | Elgin Fire Chief Dave Schmidt grew up in a firehouse, hanging around where his father worked as a battalion chief in Rolling Meadows. "I knew this (firefighting) is what I wanted to do," the 53-year-old said Friday, the day after he announced he was retiring. Schmidt will leave Elgin Jan. 3 after 30 years with the department and start a new job Jan. 6 as chief of the Carrboro, North Carolina, fire department. "The Elgin community and organization have greatly benefitted from Chief Schmidt's 30 years of service, particularly during his three years as fire chief," City Manager Rick Kozal said in a prepared statement. "The progressive operational and technical efficiencies Chief Schmidt implemented while leading the department will remain a hallmark of his tenure." Schmidt became a lieutenant in 2000, captain in 2005 and assistant chief of operations in 2011. "I wanted to be somewhere big," Schmidt said of his decision to apply for the Elgin job. "Elgin has been very exciting." He is particularly proud of the changes in technology he helped implement. When he started, he said, he was teaching firefighters what a personal computer was and how to use it. Now all Elgin fire vehicles -- including ambulances and fire trucks -- are equipped with mobile computers and Wi-Fi hot spots. Cardiac monitors, for example, can send reports wirelessly to paramedics' tablets for importation into reports rather than having to print out long strips of paper that would be taped to a piece of copy paper. "It is just incredible how the technology has exploded and improved in our craft," he said. Asked for an example of how he learned from a bad call, Schmidt recalled the April 2001 mass shooting at JB's Pub, in which a man shot 18 people, killing two of them. Schmidt's ambulance was the second on the scene and ended up taking the shooter to a hospital for treatment. "But out of that (situation) grew our active-shooter response (training) with police," Schmidt said. Both departments recognized that emergency scenes were changing, and that it behooved police officers and firefighters to have a coordinated response. He is also proud of his 15 years of work with the department's academy, which trained firefighters for Elgin and other cities. "I believe we are the best fire department in the region," Schmidt said. | null | http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20191108/elgin-fire-chief-taking-new-job-in-north-carolina | Fri, 8 Nov 2019 17:35:25 -0500 | 1,573,252,525 | 1,573,258,965 | labour | employment |
138,845 | delawareliberal--2019-05-14--ATT promised 7000 new jobs to get tax breakit cut 23000 jobs instead | 2019-05-14T00:00:00 | delawareliberal | AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead | In 2017, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson campaigned for Trump’s massive tax-cuts by promising that they would create 7,000 jobs with the $3,000,000,000 they stood to gain, “every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year.” Stephenson also said that AT&T would invest in new infrastructure. But something happened on the way to the trickledown boon for workers. Instead of creating new jobs or investing in infrastructure, AT&T reduced its headcount by 23,328 workers while reducing capital expenditures by $1.4B Don’t worry though, AT&T substantially increased executive bonuses over the same period. | jason330 | https://delawareliberal.net/2019/05/14/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/ | 2019-05-14 19:52:28+00:00 | 1,557,877,948 | 1,567,540,768 | labour | labour market |
138,845 | delawareliberal--2019-05-14--ATT promised 7000 new jobs to get tax breakit cut 23000 jobs instead | 2019-05-14T00:00:00 | delawareliberal | AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead | In 2017, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson campaigned for Trump’s massive tax-cuts by promising that they would create 7,000 jobs with the $3,000,000,000 they stood to gain, “every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year.” Stephenson also said that AT&T would invest in new infrastructure. But something happened on the way to the trickledown boon for workers. Instead of creating new jobs or investing in infrastructure, AT&T reduced its headcount by 23,328 workers while reducing capital expenditures by $1.4B Don’t worry though, AT&T substantially increased executive bonuses over the same period. | jason330 | https://delawareliberal.net/2019/05/14/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/ | 2019-05-14 19:52:28+00:00 | 1,557,877,948 | 1,567,540,768 | labour | employment |
138,845 | delawareliberal--2019-05-14--ATT promised 7000 new jobs to get tax breakit cut 23000 jobs instead | 2019-05-14T00:00:00 | delawareliberal | AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead | In 2017, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson campaigned for Trump’s massive tax-cuts by promising that they would create 7,000 jobs with the $3,000,000,000 they stood to gain, “every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year.” Stephenson also said that AT&T would invest in new infrastructure. But something happened on the way to the trickledown boon for workers. Instead of creating new jobs or investing in infrastructure, AT&T reduced its headcount by 23,328 workers while reducing capital expenditures by $1.4B Don’t worry though, AT&T substantially increased executive bonuses over the same period. | jason330 | https://delawareliberal.net/2019/05/14/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/ | 2019-05-14 19:52:28+00:00 | 1,557,877,948 | 1,567,540,768 | labour | labour relations |
153,212 | drudgereport--2019-11-01--Tweets 303K job claim after report of 128K new jobs... | 2019-11-01T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Tweets 303K job claim after report of 128K new jobs... | President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says he would be willing to do 'fireside chat' reading the Zelensky transcript Krystal Ball: 'The weird obsession and freakout over Tulsi Gabbard has massively helped her' Trump says poor treatment and high taxes prompted permanent residence change MORE spurred confusion Friday after he tweeted about a "blowout" 303,000 jobs figure — minutes after an official government report said the economy added 128,000 jobs in October. The estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was good news for the administration, as its report on last month's job gains was far greater than the gain of roughly 85,000 jobs projected by economists. t’s unclear how Trump calculated the vastly larger jobs gain, or where he obtained that analysis. In the Friday tweet hailing the report, Trump claimed the “blowout JOBS number” was actually a gain of 303,000 jobs if accounting for revisions and the temporary loss of jobs tied to the General Motors strike. “Wow, a blowout JOBS number just out, adjusted for revisions and the General Motors strike, 303,000. This is far greater than expectations. USA ROCKS!” Trump tweeted BLS revised the August and September job gains up by 95,000 workers, and most of the 42,000 auto manufacturing jobs frozen during the GM strike are likely resume in time for the November jobs report to be calculated. White House spokesman Judd Deere told The Hill in an email that Trump’s figure also included an additional 18,000 GM workers not reflected in the BLS report, and 20,000 temporary Census workers who completed their work in October. Economists say Trump’s calculations do not paint an accurate picture of an already-strong labor market. “Those were wildly inaccurate,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at audit and accounting firm RSM. “This is what we’d call ‘fake data.’” Economists would not typically consider revisions to past jobs reports or the future return of striking workers to be part of a different month’s job gain. Accounting for the loss of 20,000 Census workers would double-count the initial addition of those workers to past jobs reports, as well. Trump’s tweet about the jobs report also raised eyebrows because it violated the one-hour ban on White House commentary on sensitive economic data. Trump tweeted his praise for the report at 8:52 a.m., just more than 20 minutes after the jobs report was released. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/4F_v5-owCOI/468491-trump-confuses-with-inflated-october-jobs-claim | Fri, 01 Nov 2019 22:07:37 GMT | 1,572,660,457 | 1,572,646,735 | labour | labour market |
192,659 | eveningstandard--2019-12-13--Arsenal manager news LIVE: Pochettino linked with new job, Ancelotti 'free' to join Gunner | 2019-12-13T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Arsenal manager news LIVE: Pochettino linked with new job, Ancelotti 'free' to join Gunners | Ljungberg in need of a favour from the Arsenal youngsters he mentored Freddie Ljungberg is in his present position because of the relationship he enjoys with Arsenal’s young players. Thursday night offers a chance to examine just how far that could take him. The Gunners arrived here in Liege with an experimental squad as a result of three factors: Arsenal needing one point to qualify, the proximity of Sunday’s League clash against Manchester City and a flurry of injuries headlined by Kieran Tierney’s three-month absence with a dislocated shoulder. Ljungberg continues to play down the prospect of succeeding Unai Emery on a permanent basis but it is understood a run of impressive results would put him firmly in the frame. The fact he is a cheap alternative is in Ljungberg’s favour but moreover his iconic status among supporters — enhanced if possible on Wednesday night with a Twitter message in support of popular Arsenal fan @TheGoonerholic who is suffering with serious illness — would make him a sentimental if not necessarily progressive appointment. The fixture list has denied Ljungberg a prolonged period on the training ground to implement any significant tactical changes and so he is relying on building confidence to lift the fog, using the understanding built with some players during their formative years to instigate a turnaround in fortunes. It was the bond he had forged with the youngsters under his stewardship with the Under-23s that prompted a change at the end of the season which saw him begin working with Emery in the first team. “When they asked me to do that job in the summer, it was an honour,” he said. “I’d worked hard and tried to do my best. It’s always nice to be recognised for the work you do. What I understood, it was for how I tried to make the Under-23s play, how we developed young players like the man here.” Joe Willock, sat alongside Ljungberg fielding questions rather nervously at the Stade Maurice Dufrasne, described the interim boss as a “mentor” and there are a few others likely to be involved on Thursday night who hold him in similar regard. Bukayo Saka spoke in September about the communication barrier Ljungberg was breaking down between Emery and the youngsters too inexperienced or shy to ask their head coach to repeat himself but the Swede was always more than a multi-linguist. “I try to look at each player, see his strengths and weaknesses, see how can I develop that player to be better and not to just do the same to every player,” said Ljungberg. “Every coach does the same thing. That’s what I try to do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” As the translator finished relaying his words for the benefit of assembled local journalists, Ljungberg jumped in. “If I can add one thing, it is to say I try to see what players can do and not focus on what they cannot do,” he said. On Thursday evening we will find out a lot about exactly what they can do. Saka, Zech Medley and Emile Smith Rowe are among those to benefit from Ljungberg’s guidance and all three are set to feature as Arsenal go in search of a win which would secure top spot and guarantee avoiding the four best teams to drop down from the Champions League. The game has greater significance for Standard, who need a win to progress, while Arsenal have considerable insulation in Uefa's head-to-head separation of teams on level points, courtesy of October’s 4-0 home victory against the Belgians. All of which means only a five-goal defeat would jeopardise Arsenal’s progress to the last 32 and so, more realistically, Ljungberg is seeking a performance that builds on Monday’s win at West Ham and showcases his ability to inspire those below him. More senior players need to respond, too. Alexandre Lacazette finds his place under pressure but he could even captain the side on Thursday night, while defender David Luiz is another set to be recalled after his omission in the only game Ljungberg has won to date. “My job is to go from day to day, game to game, to try to help this fantastic club,” he said. “All of those [managerial] decisions are up to the top dogs.” Ljungberg can make their job a little more complicated if the young guns deliver. | TOM DUTTON | https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-manager-news-live-latest-carlo-ancelotti-mauricio-pochettino-a4312666.html | Fri, 13 Dec 2019 08:51:23 GMT | 1,576,245,083 | 1,576,240,686 | labour | labour relations |
192,659 | eveningstandard--2019-12-13--Arsenal manager news LIVE: Pochettino linked with new job, Ancelotti 'free' to join Gunner | 2019-12-13T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Arsenal manager news LIVE: Pochettino linked with new job, Ancelotti 'free' to join Gunners | Ljungberg in need of a favour from the Arsenal youngsters he mentored Freddie Ljungberg is in his present position because of the relationship he enjoys with Arsenal’s young players. Thursday night offers a chance to examine just how far that could take him. The Gunners arrived here in Liege with an experimental squad as a result of three factors: Arsenal needing one point to qualify, the proximity of Sunday’s League clash against Manchester City and a flurry of injuries headlined by Kieran Tierney’s three-month absence with a dislocated shoulder. Ljungberg continues to play down the prospect of succeeding Unai Emery on a permanent basis but it is understood a run of impressive results would put him firmly in the frame. The fact he is a cheap alternative is in Ljungberg’s favour but moreover his iconic status among supporters — enhanced if possible on Wednesday night with a Twitter message in support of popular Arsenal fan @TheGoonerholic who is suffering with serious illness — would make him a sentimental if not necessarily progressive appointment. The fixture list has denied Ljungberg a prolonged period on the training ground to implement any significant tactical changes and so he is relying on building confidence to lift the fog, using the understanding built with some players during their formative years to instigate a turnaround in fortunes. It was the bond he had forged with the youngsters under his stewardship with the Under-23s that prompted a change at the end of the season which saw him begin working with Emery in the first team. “When they asked me to do that job in the summer, it was an honour,” he said. “I’d worked hard and tried to do my best. It’s always nice to be recognised for the work you do. What I understood, it was for how I tried to make the Under-23s play, how we developed young players like the man here.” Joe Willock, sat alongside Ljungberg fielding questions rather nervously at the Stade Maurice Dufrasne, described the interim boss as a “mentor” and there are a few others likely to be involved on Thursday night who hold him in similar regard. Bukayo Saka spoke in September about the communication barrier Ljungberg was breaking down between Emery and the youngsters too inexperienced or shy to ask their head coach to repeat himself but the Swede was always more than a multi-linguist. “I try to look at each player, see his strengths and weaknesses, see how can I develop that player to be better and not to just do the same to every player,” said Ljungberg. “Every coach does the same thing. That’s what I try to do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” As the translator finished relaying his words for the benefit of assembled local journalists, Ljungberg jumped in. “If I can add one thing, it is to say I try to see what players can do and not focus on what they cannot do,” he said. On Thursday evening we will find out a lot about exactly what they can do. Saka, Zech Medley and Emile Smith Rowe are among those to benefit from Ljungberg’s guidance and all three are set to feature as Arsenal go in search of a win which would secure top spot and guarantee avoiding the four best teams to drop down from the Champions League. The game has greater significance for Standard, who need a win to progress, while Arsenal have considerable insulation in Uefa's head-to-head separation of teams on level points, courtesy of October’s 4-0 home victory against the Belgians. All of which means only a five-goal defeat would jeopardise Arsenal’s progress to the last 32 and so, more realistically, Ljungberg is seeking a performance that builds on Monday’s win at West Ham and showcases his ability to inspire those below him. More senior players need to respond, too. Alexandre Lacazette finds his place under pressure but he could even captain the side on Thursday night, while defender David Luiz is another set to be recalled after his omission in the only game Ljungberg has won to date. “My job is to go from day to day, game to game, to try to help this fantastic club,” he said. “All of those [managerial] decisions are up to the top dogs.” Ljungberg can make their job a little more complicated if the young guns deliver. | TOM DUTTON | https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-manager-news-live-latest-carlo-ancelotti-mauricio-pochettino-a4312666.html | Fri, 13 Dec 2019 08:51:23 GMT | 1,576,245,083 | 1,576,240,686 | labour | employment |
205,191 | fortune--2019-08-02--Why Summer Is a Great Time to Find a New Job | 2019-08-02T00:00:00 | fortune | Why Summer Is a Great Time to Find a New Job | Ah, summertime. The days are warmer and longer, the kids are out of school, and at any given moment, some of us are either taking a vacation or daydreaming about it. It's a great time to chill out and put your job hunt on hold for now, right? Not so fast. "No one says to the chief financial officer or the head of IT, 'Hey, don't bother hiring anyone until after Labor Day'," says Marc Cenedella, CEO of Ladders, a career site for people making $100,000 a year and up. "Companies still have projects going on, goals to meet, and job openings to fill." What's more, he adds, "most of your competition for those jobs is kicking back and taking it easy until the fall." Moreover, the slower, quieter pace means that "reaching decision-makers is often much easier," notes Brenda Stanton, a vice president at career management firm Keystone Partners. "Everyone is a little less rushed and distracted. So it's not unusual to call a hiring manager on a summer Friday afternoon and get an interview for the following Monday." Here are five ways to make the most out of your summer job search: Invest more time in a knockout cover letter. The seasonal quiet means that a cover letter —which ordinarily may or may not get a quick glance— might actually be read. "Take a little extra time to customize the letter for each job you're applying for," Stanton suggests. "Emphasize why you'd be a perfect fit for that particular job." By her lights, this is just as important as customizing your resume, if not more so. "Most apps and websites now offer the option to send a cover letter, and most people don't bother," she says. So choosing to send one helps you stand out. "HR people and recruiters have told me that a good cover letter really does make a difference. It shows you went that extra mile." Take someone out to lunch. What's your old boss up to these days? How about your office buddies from, say, two jobs ago? "At this time of year, it's usually easier to get on people's calendars for lunch or drinks," observes Cenedella. "It's a great chance to reconnect with people you may have lost touch with." You never know. Former colleagues may now be, or have, friends in high places. Or they may have heard some industry scuttlebutt that could point you toward an opportunity you'd otherwise never know about. Even if not, pick people you recall having genuinely liked, and at least it'll be fun to get together and catch up. Take advantage of summer parties. Job seekers often hesitate to mention their search at, say, Uncle Clyde's annual barbecue —even if this blowout is packed with local bigwigs and others who have stellar business connections. "People often feel awkward bringing up their search in a social setting that's not supposed to be a 'networking event'," notes Stanton. "But there are ways to do it gracefully, without seeming needy or pushy." One surefire approach: Listen first. Ask someone what they do (or, if you already know that, how work is going these days), and listen carefully to the answer, perhaps summoning up a few further questions and a thoughtful comment or two. At that point, "the conversation will naturally come around to your own situation," Stanton says. "Then, when you briefly describe what you'd like to find in your next job, it's in the context of the conversation." Not only that, she adds, but being a good listener —and coming across as "relaxed and approachable," as one tends to be at parties— "makes you someone that others want to recommend. People want to help people they like." Buff up your resume. You may not have altered this document much recently, but "everyone really should do a 'resume check' at least once a year anyway," says Cenedella. "The summer slowdown is a good time to do that." Besides adding any recent achievements, a new title, or anything else that isn't on there yet, Cenedella recommends cutting "everything that's fifteen years old, or older." That may seem draconian if you're particularly proud of having doubled your sales team's numbers from 2001 to 2002 or some such feat. Cut it anyway, says Cenedella. "Business is changing so quickly that whatever you did before 2005 just isn't relevant now." Detective novelist Raymond Chandler once remarked, "In writing, you must kill your darlings." That applies to resume writing, too. Be ready to meet a stand-in interviewer. Let's say you've thoroughly researched online the CIO who'd most likely be interviewing you for the tech job you want. Then you get to the meeting and find out that that person is away on vacation —surprise!— and that you know nothing about the person sitting across from you. Don't panic. "At the end of any job interview, you should always try to find out your chances of getting an offer," says Stanton. "So be bold. Ask the substitute interviewer, 'Do you think I'm a good fit for this position?' Try to get a sense of whether he or she is planning to recommend you." If you really have your heart set on getting in touch with the person you expected to meet, Stanton adds, ask whether the stand-in would mind if you sent an email to say hello (and reiterate your interest in the job) when the CIO is back. Getting the go-ahead does two things. First, "you don't want to seem to be sneaking around or going over the stand-in's head, which could easily backfire," says Stanton. "After all, the CIO chose that person for a reason." And second, "asking is courteous. Job hunting is basically a sales process, where what you're selling is yourself. So always be aware of who, besides the hiring manager, might be influencing the 'sale.'" Noted. —These are the top 10 U.S. cities for tech jobs —This woman went from Goldman Sachs to Blue Apron recipe tester —How Fortune’s 40 Under 40 get stuff done: their favorite productivity hacks Get Fortune’s RaceAhead newsletter for sharp insights on corporate culture and diversity. | anbfisher | https://fortune.com/2019/08/02/why-summer-is-a-great-time-to-find-a-new-job/ | 2019-08-02 15:55:36+00:00 | 1,564,775,736 | 1,567,535,023 | labour | employment |
205,191 | fortune--2019-08-02--Why Summer Is a Great Time to Find a New Job | 2019-08-02T00:00:00 | fortune | Why Summer Is a Great Time to Find a New Job | Ah, summertime. The days are warmer and longer, the kids are out of school, and at any given moment, some of us are either taking a vacation or daydreaming about it. It's a great time to chill out and put your job hunt on hold for now, right? Not so fast. "No one says to the chief financial officer or the head of IT, 'Hey, don't bother hiring anyone until after Labor Day'," says Marc Cenedella, CEO of Ladders, a career site for people making $100,000 a year and up. "Companies still have projects going on, goals to meet, and job openings to fill." What's more, he adds, "most of your competition for those jobs is kicking back and taking it easy until the fall." Moreover, the slower, quieter pace means that "reaching decision-makers is often much easier," notes Brenda Stanton, a vice president at career management firm Keystone Partners. "Everyone is a little less rushed and distracted. So it's not unusual to call a hiring manager on a summer Friday afternoon and get an interview for the following Monday." Here are five ways to make the most out of your summer job search: Invest more time in a knockout cover letter. The seasonal quiet means that a cover letter —which ordinarily may or may not get a quick glance— might actually be read. "Take a little extra time to customize the letter for each job you're applying for," Stanton suggests. "Emphasize why you'd be a perfect fit for that particular job." By her lights, this is just as important as customizing your resume, if not more so. "Most apps and websites now offer the option to send a cover letter, and most people don't bother," she says. So choosing to send one helps you stand out. "HR people and recruiters have told me that a good cover letter really does make a difference. It shows you went that extra mile." Take someone out to lunch. What's your old boss up to these days? How about your office buddies from, say, two jobs ago? "At this time of year, it's usually easier to get on people's calendars for lunch or drinks," observes Cenedella. "It's a great chance to reconnect with people you may have lost touch with." You never know. Former colleagues may now be, or have, friends in high places. Or they may have heard some industry scuttlebutt that could point you toward an opportunity you'd otherwise never know about. Even if not, pick people you recall having genuinely liked, and at least it'll be fun to get together and catch up. Take advantage of summer parties. Job seekers often hesitate to mention their search at, say, Uncle Clyde's annual barbecue —even if this blowout is packed with local bigwigs and others who have stellar business connections. "People often feel awkward bringing up their search in a social setting that's not supposed to be a 'networking event'," notes Stanton. "But there are ways to do it gracefully, without seeming needy or pushy." One surefire approach: Listen first. Ask someone what they do (or, if you already know that, how work is going these days), and listen carefully to the answer, perhaps summoning up a few further questions and a thoughtful comment or two. At that point, "the conversation will naturally come around to your own situation," Stanton says. "Then, when you briefly describe what you'd like to find in your next job, it's in the context of the conversation." Not only that, she adds, but being a good listener —and coming across as "relaxed and approachable," as one tends to be at parties— "makes you someone that others want to recommend. People want to help people they like." Buff up your resume. You may not have altered this document much recently, but "everyone really should do a 'resume check' at least once a year anyway," says Cenedella. "The summer slowdown is a good time to do that." Besides adding any recent achievements, a new title, or anything else that isn't on there yet, Cenedella recommends cutting "everything that's fifteen years old, or older." That may seem draconian if you're particularly proud of having doubled your sales team's numbers from 2001 to 2002 or some such feat. Cut it anyway, says Cenedella. "Business is changing so quickly that whatever you did before 2005 just isn't relevant now." Detective novelist Raymond Chandler once remarked, "In writing, you must kill your darlings." That applies to resume writing, too. Be ready to meet a stand-in interviewer. Let's say you've thoroughly researched online the CIO who'd most likely be interviewing you for the tech job you want. Then you get to the meeting and find out that that person is away on vacation —surprise!— and that you know nothing about the person sitting across from you. Don't panic. "At the end of any job interview, you should always try to find out your chances of getting an offer," says Stanton. "So be bold. Ask the substitute interviewer, 'Do you think I'm a good fit for this position?' Try to get a sense of whether he or she is planning to recommend you." If you really have your heart set on getting in touch with the person you expected to meet, Stanton adds, ask whether the stand-in would mind if you sent an email to say hello (and reiterate your interest in the job) when the CIO is back. Getting the go-ahead does two things. First, "you don't want to seem to be sneaking around or going over the stand-in's head, which could easily backfire," says Stanton. "After all, the CIO chose that person for a reason." And second, "asking is courteous. Job hunting is basically a sales process, where what you're selling is yourself. So always be aware of who, besides the hiring manager, might be influencing the 'sale.'" Noted. —These are the top 10 U.S. cities for tech jobs —This woman went from Goldman Sachs to Blue Apron recipe tester —How Fortune’s 40 Under 40 get stuff done: their favorite productivity hacks Get Fortune’s RaceAhead newsletter for sharp insights on corporate culture and diversity. | anbfisher | https://fortune.com/2019/08/02/why-summer-is-a-great-time-to-find-a-new-job/ | 2019-08-02 15:55:36+00:00 | 1,564,775,736 | 1,567,535,023 | labour | labour relations |
315,536 | mercurynews--2019-09-11--Judge in Brock Turner case lands new job tennis coach | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | mercurynews | Judge in Brock Turner case lands new job — tennis coach | SAN JOSE – More than a year after being [recalled by voters](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/05/early-votes-brock-turner-judge- likely-to-be-booted-out-for-sentence-in-sexual-assault-case/), the controversial judge in the Brock Turner sexual assault case is now working as a coach at a South Bay high school. In a statement Tuesday, the Fremont Union High School District confirmed Aaron Persky was hired to head the junior varsity girls tennis team at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. Persky applied for the open position over the summer and successfully completed all of the district’s hiring requirements, including a fingerprint background check. “He was a highly qualified applicant, having attended several tennis coaching clinics for youth and holds a high rating from the United States Tennis Association,” the statement said. Persky was ousted as a superior court judge in June 2018 after more than 60 percent of Santa Clara County voters who went to the polls agreed he should be recalled over his handling of the Turner case. Critics launched the recall effort in mid-2016, immediately after Persky gave Turner what many considered a light sentence — six months, of which the ex- swimmer served three — for sexually assaulting an intoxicated, unconscious woman outside a campus fraternity party. Under state law, Turner must also register for life as a sex offender. Persky is only the fifth judge in California history to be booted out of office before his term is up — and the first in 86 years. Some community members have expressed concerns over Persky’s hiring, according to the statement. “In response to concerns from some members of our community, we held a meeting with the parents of both the JV and varsity girls tennis teams on Sept. 9 to provide parents with background on the situation,” the statement said. “Our focus remains on ensuring that our students have the best possible educational experience – both academically and athletically.” “As this is an ongoing personnel matter,” the statement continued, “we are unable to comment further at this time.” Last week, the woman Turner sexually assaulted – known as “Emily Doe” – revealed her real name: [Chanel Miller](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/04 /emily-doe-from-brock-turner-sexual-assault-case-reveals-name-and-face/). She plans to tell her own story in a memoir, titled “Know My Name,” due out on Sept. 24. | Jason Green | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/10/judge-in-brock-turner-case-lands-new-job-tennis-coach/ | 2019-09-11 04:40:01+00:00 | 1,568,191,201 | 1,569,330,408 | labour | employment |
344,239 | newsbusters--2019-09-05--CNN to Ax Relationship With Analyst With New Job Leading a Conservative News Outlet | 2019-09-05T00:00:00 | newsbusters | CNN to Ax Relationship With Analyst With New Job Leading a Conservative News Outlet | Not long after it was reported that Politico White House reporter Eliana Johnson was named the new editor-in-chief of conservative news site The Washington Free Beacon, Buzzfeed News reported that CNN was no longer interested in renewing her political analyst contract. “Eliana Johnson, a leading White House reporter for Politico, will not have her contract renewed for her CNN political analyst role after she accepted a new job running the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon,” Buzzfeed’s Matt Berman reported Wednesday night. According to the report, “CNN confirmed her existing contract is due to expire in November and that the network does not plan to renew it…” The report went on to note that CNN also claimed: “The decision is being made because she will no longer be a White House reporter specifically.” Berman pointed out how odd CNN’s move was considering how, in this case, they’ve extended contracts of other journalists with mobile careers in the past: Other high-profile reporters have maintained contracts at the network as they’ve changed beats or news outlets — Ryan Lizza, a CNN political analyst, has been at the network since he was a Washington correspondent at the New Yorker, and then as he moved from being chief political correspondent at Esquire to chief Washington correspondent at Politico. It was just a few months ago (May 5) when CNN media reporter Brian Stelter told Daily Wire founder and conservative thought leader Ben Shaprio that conservative journalists should get jobs at outlets like The New York Times and CNN so they could “be part of the solution” and stop “complaining” about the media’s liberal bias: SHAPIRO: It’s why my critique of MSNBC sometimes is a lot less strident, I think, than my critique of CNN, because CNN purports to be objective. MSNBC really does not purport to be objective in the same way. STELTER: Part of me thinks that you and your colleagues at The Daily Wire should try to get jobs at The New York Times. If you don’t like the coverage, try to be part of the solution as opposed to complaining about it. SHAPIRO: I don’t know; would you hire me? I really doubt that, and not only that, STELTER: I wanted you as a guest for many months— SHAPIRO: I’m not sure you guys could pay me. I’ll be frank with you; I make a lot of money. Just last month, CNN benched two of the strongest pro-Trump voices on the network. “Steve Cortes, a prominent surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016 and ‘happy warrior’ for President Trump, has not appeared on CNN in the U.S. in more than a month. Ben Ferguson, a veteran Republican commentator, has not been on in more than four months, since Apr. 13,” The Hollywood Reporter discovered. Despite suggestions that CNN boss Jeff Zucker wanted to “talk to all sides,” it’s become increasingly clear that’s not what CNN was interested in. | Nicholas Fondacaro | https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2019/09/04/cnn-ax-relationship-analyst-new-job-leading-conservative-news | 2019-09-05 01:30:00+00:00 | 1,567,661,400 | 1,569,331,339 | labour | labour relations |
344,239 | newsbusters--2019-09-05--CNN to Ax Relationship With Analyst With New Job Leading a Conservative News Outlet | 2019-09-05T00:00:00 | newsbusters | CNN to Ax Relationship With Analyst With New Job Leading a Conservative News Outlet | Not long after it was reported that Politico White House reporter Eliana Johnson was named the new editor-in-chief of conservative news site The Washington Free Beacon, Buzzfeed News reported that CNN was no longer interested in renewing her political analyst contract. “Eliana Johnson, a leading White House reporter for Politico, will not have her contract renewed for her CNN political analyst role after she accepted a new job running the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon,” Buzzfeed’s Matt Berman reported Wednesday night. According to the report, “CNN confirmed her existing contract is due to expire in November and that the network does not plan to renew it…” The report went on to note that CNN also claimed: “The decision is being made because she will no longer be a White House reporter specifically.” Berman pointed out how odd CNN’s move was considering how, in this case, they’ve extended contracts of other journalists with mobile careers in the past: Other high-profile reporters have maintained contracts at the network as they’ve changed beats or news outlets — Ryan Lizza, a CNN political analyst, has been at the network since he was a Washington correspondent at the New Yorker, and then as he moved from being chief political correspondent at Esquire to chief Washington correspondent at Politico. It was just a few months ago (May 5) when CNN media reporter Brian Stelter told Daily Wire founder and conservative thought leader Ben Shaprio that conservative journalists should get jobs at outlets like The New York Times and CNN so they could “be part of the solution” and stop “complaining” about the media’s liberal bias: SHAPIRO: It’s why my critique of MSNBC sometimes is a lot less strident, I think, than my critique of CNN, because CNN purports to be objective. MSNBC really does not purport to be objective in the same way. STELTER: Part of me thinks that you and your colleagues at The Daily Wire should try to get jobs at The New York Times. If you don’t like the coverage, try to be part of the solution as opposed to complaining about it. SHAPIRO: I don’t know; would you hire me? I really doubt that, and not only that, STELTER: I wanted you as a guest for many months— SHAPIRO: I’m not sure you guys could pay me. I’ll be frank with you; I make a lot of money. Just last month, CNN benched two of the strongest pro-Trump voices on the network. “Steve Cortes, a prominent surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016 and ‘happy warrior’ for President Trump, has not appeared on CNN in the U.S. in more than a month. Ben Ferguson, a veteran Republican commentator, has not been on in more than four months, since Apr. 13,” The Hollywood Reporter discovered. Despite suggestions that CNN boss Jeff Zucker wanted to “talk to all sides,” it’s become increasingly clear that’s not what CNN was interested in. | Nicholas Fondacaro | https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2019/09/04/cnn-ax-relationship-analyst-new-job-leading-conservative-news | 2019-09-05 01:30:00+00:00 | 1,567,661,400 | 1,569,331,339 | labour | employment |
361,624 | newsweek--2019-02-01--5 Things to Accomplish in Your First Six Months at a New Job | 2019-02-01T00:00:00 | newsweek | 5 Things to Accomplish in Your First Six Months at a New Job | This originally appeared on Quora. Answered by Vicki Salemi. Starting a new job is exciting for lots of reasons. You meet new people, learn new skills, and become part of a team. But there are a number of things you want to get under your belt before you can really show your new colleagues and bosses what you’re made of: One of the most important things to do when you start a new job is to sit with your boss and set clear expectations and understand your responsibilities. Within the first three months, get a meeting booked on the calendar for a meaningful conversation related to the job description. Get specific in terms of these expectations. If you’re in sales and part of your job relies on meeting quotas, find out what the specific quotas are. Whether it’s bringing in a specific amount of money, specific number of new clients, etc., it’s important to know how your performance is being measured. Then, at the six-month point, meet up again with your boss to see how you’re performing in light of the established expectations. This will give you time to tweak certain things and/or seek out additional resources or tap into internal resources you may not have known existed. By year-end, you will have made adjustments to hopefully be on target with your goals. Another thing to accomplish is solidifying relationships and trust with your colleagues. Make yourself available to have coffee with them, grab lunch and get to know them not only as colleagues but also as people. This will set the supportive, friendly tone that’s needed in order to work together and make your team a successful, productive one. Ask for help—and offer it, too If you don’t know how to do something, ask for help; when people start coming to you, be that helpful person as well. You’ll be flexing your soft skills to become known as that go-to guy or gal, that person everyone likes to be around, that person everyone wants to emulate. Especially within your first three, six, or even 12 months, this attitude and willingness to pitch in will get noticed, and your stellar reputation will follow you wherever you go career-wise. It's also a great idea to find a mentor. This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone within the organization; oftentimes, your most beneficial advisor will be someone who’s outside the organization and can help you see things from a new perspective. You can find a mentor through networking, professional organizations, and asking your boss for recommendations. Once you’ve found your mentor, meet with them regularly. Discuss your new role and brainstorm ways to not only be successful but also how you can continue to build your professional brand. Lastly, strive to make your mark! Work diligently and demonstrate a remarkable work ethic from day one that others are easily impressed by. Approach new projects with enthusiasm and demonstrate a can do attitude. Then, when working on the projects, be thorough, articulate and excited to stamp your name on something that will be viewed as a job well done. | null | https://www.newsweek.com/new-job-tips-1308712?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution | 2019-02-01 18:26:10+00:00 | 1,549,063,570 | 1,567,549,916 | labour | labour relations |
361,624 | newsweek--2019-02-01--5 Things to Accomplish in Your First Six Months at a New Job | 2019-02-01T00:00:00 | newsweek | 5 Things to Accomplish in Your First Six Months at a New Job | This originally appeared on Quora. Answered by Vicki Salemi. Starting a new job is exciting for lots of reasons. You meet new people, learn new skills, and become part of a team. But there are a number of things you want to get under your belt before you can really show your new colleagues and bosses what you’re made of: One of the most important things to do when you start a new job is to sit with your boss and set clear expectations and understand your responsibilities. Within the first three months, get a meeting booked on the calendar for a meaningful conversation related to the job description. Get specific in terms of these expectations. If you’re in sales and part of your job relies on meeting quotas, find out what the specific quotas are. Whether it’s bringing in a specific amount of money, specific number of new clients, etc., it’s important to know how your performance is being measured. Then, at the six-month point, meet up again with your boss to see how you’re performing in light of the established expectations. This will give you time to tweak certain things and/or seek out additional resources or tap into internal resources you may not have known existed. By year-end, you will have made adjustments to hopefully be on target with your goals. Another thing to accomplish is solidifying relationships and trust with your colleagues. Make yourself available to have coffee with them, grab lunch and get to know them not only as colleagues but also as people. This will set the supportive, friendly tone that’s needed in order to work together and make your team a successful, productive one. Ask for help—and offer it, too If you don’t know how to do something, ask for help; when people start coming to you, be that helpful person as well. You’ll be flexing your soft skills to become known as that go-to guy or gal, that person everyone likes to be around, that person everyone wants to emulate. Especially within your first three, six, or even 12 months, this attitude and willingness to pitch in will get noticed, and your stellar reputation will follow you wherever you go career-wise. It's also a great idea to find a mentor. This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone within the organization; oftentimes, your most beneficial advisor will be someone who’s outside the organization and can help you see things from a new perspective. You can find a mentor through networking, professional organizations, and asking your boss for recommendations. Once you’ve found your mentor, meet with them regularly. Discuss your new role and brainstorm ways to not only be successful but also how you can continue to build your professional brand. Lastly, strive to make your mark! Work diligently and demonstrate a remarkable work ethic from day one that others are easily impressed by. Approach new projects with enthusiasm and demonstrate a can do attitude. Then, when working on the projects, be thorough, articulate and excited to stamp your name on something that will be viewed as a job well done. | null | https://www.newsweek.com/new-job-tips-1308712?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution | 2019-02-01 18:26:10+00:00 | 1,549,063,570 | 1,567,549,916 | labour | employment |
370,058 | newyorkpost--2019-02-03--How do I land a new job at the age of 69 | 2019-02-03T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | How do I land a new job at the age of 69? | My department closed at the end of 2017. I turned 69 on my last day, after being a successful manager for 40 years. I’ve since applied for many jobs, but never get an interview. Based on my resume, it’s easy to determine my age. How can I overcome this? First of all, don’t lose confidence. That’s a career killer at any age. You’ve had a long, successful career and still have the energy and desire to keep going, so good for you. (My grandfather worked until his mid- 80s, broke his hip jumping over a puddle on his way to the office, recovered and then went back to work.) Now, I’m not going to lie — your age is a challenge, but you already knew that. It is one that can be overcome, though. Instead of trying to avoid it, play it up. Seniors often bring stability and maturity to a job, which is a plus for employers. Be flexible and perhaps consider a career change and/or part-time work to get you back into the game. And brush up on your tech skills if they are circa AOL dial-up. There are many resources dedicated for seniors looking for jobs. I’d start with the AARP Web site and go from there. Stay positive — and avoid using phrases like “in my day.” I live in New York State and work full time as an hourly employee. My question is, if my employer decides to cut my salary and I refuse to accept the pay cut, can I collect unemployment? There are several factors you need to consider before you jump ship even if you are eligible. First of all, unless there is some agreement in place stating otherwise, your employer has the right to set pay and make adjustments up or down for business reasons. If your employer reduces your pay, you may be able to collect unemployment benefits but there is no guarantee. It depends on the amount of the reduction and the reason why. You should speak to someone at your local unemployment office. You also need to consider how much your reduced pay is compared to what you would collect on unemployment, and what about benefits? Also, it is easier to find a job when you have one than when you are unemployed. So factor all of that in before you quit and file. Gregory Giangrande is a chief human resources and communications officer in the media industry. E-mail your career questions to [email protected]. Follow Greg on Twitter: @greggiangrande. His Go to Greg podcast series is available on iTunes. | Greg Giangrande | https://nypost.com/2019/02/03/how-do-i-land-a-new-job-at-the-age-of-69/ | 2019-02-03 22:50:32+00:00 | 1,549,252,232 | 1,567,549,786 | labour | employment |
374,237 | newyorkpost--2019-04-10--AOC blasts Kirstjen Nielsen says she doesnt deserve a new job | 2019-04-10T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | AOC blasts Kirstjen Nielsen, says she doesn’t deserve a new job | If it were up to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, outgoing Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen wouldn’t ever find work again. The freshman congresswoman tore into Nielsen on Twitter Tuesday night — saying the now-retired DHS secretary doesn’t deserve to get a “lucrative deal” or “prestigious” new post — on account of her role in last year’s family separation crisis. “In stealing 1000s of children, deporting their parents,& refusing to provide info for reunification, Sec. Nielsen oversaw one of the largest-scale human rights violations in recent history,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Awarding her a lucrative deal or prestigious post is to legitimize+celebrate that abuse.” The New York lawmaker had been responding to a post from Rolling Stone writer Jamil Smith, suggesting that Nielsen “be a pariah for life.” “No cable deals, no cushy college gigs,” Smith tweeted, attaching a link a New York Times column by Michelle Goldberg “on what should happen to the Trump foot soldiers who think that they can escape with their reputations intact simply because they were following orders.” Nielsen resigned on Sunday following a meeting with President Trump. Scholars and media figures have been signing a petition to make sure she doesn’t quickly find work again. “Jesse Eisinger at ProPublica thinks that Nielsen might quickly find a berth at a think-tank, university center or similar institution,” said petition writer and political scientist Henry Farrell, of Washington University. “Different people have different limits. Nielsen is some distance beyond mine. If she gets a position at a think-tank, university center or similar, I will not participate on any panel that involves anyone from that think-tank, center or other institution. I will not participate in any event where the institution plays an organizing role, nor will I associate myself in any way that might reasonably be seen as providing active support for that institution.” | Chris Perez | https://nypost.com/2019/04/09/aoc-blasts-kirstjen-nielsen-says-she-doesnt-deserve-a-new-job/ | 2019-04-10 00:03:28+00:00 | 1,554,869,008 | 1,567,543,357 | labour | labour relations |
428,181 | prisonplanet--2019-01-15--Volkswagen Announces Additional Plant with 1000 New Jobs in Chattanooga Tennessee 800 Million I | 2019-01-15T00:00:00 | prisonplanet | Volkswagen Announces Additional Plant with 1,000 New Jobs in Chattanooga, Tennessee – $800 Million Investment in New Production Line | {{{snicker}}} Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Oh, remember that White House meeting with the big four German automakers [back on December 4th, 2018] that mainstream media ignored amid the fury of the, well, more popular ‘resistance’ narrative? Yeah, THAT one. Well, combine that US/trade White House meeting with the details within the USMCA auto-sector; mix it up a little with the initiatives and incentives for Trump’s industrial vocational apprenticeship training; give the auto actuaries a little time to crunch the numbers; let the executives settle in…. Then, fast forward a month and currently the big Detroit auto-show is happening. TENNESSEE – Volkswagen to create 1,000 new jobs in Chattanooga expansion: Volkswagen announces Chattanooga will be the home to the company’s first electric vehicle manufacturing facility in North America. This will be the company’s second U.S. facility. The automaker made the announcement Monday morning at the Detroit Auto show. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, and Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger were all in Detroit for the major announcement. The project represents an investment of $800 million by Volkswagen and the creation of 1,000 jobs in Hamilton County. “As one of Hamilton County’s top employers, these additional 1,000 jobs will have a lasting impact on the region. I thank Volkswagen for its partnership and also applaud the company for its ongoing commitment to education and workforce alignment, which helps Tennessee build a pipeline of talent for years to come,” Haslam said. (read more) This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:42 am | admin | https://www.prisonplanet.com/volkswagen-announces-additional-plant-with-1000-new-jobs-in-chattanooga-tennessee-800-million-investment-in-new-production-line.html | 2019-01-15 11:42:30+00:00 | 1,547,570,550 | 1,567,552,466 | labour | employment |
428,181 | prisonplanet--2019-01-15--Volkswagen Announces Additional Plant with 1000 New Jobs in Chattanooga Tennessee 800 Million I | 2019-01-15T00:00:00 | prisonplanet | Volkswagen Announces Additional Plant with 1,000 New Jobs in Chattanooga, Tennessee – $800 Million Investment in New Production Line | {{{snicker}}} Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Oh, remember that White House meeting with the big four German automakers [back on December 4th, 2018] that mainstream media ignored amid the fury of the, well, more popular ‘resistance’ narrative? Yeah, THAT one. Well, combine that US/trade White House meeting with the details within the USMCA auto-sector; mix it up a little with the initiatives and incentives for Trump’s industrial vocational apprenticeship training; give the auto actuaries a little time to crunch the numbers; let the executives settle in…. Then, fast forward a month and currently the big Detroit auto-show is happening. TENNESSEE – Volkswagen to create 1,000 new jobs in Chattanooga expansion: Volkswagen announces Chattanooga will be the home to the company’s first electric vehicle manufacturing facility in North America. This will be the company’s second U.S. facility. The automaker made the announcement Monday morning at the Detroit Auto show. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, and Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger were all in Detroit for the major announcement. The project represents an investment of $800 million by Volkswagen and the creation of 1,000 jobs in Hamilton County. “As one of Hamilton County’s top employers, these additional 1,000 jobs will have a lasting impact on the region. I thank Volkswagen for its partnership and also applaud the company for its ongoing commitment to education and workforce alignment, which helps Tennessee build a pipeline of talent for years to come,” Haslam said. (read more) This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:42 am | admin | https://www.prisonplanet.com/volkswagen-announces-additional-plant-with-1000-new-jobs-in-chattanooga-tennessee-800-million-investment-in-new-production-line.html | 2019-01-15 11:42:30+00:00 | 1,547,570,550 | 1,567,552,466 | labour | labour market |
496,720 | sottnet--2019-02-07--Top ex-WH economist reveals 94 of all new jobs under Obama were part-time | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | sottnet | Top ex-WH economist reveals 94% of all new jobs under Obama were part-time | Just over six years ago, in December of 2010, we wrote " Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society ", in which we predicted - and showed - that in light of the underlying changes resulting from the second great depression, whose full impacts remain masked by trillions in monetary stimulus and soon, perhaps fiscal,one where the majority of new employment is retained on a full-time basis,where workers are severely disenfranchised, and enjoy far less employment leverage, job stability and perks than their pre-crash peers. It also explains why despite the 4.5% unemployment rate, which the Fed has erroneously assumed is indicative of job market at "capacity", wage growth not only refuses to materialize, but as we showed yesterday,When we first penned our article, it was dubbed "fringe" tinfoil hattery, or in the latest vernacular, "fake news."when a report by Harvard and Princeton economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger , confirms exactly what we warned. In their study, the duo show thatThe two economists also found that each of the common types of alternative work increased from 2005 to 2015 - with the largest changes in the number of independent contractors and workers provided by contract firms, such as janitors that work full-time at a particular office, but are paid by a janitorial services firm.Krueger, who until 2013 was also the top White House economist serving as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, was "surprised" by the finding.Quoted by quartz , he said "," said Krueger. "And over 60% was due to the [the rise] of independent contractors, freelancers and contract company workers." In other words,While the finding is good news for some, such as graphic designers and lawyers who hate going to an office, for whom new technology and Obamacare has made it more appealing to become an independent contractor. But for those seeking a steady administrative assistant office job, the market is grim.for this vast cohort which was hired over the past decade.Whether this change is good or bad depends on what kinds of jobs people want. "Workers seeking full-time, steady work have lost," said Krueger. He then added, perhaps sarcastically, that "while many of those who value flexibility and have a spouse with a steady job have probably gained."Yes, well, spousal support aside, it also confirms another troubling finding this website reported first earlier this month, namely thatNot surprisingly, the study found thatThe issue is particularly frustrating to employees in the entertainment industry where media conglomerates rely on freelancers for long periods of time without offering benefits, an arrangement frequently referred to as "permalance.""Since I signed Obamacare into law (in 2010), our businesses have added more than 15 million new jobs," said Obama, during his farewell press conference last Friday.He did not delve into the details of just what those 15 million new jobs were. Now we know; and we also know why the Fed is making a huge mistake in thinking it can hike rates and tighten financial conditions, to reverse engineer wage growth, when corporations are guaranteed to not increase wages even in response to higher rates, as the data above confirms that the amount of slack in the economy is vastly greater than virtually all economists are willing to admit. | null | https://www.sott.net/article/406751-Top-ex-WH-economist-reveals-94-of-all-new-jobs-under-Obama-were-part-time | 2019-02-07 20:39:43+00:00 | 1,549,589,983 | 1,567,549,387 | labour | labour market |
588,029 | theconservativetreehouse--2019-02-07--Ford Announces Additional 1 Billion Investment in Chicago Plant 500 New Jobs | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | theconservativetreehouse | Ford Announces Additional $1 Billion Investment in Chicago Plant – 500 New Jobs… | It’s an interesting exercise to consider just how much national economic policy shifts can impact U.S. workers and industry. Only a few years ago the ‘best play‘ for auto executives was shifting manufacturing overseas or to Mexico. Today, with the advent of a comprehensive energy policy, enhanced U.S. investment incentives, re-prioritized trade expectations, focused tariffs, lowered regulations, and expanded economic freedom allowing consumer demand to drive investment decisions, the entire landscape of a massive industry shifts. Now the ‘best play‘ is for multinational firms to focus on expanded investment directly in the U.S.A. Simple, yet stunningly consequential: The announcement comes on the heels of cross-town rival GM axing 4,000 workers, and is part of the $11 billion restructuring Ford announced last fall that includes dropping all passenger car models except the iconic Mustang. It is shifting resources to light trucks, like those it is building in the Windy City. […] The investment plan will allow Ford to expand capacity for the Explorer as well as the new Explorer Police Interceptor it is launching. Ford has traditionally dominated the market for police vehicles and expects the Interceptor — which debuted last month at the Detroit Auto Show — to expand its hold. Also scheduled to go into the Chicago Assembly Plant is the all-new Lincoln Aviator, a big, three-row sedan that is winning early praise and could become a critical part of Ford’s drive to revive the long-struggling luxury brand. The $1 billion investment will be used to add “advanced manufacturing technologies,” according to company sources, and also to train workers to both boost plant efficiency and improve quality. (read more) This decision by FORD actually becomes an example of what CTH was predicting prior to the 2016 election. Specifically about FORD; and specifically about the auto industry. FLASHBACK TO 2016: […] This key distinction is the heart of the Economic Patriotism argument. An argument that Bernie Sanders has made effectively, Donald Trump has also recognized, and one which through the course of time -and history has empirically evidenced- creates terrible long-term consequences for the rapidly diminishing middle class U.S. worker. The economic patriotism distinction is also where traditionally minded conservatives, like myself, have reevaluated the bigger picture and accepted the following: In a global world the concept of traditional economic models (for free-market capitalism) are no longer working on behalf of the United States of America – because there is no national pride or incentive attached to the end goal, profit. Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue: While I have never agreed with Keynesian economic theory, Keynes attributed quote itself is never more apropos than today’s 2016 American economics argument amid various conservatives. What good is Mark Levin’s definition of conservatism, when there’s no middle class America left to conserve? What good are George Will’s free market theories when the end result is the outflow of American wealth into poorer, less economically developed countries, while we EBT ourselves into a national debt crisis because we are trying to sustain the diminished value of the American worker? Not only is this historic approach now rapidly becoming the pathway into an unrecoverable American economic death spiral, it is also global wealth distribution done by Wall Street, not Main Street. The result, our result, is an ever expanding, seemingly impossible to stop, wealth gap, creating an unnatural and profoundly unhealthy class system, in America, between the “Rich” and “Poor”. We do not need socialism to fix the problem, we need economic patriotism from industrial giants, Main Street, who value the principles behind putting American-workers-First. (link) Thankfully, two-months after writing everything above, the American electorate voted to put a Main Street President Trump into office. Today U.S. jobs are plentiful, wages are growing, inflation is low and entire industries are recommitting to the U.S. worker. Ironically, a few days ago that same economically patriotic president just said “We will never be a socialist country”… Funny how that happens. | sundance | https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/02/07/ford-announces-additional-1-billion-investment-in-chicago-plant-500-new-jobs/ | 2019-02-07 22:14:37+00:00 | 1,549,595,677 | 1,567,549,383 | labour | labour market |
588,029 | theconservativetreehouse--2019-02-07--Ford Announces Additional 1 Billion Investment in Chicago Plant 500 New Jobs | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | theconservativetreehouse | Ford Announces Additional $1 Billion Investment in Chicago Plant – 500 New Jobs… | It’s an interesting exercise to consider just how much national economic policy shifts can impact U.S. workers and industry. Only a few years ago the ‘best play‘ for auto executives was shifting manufacturing overseas or to Mexico. Today, with the advent of a comprehensive energy policy, enhanced U.S. investment incentives, re-prioritized trade expectations, focused tariffs, lowered regulations, and expanded economic freedom allowing consumer demand to drive investment decisions, the entire landscape of a massive industry shifts. Now the ‘best play‘ is for multinational firms to focus on expanded investment directly in the U.S.A. Simple, yet stunningly consequential: The announcement comes on the heels of cross-town rival GM axing 4,000 workers, and is part of the $11 billion restructuring Ford announced last fall that includes dropping all passenger car models except the iconic Mustang. It is shifting resources to light trucks, like those it is building in the Windy City. […] The investment plan will allow Ford to expand capacity for the Explorer as well as the new Explorer Police Interceptor it is launching. Ford has traditionally dominated the market for police vehicles and expects the Interceptor — which debuted last month at the Detroit Auto Show — to expand its hold. Also scheduled to go into the Chicago Assembly Plant is the all-new Lincoln Aviator, a big, three-row sedan that is winning early praise and could become a critical part of Ford’s drive to revive the long-struggling luxury brand. The $1 billion investment will be used to add “advanced manufacturing technologies,” according to company sources, and also to train workers to both boost plant efficiency and improve quality. (read more) This decision by FORD actually becomes an example of what CTH was predicting prior to the 2016 election. Specifically about FORD; and specifically about the auto industry. FLASHBACK TO 2016: […] This key distinction is the heart of the Economic Patriotism argument. An argument that Bernie Sanders has made effectively, Donald Trump has also recognized, and one which through the course of time -and history has empirically evidenced- creates terrible long-term consequences for the rapidly diminishing middle class U.S. worker. The economic patriotism distinction is also where traditionally minded conservatives, like myself, have reevaluated the bigger picture and accepted the following: In a global world the concept of traditional economic models (for free-market capitalism) are no longer working on behalf of the United States of America – because there is no national pride or incentive attached to the end goal, profit. Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue: While I have never agreed with Keynesian economic theory, Keynes attributed quote itself is never more apropos than today’s 2016 American economics argument amid various conservatives. What good is Mark Levin’s definition of conservatism, when there’s no middle class America left to conserve? What good are George Will’s free market theories when the end result is the outflow of American wealth into poorer, less economically developed countries, while we EBT ourselves into a national debt crisis because we are trying to sustain the diminished value of the American worker? Not only is this historic approach now rapidly becoming the pathway into an unrecoverable American economic death spiral, it is also global wealth distribution done by Wall Street, not Main Street. The result, our result, is an ever expanding, seemingly impossible to stop, wealth gap, creating an unnatural and profoundly unhealthy class system, in America, between the “Rich” and “Poor”. We do not need socialism to fix the problem, we need economic patriotism from industrial giants, Main Street, who value the principles behind putting American-workers-First. (link) Thankfully, two-months after writing everything above, the American electorate voted to put a Main Street President Trump into office. Today U.S. jobs are plentiful, wages are growing, inflation is low and entire industries are recommitting to the U.S. worker. Ironically, a few days ago that same economically patriotic president just said “We will never be a socialist country”… Funny how that happens. | sundance | https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/02/07/ford-announces-additional-1-billion-investment-in-chicago-plant-500-new-jobs/ | 2019-02-07 22:14:37+00:00 | 1,549,595,677 | 1,567,549,383 | labour | employment |
595,413 | thedailybeast--2019-08-23--Trump Aide Who Floated Sending Migrants to Sanctuary Cities Gets Powerful New Job | 2019-08-23T00:00:00 | thedailybeast | Trump Aide Who Floated Sending Migrants to Sanctuary Cities Gets Powerful New Job | A Trump administration official who pushed the idea of releasing undocumented immigrants into “sanctuary cities” has moved to the powerful Office of the White House Counsel, according to two sources familiar with move. She’s a rising star in the White House, and an ally of Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser. In her new post, May Davis will work on immigration and domestic policy, giving top policy adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller another ally in the counsel’s office. “I can confirm May works and reports to the White House Counsel’s Office, and continues to be a very valued member of the White House,” a White House official told The Daily Beast. “We look forward to her contributing to the President’s agenda in a legal capacity in her new role.” Davis, a Harvard Law graduate and immigration hawk, is poised to play an important part in helping guide some of Trump’s most consequential policy moves, particularly on executive orders that are screened and closely examined by the counsel’s office. On Wednesday, the president again claimed that his administration was “seriously” looking at ending birthright citizenship, a potential executive order that would likely fall under Davis’s portfolio. Three administration officials described Davis as an ally of Miller, with one saying she was a staunch supporter of the “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the separation of migrant families on the U.S. southern border. Since the early days of the Trump campaign, Miller has driven Trump’s hardline immigration stances and has helped craft some of his most controversial policies, including his travel ban on people from seven majority-Muslim countries. “May is a total professional and one of the most level-headed people in the White House,” said a former White House official who worked with Davis. “She knows the ins and outs of the administration and will be a huge asset as the administration navigates various policy proposals in the upcoming months.” Davis previously served as a White House policy coordinator and largely dodged media attention during her time in the administration––with one prior exception. In an email The New York Times reviewed, Davis floated to DHS officials that they release detained undocumented immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities. “The idea has been raised by one to two principals that, if we are unable to build sufficient temporary housing, that caravan members be bused to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,” Davis wrote, noting the White House had not reached a final decision on the idea. Her route to the White House Counsel’s Office has been circuitous. After the Senate confirmed Kelly Craft as Trump’s United Nations ambassador last month, Davis was apparently tapped as her chief of staff, according to the State Department directory viewed by The Daily Beast. (She was listed as chief of staff as recently as Tuesday.) In the White House, Davis has participated in the Miller-led Immigration Strategic Working Group, according to White House communications reviewed by The Daily Beast. The group includes more than 30 Trump administration officials who gather regularly to work on immigration policy and enforcement. Participants include officials from the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the National Security Council, and the State Department. Davis will work alongside Steven Menashi, another lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office who has also participated in Miller’s working group. Menashi is currently awaiting confirmation to be a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She previously worked in the office of the White House staff secretary, serving under Rob Porter, who left early last year after his ex-wives accused him of physical and emotional abuse. During that period, Miller felt Porter’s office interfered too much in the speechwriting process, according to a person familiar with the situation. In the time since, Miller and Davis grew to be allies in the Trump administration, particularly on immigration policy, multiple sources noted. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thedailybeast/articles/~3/Y1_08yUePJU/trump-aide-may-davis-a-stephen-miller-ally-who-floated-sending-migrants-to-sanctuary-cities-gets-promotion | 2019-08-23 09:01:49+00:00 | 1,566,565,309 | 1,567,533,550 | labour | labour market |
609,136 | thedailyecho--2019-01-28--Openreach announces plans to create 450 new jobs across the south | 2019-01-28T00:00:00 | thedailyecho | Openreach announces plans to create 450 new jobs across the south | OPENREACH today unveiled plans to hire more than 450 trainee engineers across the south as part of a huge recruitment drive. The new roles being created in Hampshire and six other counties will help Britain’s biggest team of telecoms experts expand and upgrade the company’s national broadband network. Trainees will be recruited mainly to deliver the Fibre First programme, which is bringing faster and more reliable technology to millions of properties. Under the proposals Openreach will hire 93 young engineers in Hampshire. Clive Selley, the company’s chief executive, said: “Openreach is determined to build full fibre as quickly as possible to ensure the country has a reliable broadband network capable of supporting data-hungry services and applications essential for boosting productivity. “We’re making great progress towards our target of upgrading three million homes and businesses to full fibre by the end of next year. “Our new apprentices will enable us to fulfil our commitments, with an ultimate ambition to deliver the best possible connectivity to everyone across the entire country.” The national recruitment drive has been praised by a government minister. Speaking at the opening of an Openreach training school Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said: “This is a huge expansion in high skilled, well paying jobs across the UK and yet another demonstration of the jobs success we have seen since 2010. “Behind every employment number is a person whose self-esteem, mental wellbeing and life chances are all vastly improved by being in the workplace. “Apprenticeships can help create opportunities for women in what are traditionally, male-dominated industries. “Last year a record number of women moved into work, something reflected in Openreach’s record of hiring more female staff than ever before.” Regional director David Jordan added: “We want people from all walks of life to apply for roles at Openreach, to build a diverse workforce that reflects the hugely diverse communities we serve. “Last year we recruited more women than ever before and this year we want to go even further.” | null | https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/17389068.openreach-announces-plans-to-create-450-new-jobs-across-the-south/?ref=rss | 2019-01-28 05:10:08+00:00 | 1,548,670,208 | 1,567,550,525 | labour | employment |
610,083 | thedailyecho--2019-03-12--Banking firm to create 150 new jobs in Southampton | 2019-03-12T00:00:00 | thedailyecho | Banking firm to create 150 new jobs in Southampton | A BANKING firm is to open a new office in Southampton creating 150 jobs in the city. On line bank Starling has chosen the city for its first office outside of London, citing the area's wealth of tech talent as one reason for the move. The bank could not give the exact location of the offices but confirmed it would be in the city centre and would be open by the summer.. The new offices will house up to 50 software engineers and 100 customer service staff. Most of these jobs will be new hires. Starling, which was founded five years ago, has 500,000 current account customers and 30,000 business customers. It is one of a host of digital-only challenger banks that have sprung up in recent years aiming to take market share from traditional lenders. Much of its business is done via mobile phone apps. The bank was attracted to Southampton because of its "growing and skilled jobs market, reputation as a burgeoning tech hub, transport links and easy access to London". Southampton was recently identified a "super cluster" technology hotspot by CBRE, a property advisory group, for its high employment of technology professionals. Chief executive Anne Boden said: "We are growing so fast that we are rapidly running out of space in our London offices. "What really attracts us to Southampton is its entrepreneurial spirit and its level of tech talent. "We're looking for new people - engineers as well as customer service team members - to join us in Southampton now and will be expanding the office quickly." Starling was awarded £100 million last month from the Royal Bank of Scotland competition remedies fund that aims to break the high street giants' grip on the banking sector. Ms Boden said Starling was looking to increase its number of business customers, aiming at sole traders, start-ups and SMEs (small to medium enterprises). "We want to build a business bank and much of the work needed to do that will happen in Southampton," she said. Starling arrival was welcomed by the city's business leaders. Mark Baulch, head of policy & representation at Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, said; "This is a very positive piece of news following most of the decisions and changes being made by the banking industry recently. This number of high quality jobs being created in the city will also be very warmly received by the retail and hospitality sectors as it brings additional people with disposable income into the catchment area. "It is also very pleasing to see the banks’ reasons for choosing Southampton, which justify the investment that we have seen recently and hope to see in the future." Sandeep Sesodia, chair of the chamber's Commerce Southampton Business Strategy Group added: "Given the continuing changes in the banking sector and the way that customers bank, this is a very welcome and modern banking alternative. It will drive the economy, boost employment and give businesses a new option. For Southampton this is a massive confidence booster." Southampton Itchen MP Royston Smith said: "This is testament to the national reputation we have as a key hub on the south coast for business and our internationally renowned universities. The creation of up to 150 new jobs is welcome news and I wish them well with their launch.” | null | https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/17493635.online-banking-firm-starling-to-open-new-southampton-office/?ref=rss | 2019-03-12 05:20:50+00:00 | 1,552,382,450 | 1,567,546,565 | labour | employment |
613,562 | thedailyecho--2019-09-03--Deliveroo comes to Eastleigh and creates 50 new jobs | 2019-09-03T00:00:00 | thedailyecho | Deliveroo comes to Eastleigh and creates 50 new jobs | EASTLEIGH residents can enjoy even more takeaway options with the arrival of a new delivery service to the town. Delivery company Deliveroo has launched this week in Eastleigh. The app and website lets residents order food from a range of restaurants and takeaways near to then. It will work with independent restaurants like The Hog Shack and as well as high street chains including KFC, Prezzo and Frankie & Bennys. To celebrate the launch, Deliveroo is giving away hundreds of free doughnuts around the town centre this Saturday. The company is also giving customers 30% off orders for the next four weeks. MP for Eastleigh, Mims Davies said: "The launch of Deliveroo in Eastleigh is a positive boost for the town and a great opportunity for our local restaurants looking to expand their offer and it will create more flexible local jobs. "Customers will be able to enjoy a convenient treat or quick meal from their favourite high street restaurants from the comfort of their own home which will make life easier for many busy local families. I am sure many people will be looking forward to making their first order." More than 50 jobs will be created in Eastleigh over the first year, with the majority of these being Deliveroo riders, who aim to deliver food, which will be cooked, fresh to order and delivered from the restaurant kitchen to the customers in under 30 mins. Harrison Foster, Regional Director in the UK, "Launching in Eastleigh is a key milestone for Deliveroo. Eastleigh has a thriving foodie community and a wide range of restaurants, so we’re excited to connect them. We look forward to working with our new restaurant partners to reach a new customer base and expand their businesses. Deliveroo will also create work for 50 local riders and are thrilled to offer a flexible role to the community.” Customers have the option to schedule orders via the Deliveroo app up to one day in advance or receive food as soon as possible between 5pm and 11pm on weekdays and 11.30am and 11pm on weekends. | null | https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/17876635.deliveroo-comes-eastleigh-creates-50-new-jobs/?ref=rss | 2019-09-03 04:14:23+00:00 | 1,567,498,463 | 1,569,331,564 | labour | employment |
633,635 | thedailymirror--2019-05-31--Get paid 1055 an hour to play Football Manager in incredible new job | 2019-05-31T00:00:00 | thedailymirror | Get paid £10.55 an hour to play Football Manager in incredible new job | Fancy getting paid £10.55 an hour to play football this summer? Well, if the answer is yes, we have just the thing for you. That's because Sports Interactive, the team behind Football Manager, is on the hunt for someone to play and review the game for the next four months. The role, titled 'Football Manager QA tester', will have you trialling out new features of the game, giving feedback and supporting developers with bug fixes. "As a QA Tester at Sports Interactive you’ll do more than just play the game," the job ad reads. "You will be assessing new and existing features, evaluating data, providing valuable feedback on gameplay and balance, offering support to our users; and much more." Daily tasks will also include carrying out test runs, identifying glitches and providing written and verbal feedback on gameplay, balance and realism to improve the end product. “Successful candidates will have to identify defects, provide verbal and written feedback, test new features, follow test plans through to completion and provide support to gamers via forums and social media,” it adds. The position is a four-month fixed term contract based in Stratford, London – and you can expect to work around 37.5 hours a week with paid overtime available if you want it. Applications close on June 2 though, so you’ll have to be quick if you’re interested. Find You can apply online here | [email protected] (Emma Munbodh) | https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/paid-1055-hour-play-football-16232377 | 2019-05-31 13:07:40+00:00 | 1,559,322,460 | 1,567,539,583 | labour | employment |
642,594 | thedailyrecord--2019-01-13--Scottish great-gran cant think about retiring as workaholic OAP starts new job at 82 | 2019-01-13T00:00:00 | thedailyrecord | Scottish great-gran 'can't think about retiring' as workaholic OAP starts new job at 82 | A workaholic great-grandmother who says working keeps her young starts her new job today - aged 82. Moira Hepburn reached pensionable age when John Major was still Prime Minister, in 1997, but the energetic gran has not even contemplated retiring. The talented pianist was a regular sight in Edinburgh in the 1980s when she entertained audiences at the bandstand in Prince's Street Gardens during children's hour. Since 1987, Moira worked as a warden at a sheltered housing complex and, until last month, at a block of retirement flats in Blackford. And today she will start a new job, travelling around the city offering companionship to elderly people - after leaving her last post due to the technological demands which she found overwhelming. Inspiring Moira said: "I can't think about retiring or even thinking about what I can watch on TV. "I just want to be out and about feeling like I am still needed. "I don't get tired I just seem to be able to cope with whatever comes my way. "I think music has a lot to do with keeping one young, maybe it stimulates your brain. "I don't use a walking stick when I walk, I'm quite a smart walker." In 1997, Moira could have retired at the age of 61 - but decided to keep working. The great-grandmother-of-six added: "It's just funny because some of the people I was looking after were ten years younger than me and some were even in their sixties walking about with sticks and stuff. "It made me realise how lucky I am." On her final day on December 28, tearful residents rallied round to bestow upon her bouquets of flowers and farewell gifts. Moira said: "I first became a warden because I was friendly with a lady who lived in sheltered housing. "I was always visiting her and she started telling me about a warden's duties and said that it would suit me because I am a people person. "A vacancy came up, I applied for it and got it. "I loved working for Viewpoint Housing because you were living beside all the residents. "And there was a piano in the complex, I would put up social events for them because it was right up my street." She added: "It's all about keeping your mind active with things that you love doing. "I'm sure I'll wind down eventually, but I'm definitely not ready to stop just yet." | dailyrecord | https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scottish-great-gran-cant-think-13849478 | 2019-01-13 14:48:37+00:00 | 1,547,408,917 | 1,567,552,692 | labour | employment |
684,057 | theguardianuk--2019-01-09--Backlash after ex-Pixar head scores new job despite MeToo allegations | 2019-01-09T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Backlash after ex-Pixar head scores new job despite #MeToo allegations | Ex-Pixar head John Lasseter has scored a top new position in Hollywood, leading to a backlash from within the industry. Lasseter took a leave of absence from Pixar and Disney after admitting “missteps” related to his treatment of female colleagues. The cofounder of Pixar Animation Studios and the animation chief of Walt Disney Company apologised for anyone upset by an “unwanted hug” or “any other gesture” that was perceived as crossing the line. The Hollywood Reporter has cited Lasseter’s misbehaviour as “grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes” and his original leave of absence was later extended to a resignation. His new position sees him heading up Skydance Animation, a strand within Skydance Media, a production company run by David Ellison, who founded the company with inheritance money from his billionaire father Larry Ellison. The company, affiliated with Paramount Pictures, has released a string of hit films from World War Z to Star Trek Beyond. “Let me be clear: we have not entered into this decision lightly,” Ellison wrote in a company memo. “While we would never minimize anyone’s subjective views on behavior, we are confident after many substantive conversations with John, and as the investigation has affirmed, that his mistakes have been recognised. We are certain that John has learned valuable lessons and is ready to prove his capabilities as a leader and a colleague.” According to Variety, a town hall meeting is planned at Skydance for concerns while Lasseter is set to meet with staff this week. The news has led to anger from some within the industry, including Time’s Up, the organisation founded to stand up against sexual harassment after the rise of the #MeToo movement. In a statement, Time’s Up claims the decision “endorses and perpetuates a broken system that allows powerful men to act without consequence” while sharing concerns over what impact it will have. “At a moment when we should be uplifting the many talented voices who are consistently underrepresented, Skydance Media is providing another position of power, prominence and privilege to a man who has repeatedly been accused of sexual harassment in the workplace,” it reads. Melissa Silverstein, who founded Women in Hollywood, also shared her frustration. “This is a horrible message to the women at Pixar who stood up and told their truths about their experiences,” she said. “This is also a message to all that the bro culture is alive and well and thriving in Hollywood.” | Benjamin Lee | https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/09/pixar-john-lasseter-skydancce-animation-times-up | 2019-01-09 21:39:36+00:00 | 1,547,087,976 | 1,567,553,316 | labour | labour relations |
689,596 | theguardianuk--2019-02-11--Jose Mourinho to start new job as host on Russian TV show | 2019-02-11T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | José Mourinho to start new job ... as host on Russian TV show | [José Mourinho](https://www.theguardian.com/football/jose-mourinho) is to host a football show on RT providing coverage of the Champions League. The role marks a return to Russian television for the former Manchester United manager, who worked with the Moscow-based network during last summer’s World Cup in the country. Called On the Touchline with José Mourinho, the fortnightly show will start on 7 March. Mourinho filmed a promotional advert for the new show when he paid a recent visit to Russia, where he attended an ice hockey game and [slipped while delivering the puck](https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/feb/06 /jose-mourinho-dancing-ice-russia-spain-manchester-united). “The show will offer unique analysis from the Portuguese managerial great on all the week’s Champions League action, as well as special insight into the biggest talking points in the world of football,” said [RT](https://www.theguardian.com/media/russia-today). who were formerly known as Russia Today. The opening show will be broadcast after the first set of Champions League last 16 second-leg matches have been concluded, and Mourinho will continue his role with Russia Today until the 1 June final.  Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images Europe Mourinho guided United through the competition’s group stages before being sacked in December amid reports of player unrest. The 56-year-old was replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who has since won 10 and drawn one of his 11 games in charge. Mourinho worked as a pundit on the Qatari-based TV station beIN Sports last month when he rejected criticism of his two-and-a-half-year record as United manager, saying people did not know what went on “behind the scenes”. | Press Association | https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/feb/11/jose-mourinho-new-job-host-russian-tv-show | 2019-02-11 13:14:38+00:00 | 1,549,908,878 | 1,567,548,937 | labour | labour relations |
689,596 | theguardianuk--2019-02-11--Jose Mourinho to start new job as host on Russian TV show | 2019-02-11T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | José Mourinho to start new job ... as host on Russian TV show | [José Mourinho](https://www.theguardian.com/football/jose-mourinho) is to host a football show on RT providing coverage of the Champions League. The role marks a return to Russian television for the former Manchester United manager, who worked with the Moscow-based network during last summer’s World Cup in the country. Called On the Touchline with José Mourinho, the fortnightly show will start on 7 March. Mourinho filmed a promotional advert for the new show when he paid a recent visit to Russia, where he attended an ice hockey game and [slipped while delivering the puck](https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/feb/06 /jose-mourinho-dancing-ice-russia-spain-manchester-united). “The show will offer unique analysis from the Portuguese managerial great on all the week’s Champions League action, as well as special insight into the biggest talking points in the world of football,” said [RT](https://www.theguardian.com/media/russia-today). who were formerly known as Russia Today. The opening show will be broadcast after the first set of Champions League last 16 second-leg matches have been concluded, and Mourinho will continue his role with Russia Today until the 1 June final.  Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images Europe Mourinho guided United through the competition’s group stages before being sacked in December amid reports of player unrest. The 56-year-old was replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who has since won 10 and drawn one of his 11 games in charge. Mourinho worked as a pundit on the Qatari-based TV station beIN Sports last month when he rejected criticism of his two-and-a-half-year record as United manager, saying people did not know what went on “behind the scenes”. | Press Association | https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/feb/11/jose-mourinho-new-job-host-russian-tv-show | 2019-02-11 13:14:38+00:00 | 1,549,908,878 | 1,567,548,937 | labour | employment |
723,420 | thehill--2019-11-01--Trump tweets 303K job claim after report of 128K new jobs | 2019-11-01T00:00:00 | thehill | Trump tweets 303K job claim after report of 128K new jobs | President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says he would be willing to do 'fireside chat' reading the Zelensky transcript Krystal Ball: 'The weird obsession and freakout over Tulsi Gabbard has massively helped her' Trump says poor treatment and high taxes prompted permanent residence change MORE spurred confusion Friday after he tweeted about a "blowout" 303,000 jobs figure — minutes after an official government report said the economy added 128,000 jobs in October. The estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was good news for the administration, as its report on last month's job gains was far greater than the gain of roughly 85,000 jobs projected by economists. t’s unclear how Trump calculated the vastly larger jobs gain, or where he obtained that analysis. In the Friday tweet hailing the report, Trump claimed the “blowout JOBS number” was actually a gain of 303,000 jobs if accounting for revisions and the temporary loss of jobs tied to the General Motors strike. “Wow, a blowout JOBS number just out, adjusted for revisions and the General Motors strike, 303,000. This is far greater than expectations. USA ROCKS!” Trump tweeted BLS revised the August and September job gains up by 95,000 workers, and most of the 42,000 auto manufacturing jobs frozen during the GM strike are likely resume in time for the November jobs report to be calculated. White House spokesman Judd Deere told The Hill in an email that Trump’s figure also included an additional 18,000 GM workers not reflected in the BLS report, and 20,000 temporary Census workers who completed their work in October. Economists say Trump’s calculations do not paint an accurate picture of an already-strong labor market. “Those were wildly inaccurate,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at audit and accounting firm RSM. “This is what we’d call ‘fake data.’” Economists would not typically consider revisions to past jobs reports or the future return of striking workers to be part of a different month’s job gain. Accounting for the loss of 20,000 Census workers would double-count the initial addition of those workers to past jobs reports, as well. Trump’s tweet about the jobs report also raised eyebrows because it violated the one-hour ban on White House commentary on sensitive economic data. Trump tweeted his praise for the report at 8:52 a.m., just more than 20 minutes after the jobs report was released. | Sylvan Lane | https://thehill.com/policy/finance/468491-trump-confuses-with-inflated-october-jobs-claim | Fri, 01 Nov 2019 15:53:45 +0000 | 1,572,638,025 | 1,572,646,464 | labour | labour market |
729,404 | thehuffingtonpost--2019-10-12--Tulsi Gabbard Wants A New Job. A Primary Challenger Wants Her Current One. | 2019-10-12T00:00:00 | thehuffingtonpost | Tulsi Gabbard Wants A New Job. A Primary Challenger Wants Her Current One. | He believed her absence from the district she is representing and her sometimes polarizing stances — Gabbard only belatedly and seemingly reluctantly supported an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, for example, and drew criticism earlier this year after she refused to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — would give him an opening. “What I really think is important is that we have leaders that are decisive, have some resolve, and are not motivated one way or another to go where the political trade winds blow,” Kahele told HuffPost, alluding to Gabbard. In the first two quarters of 2019, Kahele raised $399,000 in campaign contributions, more than quadruple Gabbard’s $83,000. Three former Hawaii governors have endorsed him. And there are signs of trouble for Gabbard: A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that a majority of District 2 constituents support her dropping out of the congressional race altogether. In the same poll, she led Kahele 48 to 26 in a head-to-head matchup, but the fact that 27% of voters in the district were undecided shows that he has a clear path to victory in next year’s primary. “Constituents do not feel that local or national offices are responsive to their concerns, or available when they need them,” Kahele claimed. “My first and foremost concern is to make sure that the people of [our district] are well represented.” Kahele, who goes by a Kai, a nickname based on his first name, joined the state Senate in 2016 at age 42. A Hilo-based commercial pilot and Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, he hadn’t envisioned getting into politics so young. But “unfortunate circumstances presented an incredible opportunity,” he said. Kahele believes he’d do a better job than Gabbard has serving Hawaii’s diverse 2nd Congressional District, which is made up of several islands — some big and booming, others small and rural. The district encompasses all of the Hawaiian islands except for the southern half of Oahu, where Honolulu has its own representative. Some of the most pressing issues in the district are education access and health care for veterans and rural communities on those neighboring islands. Despite its annual rankings as one of the country’s healthiest states, rural Hawaiians struggle to access health care, with only 14 rural hospitals across the entire state. Kahele witnessed the lack of access after his father’s heart attack in 2016, when Gil Kahele had to be taken in a medevac helicopter from the Big Island to the island of Oahu because the local medical centers couldn’t accommodate the procedure he needed. Like many candidates in a post-2016 political landscape, Kahele said he’s running on a platform of unity: “bringing teamwork and collaboration to the Hawaii delegation,” he said. “We have four out of 535 members in Congress, 5,000 miles away ... We need a delegation that’s working together, that’s putting the priorities of Hawaii’s residents first.” After the whistleblower complaint prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to launch an impeachment inquiry, Democratic support for impeachment shot up to 81%. A few days later, Gabbard backtracked and released a statement in which she begrudgingly supported the inquiry. Kahele said he was glad Gabbard reversed her position. Gabbard and Kahele have yet to face off publicly ― Hawaii law forbids Gabbard from running for two public positions simultaneously, so she hasn’t yet announced a reelection campaign. She’s given no indication she plans to give up her seat if she doesn’t win the presidential nomination, but Kahele remains optimistic about his campaign efforts. Hawaii has consistently produced one of Trump’s lowest approval ratings — dipping as low as 29% — and 65% of registered voters in the state think he should be impeached. The longer Gabbard took to condemn his actions, the more Hawaiians seemed to disapprove of her, too. This isn’t a new problem for Gabbard, either: Her polling numbers among Aloha State voters dropped after she met with Trump prior to his inauguration in 2017. | null | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kai-kahele-tulsi-gabbard-hawaii-2020_n_5d9503dbe4b0f5bf796ea5c8 | Sat, 12 Oct 2019 08:00:24 -0400 | 1,570,881,624 | 1,570,918,970 | labour | employment |
795,016 | themanchestereveningnews--2019-02-08--The University of Manchester searches for development partner for 15bn Innovation District - and i | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | themanchestereveningnews | The University of Manchester searches for development partner for £1.5bn Innovation District - and it could create 6,000 new jobs | The University of Manchester has started its search for an investment and development partner to deliver a new £1.5bn Innovation District. The institution has submitted a prior information notice to begin pre-market engagement on the Manchester City Centre project to be called ID Manchester. With the potential to create more than 6,000 jobs the university's vision for the 26 acre site is to create a dynamic, world-class community with innovation, collaboration and enterprise at its heart. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of The University of Manchester, said: “We are looking for the very best joint-venture partner to work with us to develop this prime site in the heart of the city which will generate thousands of new jobs and will enhance the reputation of the University and the city as the place where the world’s most valuable ideas are transformed into reality.” Current development parameters, which align with the University’s current vision, could comprise a circa 3.5 million sq ft of mixed use space including three acres of high quality public realm. Any revision to the existing SRF should be brought forward in close collaboration with Manchester City Council. The site benefits from existing green space and the unique feature of the 650,000 sq ft Grade II Listed Sackville Street Building, which offers a fantastic opportunity for re-purposing. The University occupies the recently opened £60m Masdar Building, home to the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the south end of the site and is looking for a partner to develop the remaining c.16.4 acres (6.64 hectares) of the site. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The potential of ID Manchester is huge. There are tremendous opportunities to regenerate this distinctive part of the city and we welcome the University’s growth, investment and job-creation ambitions for the development.” ID Manchester is adjacent to Piccadilly Railway Station and future HS2 station, and will be a 20 minute train journey to the airport. Diana Hampson, director of estates and facilities of The University of Manchester said: “We are at the beginning of an exciting journey as we look forward to finding a partner to help us deliver our vision for an outstanding new community, on the last site of its size and scale yet to be developed in the city centre. “ID Manchester will build upon the proud history of bold ideas, discovery and invention established by the University here. "It will attract the most forward-thinking, like-minded individuals and businesses with the chance to establish their UK HQ, start up or scale up their company, take on and benefit from disruptive technologies and ideas or simply come and enjoy this inspirational space.” CBRE is the property advisor on ID Manchester for The University of Manchester. Colin Thomasson, executive director, CBRE said: "ID Manchester is an exceptional opportunity for the right partner to work with one the world’s leading education and research institutions, in one of the fastest-growing, most dynamic cities in Europe.” | Lucy Roue | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/university-manchester-searches-development-partner-15798558 | 2019-02-08 00:05:00+00:00 | 1,549,602,300 | 1,567,549,212 | labour | labour market |
795,016 | themanchestereveningnews--2019-02-08--The University of Manchester searches for development partner for 15bn Innovation District - and i | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | themanchestereveningnews | The University of Manchester searches for development partner for £1.5bn Innovation District - and it could create 6,000 new jobs | The University of Manchester has started its search for an investment and development partner to deliver a new £1.5bn Innovation District. The institution has submitted a prior information notice to begin pre-market engagement on the Manchester City Centre project to be called ID Manchester. With the potential to create more than 6,000 jobs the university's vision for the 26 acre site is to create a dynamic, world-class community with innovation, collaboration and enterprise at its heart. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of The University of Manchester, said: “We are looking for the very best joint-venture partner to work with us to develop this prime site in the heart of the city which will generate thousands of new jobs and will enhance the reputation of the University and the city as the place where the world’s most valuable ideas are transformed into reality.” Current development parameters, which align with the University’s current vision, could comprise a circa 3.5 million sq ft of mixed use space including three acres of high quality public realm. Any revision to the existing SRF should be brought forward in close collaboration with Manchester City Council. The site benefits from existing green space and the unique feature of the 650,000 sq ft Grade II Listed Sackville Street Building, which offers a fantastic opportunity for re-purposing. The University occupies the recently opened £60m Masdar Building, home to the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the south end of the site and is looking for a partner to develop the remaining c.16.4 acres (6.64 hectares) of the site. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The potential of ID Manchester is huge. There are tremendous opportunities to regenerate this distinctive part of the city and we welcome the University’s growth, investment and job-creation ambitions for the development.” ID Manchester is adjacent to Piccadilly Railway Station and future HS2 station, and will be a 20 minute train journey to the airport. Diana Hampson, director of estates and facilities of The University of Manchester said: “We are at the beginning of an exciting journey as we look forward to finding a partner to help us deliver our vision for an outstanding new community, on the last site of its size and scale yet to be developed in the city centre. “ID Manchester will build upon the proud history of bold ideas, discovery and invention established by the University here. "It will attract the most forward-thinking, like-minded individuals and businesses with the chance to establish their UK HQ, start up or scale up their company, take on and benefit from disruptive technologies and ideas or simply come and enjoy this inspirational space.” CBRE is the property advisor on ID Manchester for The University of Manchester. Colin Thomasson, executive director, CBRE said: "ID Manchester is an exceptional opportunity for the right partner to work with one the world’s leading education and research institutions, in one of the fastest-growing, most dynamic cities in Europe.” | Lucy Roue | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/university-manchester-searches-development-partner-15798558 | 2019-02-08 00:05:00+00:00 | 1,549,602,300 | 1,567,549,212 | labour | employment |
802,667 | themanchestereveningnews--2019-07-02--Tameside to get new 10m science park which will bring 200 new jobs | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | themanchestereveningnews | Tameside to get new £10m science park which will bring 200 new jobs | Town hall bosses have agreed to sell land to create a new science park which could bring an economic boost of £10 million investment into Tameside . The executive cabinet approved the sale of two parcels of land covering more than three hectares at Hattersley Industrial Estate in Hyde to the RSK Group for £400,000. The company, which provides engineering and environmental consultancy and testing services, received planning permission earlier this year for a new facility at the site which could create 200 extra jobs in the borough. The new 4,700 sqm site will house geosciences laboratory firm Envirolab, part of the RSK Group, which tests soil and ground water for clients, including local authorities. It currently operates from premises at Sandpits Business Park in Hyde, and the intention is to bring another RSK company to the new location. The new director of growth at Tameside council, Jayne Traverse, told councillors the relocation would support the 'continued expansion' of the business. "We visited the business last week and they're really packed out on their current premises, which is great news because it means that they are expanding and doing well and need more space," she said. "We're talking about roughly £10m of inward investment coming into Tameside through this business. "They have around 80 employees at the moment so there is a potential to create 200 jobs over the next five years as it continues to expand, so really good news from an economic growth perspective." The new development will be known as Hattersley Science and Technology Park. The 80 jobs that currently exist in the borough would be safeguarded by the expansion, the committee report states. Currently the site is open grassland with scattered trees and bushes, and has been a target for flytipping. The proposal, which has been approved by the planning committee, includes the creation of a two-storey laboratory for testing and analysis of soil and water samples, as well as general storage and a light industrial workshop. There will be 127 car spaces created, with eight disabled spaces, as well as spaces for lorries and bicycle storage. | [email protected] (Charlotte Green) | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tameside-new-10m-science-park-16517900 | 2019-07-02 10:45:47+00:00 | 1,562,078,747 | 1,567,537,231 | labour | employment |
829,184 | therightscoop--2019-08-22--Sarah Sanders has a new jobat Fox News | 2019-08-22T00:00:00 | therightscoop | Sarah Sanders has a new job….at Fox News! | Former Trump Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has just been hired as a new contributor with Fox News: THE HILL – Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining Fox News as a contributor, the network announced Thursday. Sanders, who left the Trump administration roughly two months ago, will appear on various Fox platforms to provide political commentary. She will make her first appearance on “Fox & Friends” during its Sept. 6 broadcast. According to DC Examiner, Sanders said in a statement: “FOX News has been the number one news organization in the country for 17 years running and I am beyond proud to join their incredible stable of on-air contributors in providing political insights and analysis,” Sanders said, according to a Fox News press release. I’m kinda glad it’s Fox News and not CNN or MSNBC. That would have been very strange. If you are wondering about Sanders’ potential gubernatorial bid in Arkansas, that election won’t happen until 2022. So she can work as a paid contributor for Fox News until she announces her candidacy, when and if that happens. | The Right Scoop | https://therightscoop.com/sarah-sanders-has-a-new-job-at-fox-news/ | 2019-08-22 15:37:33+00:00 | 1,566,502,653 | 1,567,533,676 | labour | employment |
1,100,074 | westernjournal--2019-02-08--Former Fox News Reporter Takes New Job at State Department | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | westernjournal | Former Fox News Reporter Takes New Job at State Department | Former Naval combat aviator and journalist Lea Gabrielle is leaving journalism for the time being to take a position at the State Department. She will be leading its counterpropaganda efforts, according to The Hill. Gabrielle worked at Fox News until last year and was employed with NBC News prior to that. The journalist’s official position will be the head of the Global Engagement Center, working to stop the spread of terrorist messaging and debunk disinformation from foreign sources. TRENDING: Major Claims from Stacey Abrams’ SOTU Rebuttal Don’t Fair Well in Fact Check Gabrielle told Foreign Policy online that the top propaganda threats to the United States currently are China, Russia, Iran and various terrorist entities that wish to harm the U.S. “We have to realize that we are under attack by adversary countries and international terrorist organizations that are using propaganda and disinformation as a weapon,” she told the magazine. “They’re doing it because it’s cheap, and it’s easy, and because they can.” The GEC, which was originally designed to combat false messaging from terrorists, has expanded to deal with all sorts of propaganda and disinformation, according to Foreign policy. State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino announced during a press briefing that Gabrielle will work as the special envoy and coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, CNN reported. “Lea will provide the permanent leadership we have needed to bolster the Global Engagement Center’s operations. And she will begin her duties on Monday,” Palladino said. “Lea is a former CIA-trained human intelligence operations officer, defense foreign liaison officer, United States Navy program director, Navy FA-18/C fighter pilot, and national television news correspondent and anchor at two different networks,” Palladino added. The department has previously suffered from a lack of funding, however, within the last year, politicians have insisted that the GEC once again receive the funding that it needs to function at peak performance. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who has been a champion of the GEC, said in a statement that he is “looking forward” to working with Gabrielle. “As we fight to ensure that the GEC is fully funded and staffed, I hope she’ll be able to elevate the profile and importance of the work that the GEC does to combat propaganda and disinformation,” he said. Gabrielle has requested $55 million in funding for the 2019 fiscal year, but that budget amount could increase to $115 million, according to Foreign Policy, who cited a State Department spokeswoman. “Since Secretary Pompeo came into office the GEC has been a priority and has received its full funding,” the spokeswoman told Foreign Policy in an email. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Savannah Pointer | https://www.westernjournal.com/former-fox-news-reporter-job-state-department/ | 2019-02-08 23:30:40+00:00 | 1,549,686,640 | 1,567,549,252 | labour | employment |
1,090,425 | vox--2019-05-03--April jobs report tons of new jobs and teeny-tiny pay raises | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | vox | April jobs report: tons of new jobs and teeny-tiny pay raises | Employers added a solid 263,000 new jobs to the US economy in April — once again surpassing economic forecasts, according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. All the new hiring in April, plus an increase in people leaving the labor force, pushed the already super-low unemployment rate down even further, to 3.6 percent. That’s the lowest rate of unemployed Americans recorded since December 1969. Yet the smaller pool of available workers didn’t translate to much higher pay: Workers only got an average hourly pay raise of 6 cents in April. A month earlier, wages rose a meager 4 cents. The new jobs report shows that the US economy is continuing to expand, but without middle- and working-class families seeing much of the benefit. Job security is the one advantage employees can count on these days. Low unemployment and high job creation means that nearly every American who wants to work and is able to has snagged a job by now. And those who lose their jobs, or decide to leave, probably won’t have a hard time finding another position. Most of the new jobs created in April were positions in business services, construction, health care, and social assistance. While all the new hiring is good, the numbers are not as great as last year. The average monthly job growth in the past three months was about 169,000, which is lower than the 223,000 monthly average during the same period in 2018. The drop isn’t alarming; it just suggests that the current labor shortage is making it hard for employers to fill all the open positions. But with such a tight labor market and rising productivity, workers should expect much bigger pay raises than they’re getting. Even though Americans are finding jobs pretty easily, they still aren’t seeing the so-called “economic boom” reflected in their pocketbooks. April was another month with disappointing wage growth. Private sector workers (excluding farmworkers) got an average 6-cent hourly raise, adding up to an average hourly pay of $27.77. In the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have only increased by 3.2 percent, and that doesn’t even take inflation into account. The latest pay data suggests that workers and labor unions will continue to strike to force businesses to boost wages. Slow income growth has been the weakest part of the US economy in its recovery from the Great Recession. Wages have barely kept up with the cost of living, even as the unemployment rate dropped and the economy expanded. April’s 6-cent average hourly wage hike suggests more of the same, despite a surprising 10-cent jump in February. Over the past year, the cost of food and housing has gone up, so paychecks have had to stretch further. But because of recent falling gas prices, the annual inflation rate has fallen to 1.9 percent, compared to a high of 2.4 percent in 2018 (based on the Consumer Price Index). So when you take inflation into account, workers’ real wages only grew about 1.3 percent within the past year. That’s faster than they’ve been growing since the recession started in 2007, but it’s still pitiful when you compare it to the sky-high payouts corporate CEOs are getting. Frustration over stagnant wages is also the major underlying factor behind widespread worker strikes across the country in places like California, Illinois, and Missouri. Last month, 31,000 supermarket employees went on strike in the Northeast to reverse proposed pay cuts and rising insurance premiums. The Stop & Shop strike in mid-April was the largest private sector work stoppage in years. After eight days with empty supermarkets, the company agreed to scrap its plan. Some economists are confident that wages will start to pick up if this trend continues. “[T]he sharp increase in the number of working days lost to strikes over pay and benefits over the past year suggests that employees increasingly recognize that the balance of power has shifted in their favor,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for the research firm Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote Friday in an analysis. The widespread labor unrest underscores how the Republican tax cuts did little to help working-class families, despite all the promises from congressional Republicans. In response, voters in some states have forced businesses to give low-paid employees a raise. In November’s midterm elections, voters in Missouri and Arkansas overwhelmingly approved ballot measures that will raise the minimum wage for nearly 1 million workers across both states. And as a result of the new laws, low-wage workers in 19 states got pay raises on January 1. Those laws have helped boost wages so far in 2019, but not enough. | Alexia Fernández Campbell | https://www.vox.com/2019/5/3/18528010/april-2019-jobs-report-wages | 2019-05-03 16:00:00+00:00 | 1,556,913,600 | 1,567,541,346 | labour | labour market |
1,078,444 | usnews--2019-11-15--Antenna Systems Company Promises 100 New Jobs for Maryland | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | usnews | Antenna Systems Company Promises 100 New Jobs for Maryland | SALISBURY, Md. (AP) — A startup company has announced expansion plans in Maryland that could bring 100 new jobs to Salisbury. APEX RF Conditioning supplies distributed radio access networks, antenna systems and assemblies. The Salisbury Times reported Thursday on the expansion announced by its CEO David Chambers. His statement says the current push toward 5G deployment means now is a great time to expand. The new jobs include engineers, technicians and assemblers. The combined payroll for the new jobs is estimated to exceed $8.5 million annually once the expansion is complete. The timeline is unclear. The Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development Business Expansion Fund provided some financing to the company, which plans to move to Northwood Industrial Park. Information from: The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., http://www.delmarvanow.com/ Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Associated Press | https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maryland/articles/2019-11-15/antenna-systems-company-promises-100-new-jobs-for-maryland | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:36:41 GMT | 1,573,835,801 | 1,573,822,280 | labour | employment |
1,068,186 | upi--2019-11-30--UAW, Fiat Chrysler reach four-year deal expected to add 8,000 new jobs | 2019-11-30T00:00:00 | upi | UAW, Fiat Chrysler reach four-year deal expected to add 8,000 new jobs | Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Saturday that they have reached a tentative agreement that adds nearly 8,000 jobs over the four-year life of the contract. FCA confirmed in a press statement that it reached a deal with the union but did not release further details. A statement on the UAW's website says the union will not be releasing details of the agreement until UAW-FCA Council members have had a chance to meet and review them. "Our UAW Bargaining Committee worked diligently, over many months, during the General Motors strike and Ford negotiations to maintain productive negotiations with FCA," said UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, who directs the union's UAW-FCA department. "The pattern bargaining strategy has been a very effective approach for the UAW and its members to negotiate economic gains around salary, benefits and job security. In addition to the $4.5 billion in major investments previously announced, negotiators secured an additional $4.5 billion for a total of $9 billion of investments adding 7,900 jobs during the contract period." FCA hourly and salaried workers are expected to begin their vote on whether to ratify the contract Dec. 6 in a process that usually takes about two weeks, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday. Workers are expected to ratify the contract, though the vote could be complicated by allegations of corruption that have roiled the union in recent weeks. This month two UAW officials -- a former UAW president and a regional director -- resigned after being implicated in a massive corruption scheme in which they were accused of submitting misleading expense reports. About 400,000 people belong to the UAW, 150,000 of whom work in the auto industry. | null | https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/11/30/UAW-Fiat-Chrysler-reach-four-year-deal-expected-to-add-8000-new-jobs/5711575139491/ | Sat, 30 Nov 2019 14:10:45 -0500 | 1,575,141,045 | 1,575,141,236 | labour | labour market |
1,068,186 | upi--2019-11-30--UAW, Fiat Chrysler reach four-year deal expected to add 8,000 new jobs | 2019-11-30T00:00:00 | upi | UAW, Fiat Chrysler reach four-year deal expected to add 8,000 new jobs | Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Saturday that they have reached a tentative agreement that adds nearly 8,000 jobs over the four-year life of the contract. FCA confirmed in a press statement that it reached a deal with the union but did not release further details. A statement on the UAW's website says the union will not be releasing details of the agreement until UAW-FCA Council members have had a chance to meet and review them. "Our UAW Bargaining Committee worked diligently, over many months, during the General Motors strike and Ford negotiations to maintain productive negotiations with FCA," said UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, who directs the union's UAW-FCA department. "The pattern bargaining strategy has been a very effective approach for the UAW and its members to negotiate economic gains around salary, benefits and job security. In addition to the $4.5 billion in major investments previously announced, negotiators secured an additional $4.5 billion for a total of $9 billion of investments adding 7,900 jobs during the contract period." FCA hourly and salaried workers are expected to begin their vote on whether to ratify the contract Dec. 6 in a process that usually takes about two weeks, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday. Workers are expected to ratify the contract, though the vote could be complicated by allegations of corruption that have roiled the union in recent weeks. This month two UAW officials -- a former UAW president and a regional director -- resigned after being implicated in a massive corruption scheme in which they were accused of submitting misleading expense reports. About 400,000 people belong to the UAW, 150,000 of whom work in the auto industry. | null | https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/11/30/UAW-Fiat-Chrysler-reach-four-year-deal-expected-to-add-8000-new-jobs/5711575139491/ | Sat, 30 Nov 2019 14:10:45 -0500 | 1,575,141,045 | 1,575,141,236 | labour | employment |
993,195 | thesun--2019-12-26--Celebrate the New Year by landing yourself a new job in 2020 with these top tips | 2019-12-26T00:00:00 | thesun | Celebrate the New Year by landing yourself a new job in 2020 with these top tips | OUT with the old, in with the new job. Two-thirds of us will be seeking a job, or a better job, as our New Year resolution for 2020 according to a study by online jobs board CV Library. The next most popular resolutions were to manage money better and to lose weight. To help with the job hunt, employment minister Mims Davies has a message for Sun readers. She says: “I know lots of people will have made it a New Year’s resolution to change careers, bag a promotion or nab a new role. Now is the perfect time to help people get ready for that next step.” So with five days still to go until the new decade, we asked Jobcentre Plus managers Julia Nix and Joanne Crentsil for their tops tips to get you ahead . . . Keep your CV updated: Use your time over Christmas to bring your CV up to date and ensure you tailor it to the job you want. Employers will decide whether to ask you for an interview based solely on your CV, so it’s important that it does you justice. Log your good work: We all have skills employers are looking for. They don’t have to be from a previous job either. If you’ve just left education, you will have organised your time to meet deadlines. If you have a hobby, you may have displayed communication skills or the ability to learn new things. Volunteering is also a great thing to put on a CV or talk about with an employer. Turn negatives to positives: Demonstrate you have learned where a task or project hasn’t gone to plan. Sometimes being open about this benefits you in the long run. Don’t dwell on it, though — quickly move on to your strengths. Do your research:A favourite question from employers is: “What do you know about us?” Make sure you do your research. It can give you a little insight into the job role, the company ethos, even just the size of the team you would be joining. It proves you are interested in them and the work. Get support: Don’t feel like finding a job is something you have to do on your own. If you use your local jobcentre, there are many different routes available to you, like gaining experience through short work placements or going through a sector-based work academy. PREMIER League clubs were the employers most people hoped to score with in 2019. Careers platform LinkedIn found footie jobs dominated the top 25 most-viewed vacancies in the past 12 months. Roles including relationship manager at Manchester United, duty operations manager for Tottenham Hotspur and business strategy analyst at Arsenal topped the list. Another popular ad was Mark Carney’s replacement as the Governor of the Bank of England. And hundreds of thousands viewed Love Island’s Head of Client Partnerships role. LinkedIn’s Darain Faraz says: “There aren’t many situations where you find the Governor of the Bank of England listed alongside roles at Love Island.” • PLAY a blinder by landing a new job at GAME. There are 16 on offer, including store managers and assistant managers. For details, see jobs.game.co.uk/search • PIZZA chain FRANCO MANCA has UK-wide vacancies for kitchen porters, pizza chefs and waiters. Find your job at jobs.francomanca.co.uk. | Andrew Whiteford | https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/10623661/new-year-cv-tips-sun-employment/ | Thu, 26 Dec 2019 23:07:48 +0000 | 1,577,419,668 | 1,577,406,244 | labour | employment |
972,077 | thesun--2019-07-05--Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job in next few w | 2019-07-05T00:00:00 | thesun | Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job ‘in next few weeks’ | JOSE MOURINHO has hinted at a return to Italy as he prepares to start his new job in the coming weeks. The former [Manchester United](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/team/1196656/manchester- united/) boss, 56, has claimed a move to Serie A is a "possibility" having been sacked by his old club in December. ![ Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summer]() 1 Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summerCredit: Alamy Live News Since then, the self-professed Special One has been working as a pundit for beIN Sports - but is already behind schedule in his plan to get back into management. [Mourinho](https://www.thesun.co.uk/who/jose-mourinho/) had given himself a deadline of July to get started at any new team in a bid to have them playing his way by the start of the 2019-20 season. But for now, Mourinho is eyeing up a return to Italy - having previously managed Inter Milan between 2008 and 2010. He told Sky Sports Italia: “In the future? Always soccer, and always a high level. Italy? Could be a possibility." ## JULY DEADLINE The Portuguese chief had already made it clear he planned to be employed once more by July - and we're nearly a week in already. In May, Mourinho claimed: “I have a lot of qualities and one of them is to respect other clubs and their management. “I have never spoken like ‘this club wanted me, they contacted me'. “When I left Manchester United in December, I immediately took the decision I want to work from summer. "I hope to be back to work in July in a project I really like.” Mourinho has only spent two years in Italy - but won two Serie A crowns, the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa Italia and, of course, the 2009-10 Champions League crown. Jose - who was [seen at Wimbledon on Thursday](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/tennis/9436881/wimbledon-2019-jose- mourinho-rafa-nadal/) \- has also spent time at Benfica, Uniao de Leriria, Porto, Chelsea (twice), Real Madrid and most recently United. But one place he won't be going should he return to Serie A is Juventus, after Maurizio Sarri replaced the departing Massimiliano Allegri after quitting his post at Chelsea. Wimbledon 2019: Jose Mourinho reveals Rafael Nadal could have been an elite footballer if not for tennis | Dave Courtnadge | https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9442539/man-utd-jose-mourinho-new-job-italy/ | 2019-07-05 08:37:01+00:00 | 1,562,330,221 | 1,567,536,773 | labour | labour relations |
972,077 | thesun--2019-07-05--Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job in next few w | 2019-07-05T00:00:00 | thesun | Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job ‘in next few weeks’ | JOSE MOURINHO has hinted at a return to Italy as he prepares to start his new job in the coming weeks. The former [Manchester United](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/team/1196656/manchester- united/) boss, 56, has claimed a move to Serie A is a "possibility" having been sacked by his old club in December. ![ Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summer]() 1 Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summerCredit: Alamy Live News Since then, the self-professed Special One has been working as a pundit for beIN Sports - but is already behind schedule in his plan to get back into management. [Mourinho](https://www.thesun.co.uk/who/jose-mourinho/) had given himself a deadline of July to get started at any new team in a bid to have them playing his way by the start of the 2019-20 season. But for now, Mourinho is eyeing up a return to Italy - having previously managed Inter Milan between 2008 and 2010. He told Sky Sports Italia: “In the future? Always soccer, and always a high level. Italy? Could be a possibility." ## JULY DEADLINE The Portuguese chief had already made it clear he planned to be employed once more by July - and we're nearly a week in already. In May, Mourinho claimed: “I have a lot of qualities and one of them is to respect other clubs and their management. “I have never spoken like ‘this club wanted me, they contacted me'. “When I left Manchester United in December, I immediately took the decision I want to work from summer. "I hope to be back to work in July in a project I really like.” Mourinho has only spent two years in Italy - but won two Serie A crowns, the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa Italia and, of course, the 2009-10 Champions League crown. Jose - who was [seen at Wimbledon on Thursday](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/tennis/9436881/wimbledon-2019-jose- mourinho-rafa-nadal/) \- has also spent time at Benfica, Uniao de Leriria, Porto, Chelsea (twice), Real Madrid and most recently United. But one place he won't be going should he return to Serie A is Juventus, after Maurizio Sarri replaced the departing Massimiliano Allegri after quitting his post at Chelsea. Wimbledon 2019: Jose Mourinho reveals Rafael Nadal could have been an elite footballer if not for tennis | Dave Courtnadge | https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9442539/man-utd-jose-mourinho-new-job-italy/ | 2019-07-05 08:37:01+00:00 | 1,562,330,221 | 1,567,536,773 | labour | employment |
697,696 | theguardianuk--2019-04-17--Sculpted by time Eduardo Chillida museum reopens in San Sebastian | 2019-04-17T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Sculpted by time: Eduardo Chillida museum reopens in San Sebastián | An eight-metre monolithic sculpture of reddish steel stands before me in the middle of a hilly field. Solid and grounded, the structure’s 22 tons contrast with the upward-reaching movement of its lines. As it soars towards the sky, the whole thing speaks of time and space in epic proportions. I am in Hernani, a small town on the outskirts of San Sebastián, admiring an artwork by the late Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, an artist revered in this part of Spain much like Gaudí is in Barcelona. The piece, Buscando La Luz (Looking for the Light, 1997), sits among 42 others like it, in a leafy open-air sculpture park. When the artist bought this land with his wife, Pilar Belzunce, in the early 1980s, he fulfilled his long-held dream of finding a permanent, natural environment for his works. It eventually opened as Chillida Leku, a museum that would allow the public to wander among his sculptures as they would trees in a forest. But Chillida died in 2002, and by 2011 his family found they could no longer afford to keep the museum open. “It was the hardest moment of my life,” his son Luis tells me, as we look across the undulating 11-hectare (27-acre) site. After that point, visits could only be made via private appointment with the family; an unsustainable model that did no justice to what the artist had envisaged for the place. “I refused to accept that all the effort and dedication of my parents would be for nothing. There had to be a solution,” says Luis. A further eight years on – and with the backing of the international contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth – a reincarnated Chillida Leku opens to the public on 17 April. Although only a 15-minute drive from the city centre, Chillida Leku (place in Basque) is silent and secluded. At the top of the hill is the caserío, a 16th-century Basque farmhouse (known as Zabalaga country house) built from stone and timber. Inside it, a retrospective on the artist entitled Ecos (Echoes) has been curated by another of his sons, Ignacio, after which a rotating programme of exhibitions will follow. I meet the museum’s director, Mireia Massagué, at its restaurant-cafe (serving a range of pintxos, from pork brochettes to cheese eclairs), which along with many other elements on the site has been designed by Paris-based architect Luis Laplace. Massagué says one of her most important strategies has been to improve ways to access and experience the space. She has introduced smartphone-scannable QR codes to enable visitors to learn more about the sculptures as they encounter them, and buses from the city centre (departing every half hour) now stop at the entrance of the museum. Massagué is also in talks with local authorities to improve pedestrian and bicycle access. Chillida’s love affair with Hernani began in 1951, when he moved here to learn to work with iron, a material entrenched in the Basque craft tradition. Here he developed his profound respect for raw materials, always recognising their inalterable natural will. His sculptures suggest that it is by patiently accepting the gradual impacts of time – the rusting effect of air, the erosion of stone, the flow of water – that one might find something timeless. And it is this kind of patience that the artist’s eight children and 27 grandchildren have had to show while waiting for the reopening. In acquiring this land, Chillida found a home not just for his sculptures but for himself. It remains his home in more ways than one: both he and Pilar are buried on the grounds. As the title of the exhibition suggests, his message of timelessness echoes across the terrain. “My father thought of himself as a tree,” says Luis. “Roots firmly in one place, with branches spread out to the world.” And the artist’s sculptures can indeed be found across the globe, from Berlin and Helsinki to Dallas and Doha. But in the end, all roads lead back here, to Chillida Leku. • Adult €12, 9-18s €6, under 9s free, closed Tuesday except on public holidays, museochillidaleku.com This museum is the place to learn about Basque history, culture and identity. Its permanent collection spans prehistoric civilisation to the modern day, presenting artefacts that tell the story of the land and its people. Part of the building is a former 16th-century convent, while the other part was built in 2011 by Spanish architect Nieto Sobejano. • €6 general entry, free on Tuesdays, santelmomuseoa.eus This former tobacco factory opened as a contemporary arts centre in 2015, housing a gallery space, cinema, restaurants, shops and workspaces. An exhibition by San Sebastián-born performance artist Esther Ferrer runs until 26 May. Also on site is one of two spaces in town owned by the Kutxa art foundation, which is currently exhibiting three Dutch contemporary photographers. • Free, tabakalera.eu Those with an eye for the art market might visit Cibrián, a new arrival on San Sebastián’s small-but-flourishing commercial gallery scene. Gallerist Gregorio Cibrián has previously promoted a general range of arts and antiques but decided to relaunch last November exclusively as a contemporary art dealer. Other commercial galleries in town include Arteko and Ekain. • Free, cibriangallery.com With this free public monument at the western tip of La Concha beach, Chillida truly made his imprint on San Sebastián. Three 11-ton steel sculptures are built into rocks jutting out of the coastline, with waves crashing against them on windy days. The work epitomises Chillida’s belief in nature’s ability to connect everyone and everything and, fittingly, a stream of water is said to flow from this part of the coast all the way inland to Chillida Leku. A half-hour drive along the coast, and also served by bus, this museum is a must for fashion lovers. Founded in 2011 in Balenciaga’s hometown, it houses one of the world’s biggest collections of items related to the designer, including clothing, accessories and work documents. • Adult €10, 10-18s €7, under 10s free, cristobalbalenciagamuseoa.com Looking for a holiday with a difference? Browse Guardian Holidays to see a range of fantastic trips | Agnish Ray | https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/apr/17/eduardo-chillida-museum-reopens-san-sebastian-sculpture-park | 2019-04-17 05:30:13+00:00 | 1,555,493,413 | 1,567,542,719 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
700,664 | theguardianuk--2019-05-21--The lost Louvre of Uzbekistan the museum that hid art banned by Stalin | 2019-05-21T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | The lost Louvre of Uzbekistan: the museum that hid art banned by Stalin | I am sitting at a huge table at the Ministry of Culture in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as officials explain what sounds like a wonderful opportunity. There’s currently an international call-out to find someone to run a gallery in the country, one housing the world’s second-largest collection of Russian avant garde art. What an amazing job, I think – raising the profile of a museum that could turn out to be the Louvre of central Asia. But the dream job may not be quite so dreamy. The next day, at a godawful hour, I get up to fly to Nukus in northern Uzbekistan, where this “museum of forbidden art” is located. En route, I blearily note that even the guidebooks can find little to say about this “unappealing city”. It seems the only other reason people venture there is for a spot of “disaster tourism”. The Aral Sea, once the fourth largest inland sea, has shrunk because of Soviet irrigation systems and chemicals pumped into the water. All the fish are dead. There’s a horribly photogenic landscape of rusting boats on a dried-up seabed that looks like a lunar surface. Toxic dust blows through the area – there are high rates of infant mortality and cancer. Still, I am here for the art, invited by the Ministry of Culture. Uzbekistan is opening up and has lifted visa restrictions in a bid to bring tourists flocking to the Silk Road cities that we’ve seen Joanna Lumley ooh and aah over. The Nukus Museum of Art might be as close to the middle of nowhere as I have ever been, but it’s still one of the country’s top draws thanks to its Savitsky Collection, which exists precisely because it’s so far from anywhere else. Igor Savitsky, a former electrician born into a rich Russian family, came to this area on an archaeological dig around 1950 and started collecting local artefacts, textiles and jewellery. Because he was so far from Moscow (and the other centre of power, Tashkent) he was able to amass a huge collection of dissident avant garde art. Eventually he established a museum in 1966. The remoteness of the region allowed him to show and buy paintings that had been banned – the authorities simply had no idea what he was up to. But while the collection may be impressive – Volkov, Kurzin and Lysenko all feature – it’s hard to imagine this place being able to compete with the world’s big collections. As you step over puddles along mud tracks towards a bleak square where the museum stands, everything feels deserted and half dead. Inside, I approach an elaborate staircase and am welcomed by a charming guide. The art is everywhere – stacked up in some places against the wall as rain comes in through a leaking roof. Then you start to understand what you are seeing, and it’s mind-blowing. Savitsky risked everything for this collection. Some of these painters were tortured or murdered or spent long years in the gulags. The work collected is of both Russian and Uzbek artists who painted after the 30s, when all work that wasn’t socialist realism was banned by Stalin. Any other styles of the time – the emerging cubism, futurism, even impressionism – were deemed criminal. Formalism, as it was called, was punishable. And the punishments were severe. Savitsky realised he could rescue these works. He would take a train to Moscow which took three days and charm the families of the painters; they would bring down works stuffed in attics. He was known as “the widow’s friend”. Part chancer, part hoarder, he brought together this collection of which only a small percentage is on show. It’s peculiar to walk into a treasure trove worth millions to international art dealers, yet see the place in such a dire state. There is nothing to do in this town apart from the museum: no restaurants, just a couple of grotty hotels. The infrastructure surrounding most successful art galleries is totally lacking. Is this me applying my western eye to what a museum should be? Possibly, but the art itself speaks to Savitsky’s colonial gaze on this culture. There are beautiful, Gauguin-like paintings by Nikolaev of the local boys with flowers, who dance for the men. This painter was arrested because of his sexuality and then converted to Islam. The tension between socialist realism and orientalism is played out on the walls here. Some of this “degenerate” art is both overtly political and stylistically breathtaking. There are paintings openly critical of Stalin with Lenin as a shadow lurking in the corner. Volkov and Karahan endeavour to represent the new. Kandinsky had already escaped. Stalin’s 1932 decree on the Reconstruction of the Literary and Artistic Organisations – which brought artists under Communist party control in an effort to unify political and aesthetic objectives – meant an artist like Mikhail Kurzin who depicted Soviet man as ugly was sentenced to five years in prison. His is a harsh, brilliant work. Otto Dix comes to mind. There are many works by women and Jewish artists in this huge collection. It is only relatively recently that such work could even be spoken about. When the museum showed the drawings of Nadezhda Boravaya – scraps of paper showing emaciated prisoners, dead children and women with identity numbers – the catalogue told visitors that these were imaginary drawings of a German concentration camp. In 1982 it was still not acceptable to tell the truth, that these were smuggled out of Soviet gulags. The famous Bull painted by Vladimir Lysenko, who was also imprisoned, had to be taken down the day the KGB arrived. Savitsky renamed it Fascism Advances and put it back up the next day. It was only during perestroika that any of this could be spoken about. In truth, this vast emporium of dissidence and local culture needs so much more than a new director. It needs a restorer. On its wish list are basics such as moth strips and fax machines. The current director, Gulbahar Izentaeva, gave us tea and was bemused that her own job was being advertised. Relations between Tashkent and the museum, which is in the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan, seem strained to say the least. A former director left having being accused of stealing but will be on the board of appointing the next director. Questions about how this will work were met with Soviet defensiveness. Making it work will be incredibly difficult. I wondered about collaboration, and indeed some of the paintings have been shown at the Pushkin Moscow. “Move the museum to Tashkent, just move it!” someone said and I could see why. Yet as we drove through the desert from Nukus to the jewel that is Khiva, with its walled city, stopping at pre-Islamic desert castles, one could see what had drawn Savitsky to this place. I became interested not just with the great painters but the textiles and ceramics of Uzbekistan. The women make tapestries called suzanis as part of their dowries and sew into them symbols of fertility: lush pomegranates, birds, horns, their secret desires woven into clothes. Savitsky collected those too. While other places in Uzbekistan were as gushworthy as everyone said, Nukus stayed with me. And the museum, in its oddness, is far removed from the usual “exit through the gift shop” experience of most art galleries. This is art that artists died for, collected by someone whose passion was to save their work. He believed one day that these artists would be recognised and rehabilitated. Can this unique museum survive, when places like Abu Dhabi or even Vegas bolt on art galleries to show their cultural capital by simply paying for it? This is the very opposite of that. And it will soon be someone’s job to get people to go there. | Suzanne Moore | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/21/lost-louvre-uzbekistan-savitsky-museum-banned-art-stalin | 2019-05-21 13:59:39+00:00 | 1,558,461,579 | 1,567,540,321 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
702,872 | theguardianuk--2019-06-21--British Museum has head in sand over return of artefacts | 2019-06-21T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | British Museum 'has head in sand' over return of artefacts | The authors of an influential report on colonial-era artefacts, which recommended a restitution programme to transfer hundreds of items from European institutions to Africa, have criticised the British Museum for acting like “an ostrich with its head in the sand”. The Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, who were asked to write the report by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, after he said the return of artefacts would be a priority during his tenure, said the British Museum was not addressing the issue. “There’s an expression in French, la politique de l’autruche, which means something is in front of you and you say you can’t see it, like an ostrich with its head in the sand,” said Sarr. “They will have to respond and they can’t hide themselves any longer on the issue.” The 252-page report published in November 2018 made a series of recommendations, chief among them being that France should respond favourably and grant restitutions to African countries that request the return of objects taken during the colonial era. For Sarr and Savoy, the loan of items to African museums – proposed by the British Museum and other major European institutions in the case of the Benin bronzes, which were stolen during a punitive expedition in 1897 – is not sufficient. “It’s not enough because in a loan the right of the property belongs to you,” said Sarr. “You loan something that you own, it’s your property. If you restitute there is a transfer of the property rights and the new holder of those rights can loan you the item.” “There’s a symbolic dimension around property rights,” added Savoy. “If you can loan your objects you are respected in the museum world because you can impose your will and conditions. In the capitalist sphere being able to loan gives you power and it means you can impose your own rights.” In response, a spokesperson for the British Museum said it welcomed a “transparent focus on the provenance of objects”, adding that the museum agreed with the report’s call for the establishment of “new and more equitable relationships between Europe and Africa”. “We believe the strength of the collection is its breadth and depth which allows millions of visitors an understanding of the cultures of the world and how they interconnect – whether through trade, migration, conquest, or peaceful exchange,” the spokesperson added. Since the release of the report African countries, including Ivory Coast, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have made formal requests for the return of artefacts, and European countries including France and Germany have committed to handing back objects. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has opened talks with Sri Lanka and Indonesia and described the Netherlands’ failure to return stolen artefacts as a “disgrace”. The report, known colloquially as the Macron report, was described as radical by some in the art world upon its release, but the authors disagree. “It’s not us who are radical; it’s historical facts which are radical,” said Savoy. “There was a taboo around this fact for many centuries in Europe, the fact that many major museums have collections based on plundering. There are always ruptures when you break a taboo.” Savoy and Sarr travelled to Mali, Senegal, Cameroon and Benin and examined the works at the Musée du quai Branly, which holds nearly 80% of the African artworks contained in French public collections, and found more than half may have to be returned. The head of the museum, Stéphane Martin, criticised the report, saying it sidelined museums in favour of specialists in historical reparations, and stained everything collected and bought during the colonial period with “the impurity of colonial crime”. Savoy and Sarr reject the idea that clear evidence of the circumstances in which colonial-era items were acquired is difficult to find or ambiguous. “It’s not an argument that works,” said Sarr. “These items were stolen or given or taken during scientific missions.” Savoy added: “Most of these items arrived in Europe between the 19th and 20th centuries – from 1885 to 1930 – and these are times of great documentation. All of these expeditions are well documented. The issue is accessing them as museums have sat on this material – they have all the documents.” Savoy and Sarr say in the report that “to speak openly about restitution is to speak of justice, rebalancing, recognition, restoration and reparation. But above all, it is to pave the way for the establishment of new cultural relationships.” For the academics that means stopping “the arrogance of Europeans” and European institutions when dealing with Africa. “The new ethical relationship is probably the end of the arrogance of Europeans,” said Savoy. “A lot of arguments from Europe are based on the idea that Africans can’t host their own heritage, they don’t have museums, we have saved them etc. Changing this way of relating and this narrative is stepping away from a cultural arrogance.” | Lanre Bakare | https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/21/british-museum-head-in-sand-return-artefacts-colonial | 2019-06-21 09:45:29+00:00 | 1,561,124,729 | 1,567,538,466 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
703,018 | theguardianuk--2019-06-24--Blackpool to get first museum after winning 4m lottery grant | 2019-06-24T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Blackpool to get first museum after winning £4m lottery grant | Blackpool is to get its first museum – telling the story of Britain’s first mass seaside resort and its place in the history of popular culture – after winning a £4m lottery grant. Scheduled to open in March 2021, Show Town: The Museum of Fun and Entertainment will be situated on the promenade, near Blackpool Tower. It is the culmination of years of lobbying and fundraising, particularly from council leader Simon Blackburn, who in 2012 complained that the town had become a “refuge for the dispossessed”. He made it his mission to change the resort, saying then: “I can’t stand by and let Blackpool be seen as ... a hapless victim of society’s ills.” But Blackburn bristles at the suggestion he is trying to attract a wealthier demographic, or turn Blackpool middle class. “Blackpool has always been somewhere you can have a holiday on a small budget but everything we have been doing over the past eight years since I became leader is about broadening that offer, building new hotels and improving our cultural offer,” he said. “I think there is a very dangerous and class-bound assumption that we are building hotel rooms and cultural attractions for a different kind of person. I’m working class in my bones and I don’t like the idea that it’s only middle class people who want to go to a museum or stay in a nice hotel.” He said the museum was primarily aimed at local people, who will get free entry. Residents have long tired of the town featuring bottom of all the tables, whether for its early death rate (twice that of the most affluent areas) or for having the worst statistics for smoking or divorce. “We wanted to give local people a real sense of their history and their place in the town,” said Blackburn. “One of my starting points for this conversation was that two of my children were born in Blackpool and have been brought up here all their lives and I didn’t get a sense that they had a strong sense of what it meant to be a Blackpudlian. And if you look at the membership of the Blackpool Civic Trust, they are all of a certain age, and I wondered where the next generation of people with civic pride and a real sense of the history and heritage of the town was coming from.” Sited in the redeveloped Sands building, Show Town is expected to attract 296,000 visits annually, deliver 39 full-time jobs and provide £13.16m of regional economic benefit. It will cost a total of £12.6m, a million of which will come from Blackpool council – which according to Blackburn, earns more than that each year in dividends from its own profit-making local transport service. As well as £4m from the Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum has also received £4m from the Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund and £1.5m from a government growth fund. The new museum will house over 100,000 items of the town’s collections, featuring Britain’s first permanent displays of circus, music, variety and ballroom dance. Items include those belonging to some of the biggest names in British entertainment, such as Stan Laurel’s hat and suits belonging to Morecambe and Wise, who considered Blackpool their spiritual home. The museum will work in partnership with the V&A, which back in 2008 first started talking about lending some of its vast store of unexhibited items in a Blackpool outpost. Also on show will be some of the 40,000-strong Tower and Winter Gardens archive and key pieces from the Illuminations Collection, which tells the story of the annual extravaganza of lights. A likely highlight will be a collection of “saucy” postcards stamped “approved” or “disapproved” by the Blackpool Postcard Censorship Board, and an exhibit explaining how the Rolling Stones came to be banned from the Empress Ballroom. It is part of a huge regeneration project, which will soon see the opening of the first five-star hotel in the resort since the 1960s and a state-of-the-art conference centre next to the historic Winter Gardens. In December last year plans were revealed for a £300m redevelopment of a 17-acre site which will include the UK’s first “flying theatre”, as well as restaurants and hotels. Other projects given Lottery Heritage funding in the latest round include: | Helen Pidd North of England editor | https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/24/blackpool-to-get-first-museum-after-winning-4m-lottery-grant | 2019-06-24 05:01:06+00:00 | 1,561,366,866 | 1,567,538,326 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
703,986 | theguardianuk--2019-06-29--Should museums return their colonial artefacts | 2019-06-29T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Should museums return their colonial artefacts? | “I am from a generation of the French people for whom the crimes of European colonialism are undeniable and make up part of our history,” announced Emmanuel Macron to a crowded lecture theatre at Ouagadougou University, in Burkina Faso, in November 2017. “I cannot accept that a large part of cultural heritage from several African countries is in France … In the next five years, I want the conditions to be created for the temporary or permanent restitution of African patrimony to Africa.” In case anyone missed the significance of the French president’s remarks, the Elysée Palace was swift to spell out the new policy: “African heritage can no longer be the prisoner of European museums.” The following year brought another notable intervention, this time from supervillain Erik Killmonger in the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. Surveying the African collection at the “Museum of Great Britain”, Killmonger corrects the exhibition’s patronising white curator about the provenance of an axe: “It was taken by British soldiers in Benin, but it’s from Wakanda. Don’t trip – I’m gonna take it off your hands for you.” When the woman replies that the items are not for sale, Killmonger says: “How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?” As the poisoned curator collapses, Killmonger deaccessions the artefact. Black Panther took just 26 days to reach $1bn (£784,000) in worldwide box office sales and, in one compelling scene, highlighted all the current controversies over museum collections and colonial injustice. Macron’s pledge and Killmonger’s heist had context. The preceding decade had brought growing demands for the restitution of artefacts taken from Africa by European colonists during the 19th century. If the case for the restitution of human remains to indigenous communities had been, by and large, acceded, the new frontier was works of art. The UN kickstarted the conversation in 2007 with article 11 of its declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which urged states to restore “cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property” taken from indigenous people without their “free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs”. With that aim in mind, the Benin Dialogue Group was established the same year as part of an effort to get European museum curators talking to key representatives in Nigeria. Action soon followed. In 2009, Egypt demanded that the Louvre return five fragments of a wall painting from the tomb of Tetaki, an 18th-dynasty noble. In 2012, Nigeria requested the return of 32 objects from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston that had been looted by the British army during a raid on the Royal Palaces of Abomey in 1897. In 2017, a year after the president of Benin had made an official request to the French foreign ministry for the return of items taken during imperial occupation, Nigeria made a further request, asking the British Museum in London to return the celebrated Benin bronzes. A core objective of the Benin Dialogue Group was the creation of a permanent display in Benin City of objects once belonging to the former kingdom and now in continental hands. Last year, Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, called for international guidelines akin to the Washington principles (which address the restitution of Nazi-confiscated art to descendants of dispossessed, predominantly Jewish families) to help museums handle provenance research and repatriation of illegally acquired artworks in public collections. It is no coincidence that much of this thinking coincided with growing calls for western European nations to apologise for various “crimes” of empire, from the Germans in Namibia and the Dutch in Indonesia to the British in Kenya and India and the French in north Africa. However, it was Macron’s intervention that signalled a step change. “This is a revolution,” declared French art historian Bénédicte Savoy. “In two minutes and 33 seconds… Macron swept aside several decades of official French museum policy.” Savoy was appointed, alongside the Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr, to write a report on implementing the Macron vision. The resulting study, published last November, recommended the restitution of “any objects taken by force or presumed to be acquired through inequitable conditions” by the army, scientific explorers or administrators during the French colonial period in Africa, which lasted from the late 19th century until 1960. In the report’s aftermath, museums across Europe raced to develop new policies on restitution and repatriation – not least at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Having previously worked as an MP, I am used to politics. But since my appointment as director of the V&A in February 2017, I have been taken aback by the intensity of the repatriation debate. As a museum born of the imperial moment, the question of provenance and ownership in a post-colonial age is particularly germane. The V&A’s collections expanded in line with the growth of the British empire, in its official and unofficial guise, across southern Asia, showcasing Indian textiles, Burmese lacquerware, Chinese porcelain, and Persian carpets – as well as a remarkable range of British industrial designs and European Renaissance treasures. In Britain’s colonies and spheres of influence, the practice of collecting was intimately tied to the dominating psychology of colonialism. From the beginning of my directorship, I wanted to be open and transparent about that colonial past, and think carefully about how to manage its legacy today. So too did colleagues on the continent. “It’s a disgrace that the Netherlands is only now turning its attention to the return of the colonial heritage,” Taco Dibbits, the Rijksmuseum’s director, told the Dutch newspaper Trouw as he opened talks on the restitution of colonial-era loot to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. “We should have done it earlier and there is no excuse.” Similarly, the Netherlands’ National Museum of World Cultures pledged proactively to return all artefacts within its collection identified as stolen during the colonial era – starting with 139 Benin bronzes, eligible for repatriation to Nigeria. Just outside Brussels, in Tervuren, the Royal Museum for Central Africa turned itself from an institution that celebrated the colonial history of Belgium in the Congo to one that consciously confronted the multiple crimes of King Leopold’s African empire. As parks in eastern Europe are dotted with the fallen statues of Stalin and Lenin, so the Brussels museum pulled down its highly racialised and offensive African statuary (placing them on show as a relic of European colonial thought). And in Berlin, Germany’s 16 state cultural ministries, the foreign office, and urban municipalities agreed to work with museums on a set of guidelines for the return of objects taken from former colonies. “All people should have the opportunity to meet their rich material cultural heritage in their countries and communities of origin, to interact with it and pass it on to future generations,” they concluded. At the same time, an exciting wave of new museums was announced across Africa. The Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar, Senegal, was opened in 2018, with capacity for about 18,000 objects, alongside a clear demand for some of that space to be filled by items currently housed in European museums. New projects are also scheduled for the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, the Museum of National History in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the JK Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History in Lagos. The opening of the Benin Royal Museum in Benin City is scheduled for 2021. The Macron intervention and Savoy/Sarr report represent a philosophical disavowal of the bullish defence of western, encyclopaedic museums articulated in the 2002 “declaration on the importance and value of universal museums”, signed by 18 prominent institutions including the Louvre and New York’s Metropolitan Museum. When it came to the troubled provenance of parts of their collection, the declaration decreed that “over time, objects so acquired – whether by purchase, gift or portage – have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them”. James Cuno, president of the J Paul Getty Trust, fleshed out the argument for world collections in his book Museums Matter, writing: “Without [encyclopaedic museums], one risks a hardening of views about one’s own, particular culture as being pure, essential, and organic, something into which one is born… The collective, political risk of not having encyclopaedic museums… is that culture becomes fixed national culture.” Cuno thought it highly reductive to condemn a collection solely because of an imperial connection, adducing Edward Said’s argument that “partly because of empire, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogenous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic.” This nuanced account of the impact of empire represents an increasingly singular stance amid the increasingly vocal public and professional campaign to “decolonise the museum”. In a 2016 TedX talk on the latter theme, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, president and CEO of the Abbe Museum in Maine, urged fellow museum professionals to give voice and power back to formerly colonised people in an effort to make colonial histories more present in western museums. Olga Viso, the director of Minnesota’s Walker Art Center, concurred. “If museums want to continue to have a place, they must stop seeing activists as antagonists,” she wrote. “They must position themselves as learning communities, not impenetrable centres of self-validating authority. If they do not, museums run the risk of becoming culturally irrelevant artefacts.” The debate was further energised in April 2018, when Brooklyn Museum hired a white scholar as chief curator of the African collection. An open letter from Decolonize This Place, a New York-based action group intent on an overhaul of the city’s museums, described the decision as “tone deaf”, calling on the museum to “participate in the creation of a Decolonization Commission… to account for their own role in the histories of colonialism and white supremacy”. The group called for this commission to be tasked with diversifying the museum’s staff and reviewing its inventory of colonial-era artefacts “with a view to settling the long-pursued claims of reparations and repatriation”. Curiously, yet tellingly, Decolonize This Place also sought an end to “pro-Israeli artwashing” and “an institutional commitment to address the issues raised by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement” against Israel. What the establishment of the state of Israel had to do with the hiring of a white female curator in Brooklyn was unclear, but it exposed both the broader ideological (and racial) agenda of the movement and how the ‘decolonisation’ agenda can encompass so many differing strands. There have been debates around the imperial past and its legacies in Britain, one example being the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which called for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college. But while the call to decolonise museums is at an earlier stage than in the US, it is gathering pace. Birkbeck, University of London historian Emma Lundin has written of how “Rhodes must go, along with objects brought to Britain by colonial-era travellers” and urges the return of “purchased objects… acquired because of power imbalances between buyers and sellers”. Alice Procter, a University of London student, runs “uncomfortable art tours” of British museums focusing on questions of disputed provenance. She dismisses “the whole concept of the Museum… [as] a colonialist, imperialist fantasy, born from the fallacy that somehow the whole world can be neatly catalogued, contained in a single building, mapped out for easy digestion”. Clearly to her, the museum as well as Rhodes must go. In 2016, a group of museum and heritage professionals formed Museum Detox, a network for people of black, Asian, Arabic or dual heritage. Led by Sara Wajid, head of engagement at the Museum of London, they aim to build awareness about diversity in cultural organisations, help members achieve leadership positions, and “creatively use radical approaches to dismantle unjust infrastructures in our national cultural institutions”. While numerous museums have, over many decades, addressed uncomfortable colonial histories through their events, last year Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery went further. Its exhibition The Past Is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire, which was conceived as “an experiment in how the story of the British empire may be told permanently”, brought together six external co-curators of colour from outside the museum world. “For many people of colour, collections symbolise historic and ongoing trauma and theft,” explained Sumaya Kassim, one of the artists involved. “The craftsmanship, the display case, the beauty of the institution that collects and protects its imperial hoard: the way items are described, the way they are catalogued and what gets shown and what remains hidden; all work to deny, retreat and forget.” Despite much outside praise, the exhibition also drew criticism for giving the impression that “the British empire was unfailingly dreadful and uniquely evil”. More interestingly, those involved in its curation worried whether the exhibition had merely endorsed the status quo. “I do not want to see decolonisation become part of Britain’s national narrative as a pretty curio with no substance,” wrote Kassim. The fear was that “decoloniality” was already on its way to becoming a buzzword devoid of agency, like “diversity”. The cultural critic Jason Farago similarly urged western, encyclopaedic museums to go beyond inclusion, diversity, and even “decolonisation”, to rethink completely their approach. “A 21st-century universal museum has to unsettle the very labels that the age of imperialism bequeathed to us: nations and races, east and west, art and craft. It’s not enough just to call for ‘decolonisation’… the whole fiction of cultural purity has to go, too. Any serious museum can only be a museum of our entangled past and resent.” How should an institution like the V&A respond to this new cultural climate, and honour its responsibilities as a global museum? Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the British invasion of Abyssinia, we attempted to chart a pathway through with a small display highlighting our imperial, Ethiopian collections. At its heart sat the Maqdala crown, an exquisite work of African craftsmanship, commissioned by the Ethiopian Empress Mentewab in the 1740s, alloyed with silver and copper with filigree work and glass beads. But, as the display made clear, the crown came into the V&A’s possession in less pretty circumstances. Its route to South Kensington originated with the mid-19th century Abyssinian ruler, Emperor Tewodros II, and his ambition to build a modern nation state in east Africa. As a great Christian emperor, Tewodros hoped to push back the power of the Egyptians and sought the assistance of Queen Victoria and the British state in his endeavours. When Lord Palmerston revealed he had no intention of supporting his ambitions (not least because it might entail alienating Egypt, a major supplier of cotton), Tewodros took hostage the British emissary and a handful of European nationals. In response, Sir Robert Napier gathered together an expeditionary force of 13,000 men, stormed the Maqdala fortress, secured the release of the hostages, and then started to pillage. Sometime during the battle, Tewodros killed himself. Under the stewardship of accompanying curator Richard Holmes, the crown, chalice, and other regalia made their way back to the British Treasury, were auctioned for the army prize fund and then transferred to numerous national museums, including the V&A. Many British politicians heralded the Abyssinian expedition as a textbook imperial intervention. But William Gladstone, the prime minister, told the House of Commons that he “deeply lamented, for the sake of the country, and for the sake of all concerned, that these articles… were thought fit to be brought away by a British army”. He urged that they “be held only until they could be restored”. During the 20th century, a number of items held by the British government were returned to Ethiopia. Artefacts owned by the British Museum, British Library, National Army Museum and V&A could not legally be part of that process of restitution, however. So in March 2008, Girma Wolde-Giorgis, the president of Ethiopia, sent a letter to Sir Mark Jones, the V&A’s director at the time, stating that Ethiopians had “long grieved at the loss of this part of their national heritage” and urging “the return of Ethiopia’s looted treasures” “to cement the good relations between our two countries”. Yet discussions over how to pursue such an accommodation soon petered out. In 2018 we were clear that even if the objects could not be returned tout court, we should nonetheless work on a display as well as being open and transparent about how the items entered the collection, engaging with the Ethiopian embassy and the broader diaspora community, and offering the items on a long-term loan. If not decolonising the museum, the display was cognisant of the colonial context of the collection and its meaning for African-heritage communities. Adamant that the restitution case remained outstanding, the Ethiopian government said they could not accede to a long-term loan, as that would signal a legal acceptance of UK ownership. “Ethiopia’s demand has always been the restoration of those illegally looted treasures. Not to borrow them,” responded Ephrem Amare, the Ethiopian National Museum director. That position was reaffirmed in March 2019 when the Ethiopian culture minister, Dr Hirut Kassaw, visited the V&A display. For the Ethiopian government, the collection was not simply an array of interesting design artefacts, but essential to the country rediscovering its history and charting a new way forward. Kassaw’s trip to London included a successful visit to the National Army Museum, where she oversaw the return of two lockets of hair cut from the scalp of Tewodros in 1868 and now set to be reinterred with his remains. Alongside the understandable official position, the Ethiopian ambassador Hailemichael Aberra Afework expressed satisfaction “with the new partnership between Ethiopia and the V&A”, expressing optimism about “future co-operation” on “the care and maintenance of cultural heritage, in which the V&A has extensive experience”. Productive conversations have since been held about a framework for co-operation – together with the British Library and British Museum - and we are working towards having the Maqdala treasures on show in Addis Ababa. The V&A’s Maqdala experience highlighted the tensions facing national museums when it comes to restitution debates. Under the National Heritage Act 1983, the trustees of the V&A are specifically prevented from de-accessioning objects that are the property of the museum, unless they are exact replicas or damaged beyond repair. This remit was specifically enjoined to prevent the dispersal of “unfashionable” items from the collections (or, indeed, fundraising through the sale of valuable works), which later generations might have lamented. But legislation is only part of the issue. I also feel we need to tread carefully along a path of total restitution, dictated by a political timetable. There remains something essentially valuable about the ability of museums to position objects beyond particular cultural or ethnic identities, curate them within a broader intellectual or aesthetic lineage, and situate them within a wider, richer framework of relationships while allowing free and open access, physically and digitally. For a museum like the V&A, to decolonise is to decontextualise: the history of empire is embedded in its meaning and collections, and the question is how that is interpreted. A more nuanced understanding of empire is needed than the politically driven pathways of Good or Bad. For alongside colonial violence, empire was also a story of cosmopolitanism and hybridity: through trade, religion, war and force, peoples and cultures mixed and, in many cases, expressed that exchange and interaction through the type of material culture now found in museums. That was the case for the Roman, Ottoman, Ming, Ashanti, Habsburg and, yes, British empires. Today, power, wealth and art are being accumulated in the coming empires – informal and formal – of modern China and the Gulf states. Perhaps the real challenge is how we create more, rather than fewer, universal museums – not in Europe and the west, but across Africa, India and the global south. Our aim should be to detach the universal, encyclopaedic museum from its colonial preconditions and reimagine it as a new medium for multicultural understanding. Calls for “decolonisation”, restitution and diversity look set to grow. Maqdala 1868 was a small step forward. So too our work on African heritage tours of the museum collections, research into the slave-owning wealth of early V&A benefactors, programming and exhibitions consciously focused on promoting diversity, sustained attempts to widen the talent pool of curatorial and conservation staff. About 47% of schoolchildren who visited the V&A in 2017-18 were from BAME backgrounds; clear progress has been made. However, the truth is that museum leaders must engage with this agenda and work on programmes of tangible change involving collections and curators, which can include the option of repatriation, in different forms, based on the history of each object. As Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director general of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, says: “Museums must recognise that unresolved repatriation and restitution disputes can, in the absence of serious efforts at conciliation, paralyse the sharing of significant cultural objects… institutional narratives or legal doctrines [must] not come in the way of celebrating a world culture.” If that is ignored, the momentum will pass into the hands of politicians – and in a two-minute-33-second speech, the complex, layered meaning of an object could be lost for ever to the reductive expediency of a passing agenda. | Tristram Hunt | https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-return-their-colonial-artefacts | 2019-06-29 13:00:50+00:00 | 1,561,827,650 | 1,567,537,604 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
704,648 | theguardianuk--2019-07-03--Look without looting the Imperial War Museum charts a history of destruction | 2019-07-03T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | 'Look without looting': the Imperial War Museum charts a history of destruction | Pickaxes, dynamite, anti-aircraft guns – the Taliban had tried everything to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas, which had towered for 15 centuries in a pair of niches cut into the mountains in northern Afghanistan. But, after days of assaults, the majestic statues still wouldn’t budge. “This work of destruction is not as simple as people might think,” lamented the Taliban’s information minister, Qudratullah Jamal in March 2001, midway through their frenzied campaign to erase the figures, which they had decreed to be blasphemous idols. “You can’t knock down the statues by shelling as both are carved into a cliff; they are firmly attached to the mountain.” After two weeks of botched bombardment, the Taliban leaders ordered anti-tank mines to be placed at the foot of the cliffs, to be detonated by falling debris from artillery fire, followed by having abseilers place explosives into holes drilled into the statues, which finally reduced the precious monuments to rubble. An imposing image of one of the empty niches greets visitors to the Imperial War Museum in London, at the entrance to What Remains, a new exhibition that explores a hundred years of cultural heritage in the firing sights – and the highly charged debates around repair, reconstruction and restitution that always follow the devastation. Almost two decades after the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, there is still no consensus about whether they should be rebuilt, or their ghostly shells left as a reminder of this dark chapter in the country’s history. One wealthy Chinese couple had an alternative idea. In 2015, tofu mogul turned world explorer Zhang Xinyu and his wife, Liang Hong, projected a holographic image of a buddha into one of the empty niches, and donated the $120,000 projector used to do so to the Afghan Ministry of Culture afterwards. It was a generous act, but it hasn’t proved particularly useful: Bamiyan has no mains electricity system, so the power-hungry contraption needs a diesel generator. It is rarely operated as a result. Local heritage officials, meanwhile, bemoan that the European archaeologists who had been working on the site took the keys with them when they left. The Taliban’s attempt to obliterate anything that indicated civilisation pre-Islam is just one of the many chapters in this illuminating if depressing exhibition, which charts the extreme lengths we have gone to as a species to obliterate the physical traces of rival powers and competing ideologies. “A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive,” proclaims a slogan on the wall, taken from a stone plaque outside the Afghan National Museum in Kabul (where the Taliban wrought further vandalism), the corollary being that a nation can just as easily be expunged by the deletion of its heritage. From the bombing of cathedrals in Coventry and Dresden, to the burning of books in Sarajevo, to the levelling of Homs, the exhibition shows how the strategic destruction and appropriation of cultural artefacts has always been at the heart of modern warfare. A second section looks at the responses, explaining how the process of documenting the destruction of the second world war laid the foundations for the work of Historic England (which co-curated the show), to more recent efforts by the likes of Google to digitise lost artefacts from crowdsourced images, including the Lion of Mosul, destroyed by Islamic State in 2015, and now 3D-printed in miniature in the exhibition. One of the most haunting vitrines displays a photo album from the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, a Nazi task force dedicated to the systematic looting of cultural property, which catalogues the paintings confiscated from Jewish families in the 1940s. Above it hangs the puffed-up uniform of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy, a white jacket with gold brocading he designed himself. It is an appropriately bloated outfit for a man whose appetite for plundered art saw him acquire three new paintings a week at the height of the Nazi looting, to decorate his own sprawling home. Almost 75 years later, the struggle to find and return the pillaged booty is still ongoing. The exhibition shows an image that Florence’s Uffizi Gallery displayed earlier this year, depicting a painting seized by Nazi troops in 1943 surrounded by banners saying “Stolen!” The campaign has paid off: just last week, the descendants of the German soldier who stole the work finally reached an agreement to return it. From the Nazis and the Taliban to Isis’s more recent destruction of Palmyra, there is plenty on the bad guys, but not much space devoted to the more nuanced topic of the damage wrought by the supposed good guys, like the trail of vandalism left by coalition forces in Iraq. It would have been an interesting counterpoint to highlight the fact that, in 2003, US-led troops chose the site of Babylon as the location for their military base, building a depot and helipads on the ruins of the ancient city, renowned for its beauty and splendour a thousand years before Europe built anything comparable. Decorated bricks that formed the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate were gouged out of the walls, while 2,600-year-old pavements were crushed by military vehicles and vast amounts of earth, mixed with archaeological fragments, were dug up to fill thousands of sandbags. A damning British Museum report at the time described it as “tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain”. The army captains could have done with a handy set of Archaeology Awareness playing cards, produced in 2007 by the US Department of Defense in collaboration with Colorado University, on display in an entertaining part of the exhibition about educating soldiers on the importance of cultural heritage. “Ancient sites matter to the local community,” says a caption on the Queen of Hearts card, beneath an image of some locals enjoying a site in Uruk, Iraq. “Showing respect wins hearts and minds.” “LOOK WITHOUT LOOTING” was the more direct message given to British soldiers in the second world war, shown on a screen-printed poster alongside the informative “Art – Its Background”, an improving wall-chart that introduced young recruits to the finer points of El Greco and Van Gogh. As Donald Trump prepares to blunder into an accidental war with Iran, threatening to “obliterate” the country in a recent tirade of tweets, his military aides might do well to familiarise themselves with the ancient cradle of civilisation that produced the wonders of Persepolis, the exquisitely tiled mosques of Isfahan, the mud-walled mansions of Kashan, and the ornate gardens of Shiraz – before all we have is digitally crowdsourced replicas of them. | Oliver Wainwright | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/03/imperial-war-museum-what-remains-exhibition-war-cultural-destruction | 2019-07-03 16:11:07+00:00 | 1,562,184,667 | 1,567,537,085 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
704,682 | theguardianuk--2019-07-03--Revamped St Fagans in Wales is 2019 Art Fund museum of the year | 2019-07-03T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Revamped St Fagans in Wales is 2019 Art Fund museum of the year | An open-air heritage attraction praised for living, breathing and embodying the culture of Wales has been named the UK’s museum of the year. St Fagans National Museum of History last year completed a £30m redevelopment project and was rewarded on Wednesday for showing “exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement”. The artist Jeremy Deller announced that the heritage attraction near Cardiff had won the Art Fund museum of the year 2019 award at a ceremony at the Science Museum in London. It comes with a £100,000 prize, the largest art award in Britain. Stephen Deuchar, the director of the Art Fund and the chair of judges, said the museum had been transformed by a redevelopment project that had involved the participation of hundreds of thousands of visitors and volunteers. “St Fagans lives, breathes and embodies the culture and identity of Wales,” he said. “This magical place was made by the people of Wales for people everywhere, and stands as one of the most welcoming and engaging museums anywhere in the UK.” One of the 2019 judges, Bridget McConnell, the chief executive of the charity Glasgow Life, praised the devolved Welsh government for being such an enthusiastic supporter of St Fagans. “Everyone I met and saw at St Fagans was in constant, lively conversation about their shared history, culture and lived experiences,” she said. “This is their place, and it is strongly felt on every visit.” St Fagans has more than 50 buildings that were moved to the site from locations around Wales allowing visitors to take a walk through Welsh history, from prehistoric times to the present day. It is the first Welsh winner of the museum of the year prize in its current form; the Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon won the Gulbenkian prize in 2005. St Fagans won from a shortlist that also included HMS Caroline in Belfast, the Nottingham Contemporary art gallery, the V&A Dundee and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which displays the university’s archaeological and anthropological collections. The museum, Wales’s most visited heritage attraction, has been welcoming visitors since 1948 when it opened as the Welsh Folk Museum. The completion of the six-year revamp last year was the organisation’s most ambitious project, creating new galleries, more learning spaces and a new building, Gweithdy – Welsh for “workshop” – which is intended as a national centre for creativity and craft skills. It joins previous winners, which range from the enormous – the British Museum (2011) and the V&A (2016) – to the considerably smaller, such as the William Morris Gallery (2013). | Mark Brown Arts correspondent | https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jul/03/st-fagans-history-museum-wales-wins-art-fund-museum-of-the-year-2019 | 2019-07-03 20:55:23+00:00 | 1,562,201,723 | 1,567,537,088 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
713,752 | theguardianuk--2019-11-08--Gus Casely-Hayford to lead V&A's new east London museum | 2019-11-08T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Gus Casely-Hayford to lead V&A's new east London museum | The cultural historian and broadcaster Gus Casely-Hayford is to head the V&A’s new outpost in east London, a five-storey museum due to open in 2023. Casely-Hayford has been the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington DC since 2018, but has returned to London, where he was born, for what is likely to be one of the biggest museum projects of the next decade. He said he felt “enormously privileged” to be asked to join the V&A. “It has long been the arts institution that I have looked to for innovation and inspiration,” Casely-Hayford said. “And what a brief – working to deliver a new museum for east London. And what a collection – the most thrilling single body of material culture I have ever encountered.” Casely-Hayford said the V&A was an organisation with the appetite and ambition to shift the way museums work and engage. “We are going to craft dynamic and compelling ways for our audiences to get close to the extraordinary, to be transported across time and geography by the most beautiful and intriguing things,” he said. Tim Reeve, the V&A’s deputy director, said the net had been cast wide to find the right leader. “This is a hugely ambitious project – for east London, for the UK and for international cultural exchange,” he said. “It offers us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform how we engage with young, diverse audiences and to revolutionise how our collections are accessed and experienced.” The planned waterfront V&A East, on the former London Olympic site in Stratford, will be part of a new cultural quarter that includes a Sadler’s Wells dance theatre, BBC recording and performance studios and UAL’s London College of Fashion. Collectively, it will be known as East Bank. Ten minutes’ walk away will be Here East, a new storage and research centre for the V&A that will be open to the public. Casely-Hayford will be responsible for creative strategy and programming across both venues. Casely-Hayford is a former executive director of arts strategy at Arts Council England and has advised and sat on the boards of numerous arts institutions. On TV, his credits include BBC Two’s The Culture Show, two series of Lost Kingdoms of Africa on BBC Four and two series of Tate Britain’s Great British Walks for Sky Arts. He comes from a strikingly talented family. His siblings include the late fashion designer Joe Casely-Hayford, the chair of Shakespeare’s Globe, Margaret Casely-Hayford, and the TV producer Peter Casely-Hayford. Casely-Hayford will take up his role in the spring of 2020. | Mark Brown Arts correspondent | https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/nov/08/gus-casely-hayford-to-lead-v-and-a-new-east-london-museum | Fri, 08 Nov 2019 13:10:38 GMT | 1,573,236,638 | 1,573,259,086 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
714,931 | theguardianuk--2019-11-18--Syrian artist latest to attack BP sponsorship of British Museum | 2019-11-18T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Syrian artist latest to attack BP sponsorship of British Museum | A Syrian artist who fled the civil war has criticised BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum’s exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality, saying her work was being used to “artwash” what she described as the “impacts and crimes” of the oil company. A film of Reem Alsayyah’s Queens of Syria – a modern retelling of Euripides’ The Trojan Women by a group of Syrian refugees, which was directed by Zoe Lafferty – is included in the show. The pair are the latest artists to call on major British arts institution to end their partnerships with BP. In an open letter to the British Museum trustees and its director, Hartwig Fischer, Alsayyah and Lafferty said BP’s sponsorship of the event was more egregious because, they allege, the company “has directly profited from the widespread destruction and displacement of people like the 13 women who formed the cast for our play. And yet you have reached the conclusion that its logo should brand an exhibition highlighting exactly the issues BP contributes to causing.” The pair said it was devastating to have the brand associated with their work, adding that it was “no secret that BP backed the second Gulf war, eyeing opportunities to take control of oil reserves in the region”. Alsayyah and Lafferty will keep their work in the exhibition, which opens on Thursday, but said BP’s continued sponsorship of cultural events in Britain puts artists in an impossible position. They wrote: “We must decide whether it is worse to try to remove our work from the exhibition – taking away the chance that this show can shine a light on the harsh realities that our team are living under – or to allow our work to help ‘artwash’ the impacts and crimes of BP, a multinational oil and gas company that has wreaked havoc on this planet and its people.” In February there was an occupation of the British Museum in protest against its relationship with BP, while in June, a group of artists wrote to the director of the National Portrait Gallery, calling on it to end its relationship with the company before the NPG’s annual awards. In the same month, Extinction Rebellion called on the NPG and the Royal Opera House to sever ties with BP, and Sir Mark Rylance resigned from the Royal Shakespeare Company after a 30-year association, over the sponsorship he said allowed the oil company to “obscure the destructive reality of its activities”. Last month the RSC announced it was ending its BP deal two years early, after a sustained campaign by artists and environmentalists. In July, the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif resigned as British Museum trustee because of “immovability” on critical issues, including BP’s sponsorship. Last week, National Galleries Scotland announced its 2019 BP portrait award exhibition, which opens in early December, would be the last time the event would take place there in its present form, citing NGS’s “responsibility to do all we can to address the climate emergency”. In 2016, Tate and the Edinburgh international festival announced they were ending their sponsorship deals with BP, after more than two decades. Culture Unstained, which campaigns against oil sponsorship of culture, said it was crunch time for the British Museum. “With major arts organisations cutting their ties to BP over its climate impacts, the museum can no longer argue that more ethical alternatives don’t exist,” a spokesperson said. “BP is fuelling conflict and the climate crisis: a publicly-funded museum should not be helping to clean up its reputation.” In response, the museum said it understood “concerns about this kind of support” and said it was right that questions were raised, but added that without external support much programming and other major projects would not happen. “Temporary exhibitions deliver tangible public benefit, deepening people’s understanding of the world’s many and varied cultures,” a spokesperson said. “This exhibition focuses on Troy as the ultimate universal story about the human condition.” A spokesperson for BP said: “While BP supports the British Museum’s Troy exhibition, we have no curatorial input into the exhibition.” The company “completely rejects the outrageous allegations” made in the open letter, the spokesperson added. Queens of Syria was praised when it toured the UK in 2016 for putting “a human face on the worst humanitarian disaster since the second world war”. None of the cast were professional actors, but after auditioning in Amman in Jordan, they went on to have a sold-out run at the Young Vic in London. | Lanre Bakare Arts and culture correspondent | https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/nov/18/syrian-artist-attack-bp-sponsorship-of-british-museum-reem-alsayyah-troy-exhibition-oil-firm | Mon, 18 Nov 2019 20:00:43 GMT | 1,574,125,243 | 1,574,123,095 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
741,519 | theindependent--2019-01-17--Israel museum removes sculpture depicting Ronald McDonald as Jesus after violent protests | 2019-01-17T00:00:00 | theindependent | Israel museum removes sculpture depicting Ronald McDonald as Jesus after violent protests | A museum in Israel will remove an artwork depicting Ronald McDonald as the crucified Jesus after it sparked violent clashes between police and members of the country’s Arab Christian minority. The life-sized sculpture of fast food chain McDonald’s clown mascot on a cross, created by Finnish artist Jani Leinonen, was due to go on display in the city of Haifa for several months. However, the piece sparked protests, which became violent on Friday, when three police officers were injured as dozens of demonstrators tried to force their way into the Haifa Museum of Art. One person was arrested on suspicion of assault after clashes outside the gallery, while investigators are searching for two other individuals suspected of throwing firebombs at the building. “I object to this disgraceful sculpture,” said Nicola Abdo, a Haifa resident and protester. “As a Christian person, I take deep offence to this depiction of our symbols.” Christian Arabs, who make up around two per cent of Israel’s population, initially won support for their cause from the country’s populist culture minister Miri Regev. Ms Regev, who won plaudids on the right for censuring art deemed pro-Palestinian, threatened to cut state funding for the museum on the grounds it had offended religious sensitivities. However, Israel’s justice ministry rebuked her suggestion, claiming she did not have authority to take such actions. The mayor of Haifa, Einat Kalisch-Rotem, announced in a tweet late on Wednesday McJesus would be taken out of the exhibition following consultations with church leaders. “The sculpture will be removed and returned as soon as possible,” Einat Kalish Rotem tweeted. “We regret the aggravation the Christian community experienced and the physical injury and violence that surrounded it.” Artist Mr Leionen, known for his public artworks criticising capitalism using the branding and logos of multinational corporations, has also demanded the artwork be removed from the exhibition. He told Israeli newspaper Haaretz he had asked the museum to take the piece off display last September because he wanted to show solidarity with Palestinians. The sculptor accused the country of using art and culture to “whitewash and justify” the occupation of the West Bank. Meanwhile, some in the city see the decision to remove the artwork as an opportunity for reconciliation between religious groups. “The winner today is the people of Haifa,” said Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to local church leaders. “The removal of this sculpture is a reflection our desire to coexist in the city.” | Tom Barnes | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mcjesus-sculpture-israel-artist-protests-haifa-jani-leinon-controversy-middle-east-a8732806.html | 2019-01-17 15:51:33+00:00 | 1,547,758,293 | 1,567,552,017 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
743,435 | theindependent--2019-01-26--British Museum aposrules outapos returning Elgin Marbles to Greece after country demands UK open | 2019-01-26T00:00:00 | theindependent | British Museum 'rules out' returning Elgin Marbles to Greece after country demands UK opens negotiations | The director of the British Museum has appeared to rule out returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece after its government demanded Britain open negotiations over their return last year. The 2,500-year-old marble sculptures were removed from the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis in Athens by the Ottoman ambassador Lord Elgin in the early 1800s. Lord Elgin sold the marbles to the British government, who passed them on to the British Museum in 1817 where they remain one of its most prized exhibits. Debate over where the sculptures should be located has raged for more than 200 years, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pledging to return them to Greece if he becomes prime minister. In August, Greek culture minister Lydia Koniordou invited UK officials to meetings in Greece to discuss the statues’ return in the midst of Brexit talks as Britain sought allies around Europe. In an interview with Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper, British Museum director Hartwig Fischer said: “The Trustees of the British Museum feel the obligation to preserve the collection in its entirety, so that things that are part of this collection remain part of this collection.” Asked if he thinks the Greek people are right to want the Parthenon sculptures back, he told the newspaper: “I can certainly understand that the Greeks have a special and passionate relationship with this part of their cultural heritage. “Yes, I understand that there is a desire to see all of the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.” The other half of the Parthenon Sculptures are currently in the Acropolis Museum in Greece. For several decades, Greece has called for the reunification of the statues and has sent several formal requests, threatened legal action and proposed solutions such as mediation by Unesco. Supporters of the Greek position say although Lord Elgin said he had the permission of officials of the ruling Ottoman Empire to take the sculptures, the empire was a foreign force and had no right to let the artefacts go. When Mr Fischer was asked about Mr Corbyn’s pledge to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece if he became prime minister, he said: “I think that this is Mr Corbyn’s personal view on the question, that you take note of. “Obviously, that is not the stance and the view of the Trustees of the Museum.” Asked by Ta Nea if he would accept that Greece is the legal owner of the Parthenon Sculptures, he replied: “No, I would not. The objects that are part of the collection of the British Museum are in the fiduciary ownership of the Trustees of the Museum.” Defenders of keeping the statues in Britain have argued returning them would pave the way for requests from other coutries for items in British museums to be returned. In a statement, the British Museum said: “Hartwig Fischer was stating the long-standing position of the British Museum. We believe there is a great public benefit in being able to see these wonderful objects in the context of a world collection. “The museum lends extensively across the world, and some loans are long-term but not indefinite.” Polling by YouGov conducted in 2017 suggested the British public mostly back the marbles’ return, with 55 per cent saying the statues should go back to Greece and 21 per cent saying they should remain in Britain. | Emma Snaith | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/elgin-marbles-british-museum-return-greece-parthenon-acropolis-controversy-corbyn-a8748296.html | 2019-01-26 19:22:36+00:00 | 1,548,548,556 | 1,567,550,737 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
746,206 | theindependent--2019-02-08--The Prado Museum turns 200 with a celebration of Spainaposs turbulent past | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | theindependent | The Prado Museum turns 200 with a celebration of Spain's turbulent past | The Prado was not designed to be one of the world’s great art galleries. But as it celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, Spain’s national museum can boast almost 3 million visitors a year to what has become one of Europe’s finest painting collections. When King Charles III of Spain commissioned the building in the 1780s, he wanted a museum of natural science to celebrate the spirit of the Enlightenment. But when his ultraconservative grandson, Ferdinand VII, came to the throne three decades later, he put a stop to that. “He wanted to showcase the wealth of his collection rather than make any kind of contribution to scientific progress,” says Javier Portus, curator of an exhibition that celebrates the Prado’s bicentenary. “The irony is that the Prado opened in a period of clearly regressive thinking in Spain,” he added. The exhibition, called A Place of Memory and running until 10 March, shows how, right from the beginning, the Prado navigated the often choppy waters of Spanish politics, as the country went from being an imperial power to a nation divided by civil war, and then through dictatorship to the democracy it is today. The Prado was regularly threatened by domestic turmoil in Spain, particularly during the civil war in the 1930s, when the paintings were removed from the museum and taken to a safe haven in Switzerland. At other times, upheaval benefited the museum. In the 1830s, to help pay off Spain’s public debt, the country’s monasteries, along with their artwork, were expropriated, and some of those pieces later found their way into the Prado’s collection after it was declared the national museum in the 1870s. But through two centuries of shifting politics,Prado kept its place as a symbol of Spain’s cultural wealth. “I think the Prado represents the best image of Spain, because it’s a place that has always somehow managed to stay above our political divisions,” says Antonio Muñoz Molina, a writer and member of the Royal Spanish Academy. The Prado opened during a golden age of museum expansion in Europe. The Louvre was inaugurated in Paris in 1793, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 1800 and the National Gallery in London in 1824. But for many visitors, “it’s probably a surprise to hear the Prado is only 200 years old, because we so often think about its great collection from the 16th century,” says Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum. Among the treasures from this period are the portraits by Titian and other artists of Hoy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose territory covered almost 1.5 million square miles, including much of western Europe from Flanders, where he was born, to western Spain, where he died. The portraits became part of the Spanish royal collection and eventually landed in the Prado. Compared with some other national museums, the Prado is “really unique as the collection of an emperor who had the best from the European countries over which Spain once reigned,” Dibbits says. “It’s special in being very international, but on the other hand, in also having a very clear national identity.” The bicentennial exhibition focuses on some of the many foreign painters who visited the Prado to discover Diego Velazquez and the other great Spanish masters. Those visitors included artists such as Edouard Manet of France and Americans William Merritt Chase and John Singer Sargent. They not only left their names in the visitors’ book but also copied or incorporated into their paintings what they had admired and studied in Madrid. The show also highlights some of the brightest and most innovative periods for the Prado, including during the Second Republic in the early 1930s, when the Prado played a pivotal part in an educational program to introduce ordinary citizens to culture. In that drive, a pioneering traveling exhibition took copies of the Prado’s masterworks to 170 towns across Spain, many of them in isolated farming regions. A 1932 photograph in A Place of Memory shows a crowd of rural folk wearing berets and headscarves, viewing a copy of Velazquez’s The Spinners. “Illiterate people who had never gotten out of their villages suddenly discovered Velazquez and the incredible artistic wealth of Spain,” Portus says during a recent tour of the exhibition. “It’s the kind of pedagogical undertaking that you could now perhaps imagine doing with the internet and social media, but that was unprecedented for a museum on such a scale at that time,” he added. The next time the Prado’s masterworks went on the road, however, the circumstances were more dire. Shortly after the military coup of July 1936 – instigated by General Franco and some fellow generals against the Republican government – Madrid became one of the main battlegrounds of what eventually extended into a three-year civil war. During one of the air raids on the city in November 1936, nine bombs fell onto the roof of the Prado. (A fragment of one is displayed in the show.) When the Republican government abandoned Madrid for Valencia and later Barcelona, it took almost 2,000 artworks, including more than 300 of the most important items from the Prado’s collection. Eventually, the works were transported to Geneva for safekeeping. “Everything divided the two sides who fought the war, except perhaps that everybody agreed about the Prado’s importance,” says Jesus Ruiz Mantilla, a writer and culture journalist. “Once Franco wins, his first worry is to bring back the Prado’s paintings.” Franco won the war in April 1939, starting a period of dictatorship that ended only with his death in 1975. His regime not only added works to the collection, but also financed two new extensions to the museum’s buildings, as well as replacing the wooden floors with marble. But Franco did little to promote academic research at the museum, and the Prado’s exhibitions at the time were modest and unadventurous, according to Portus. The regime cared mostly about using the museum’s sumptuous setting to welcome foreign dignitaries during official state visits. Only a fragment of the museum’s recent history is explained on the walls of the exhibition, however. There is little, for instance, about the building’s architecture and evolving role in Madrid as the city added other great museums such as the Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza after Spain’s return to democracy. Last year, foreigners accounted for almost 60 percent of the Prado’s visitors. But while the museum has become an international tourism magnet for Madrid, Manuel Gutierrez Aragon, a Spanish film director and former board member of the museum, says the institution “continues to contribute a lot to the self-esteem of Spaniards, to our nationalist pomp as a democracy and monarchy, in the best sense”. He recalled how his perception of the Prado was shaped during his first childhood visit, in the midst of Franco’s dictatorship. “It looked to me like this wonderful set of cartoon images of our great history, full of incredible colors that contrasted with a Spain that was then very gray,” he says. | Raphael Minder | http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/prado-museum-spain-bicentennial-exhibition-a-place-of-memory-madrid-a8766386.html | 2019-02-08 16:24:03+00:00 | 1,549,661,043 | 1,567,549,184 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
758,661 | theindependent--2019-05-02--Aboriginal man demands British Museum return 18th century shield stolen from his ancestor | 2019-05-02T00:00:00 | theindependent | Aboriginal man demands British Museum return 18th century shield stolen from his ancestor | An Aboriginal man demanding the return of an ancestral shield seized by James Cook in 1770 has become the first living member of his clan to hold it after being invited to a private viewing by the British Museum. Rodney Kelly is the sixth generational descendent of a warrior called Cooman of the Gweagal clan’s Dharawal tribe. According to historical documents, the shield was taken by Cook and his marines after Cooman was shot in the leg when the British arrived at Botany Bay, Australia on 29 April 1770. Ancestral records documenting stories of the altercation between two naked warriors and a group of Englishmen were passed down through generations, Mr Kelly told The Independent. Made of Australian red mangrove, the 45cm-wide shield ended up in the Cook Collection at the Museum of Mankind – today known as the British Museum. Speaking about his up-close and personal experience with the shield, Mr Kelly said: “I felt I had a right to stand there and view the artefacts of my ancestor that were taken. “To go behind the scenes of the British Museum and view the shield and touch it was a very powerful experience. “I was filled with pride and happiness but then I knew it would have to go back to where it’s been kept. And that really hurts. So it was really emotional knowing I’ve got to walk away.” Mr Kelly, who lives in Bermagui, New South Wales, launched a campaign to reclaim the shield in 2016 after he saw it had been loaned to Canberra’s National Museum of Australia. He said he grew up listening to stories about his ancestors from the period of Britiain’s arrival in Australia, and traced his family tree to discover he is a direct descendent of the warrior who was killed. The dream now, he said, was to get it back home in time for the 250th anniversary of it being taken. He added the shield represents the British colonisation of Australia, and how they “never respected us as human beings when they opened fire and took everything”. He said people at home were keen to learn about their roots and the shield was a major symbol of the past that could help teach them. “They’re all just asking me ‘When are they coming back? Can you bring them back yet?’” But he said the British Museum Act is one of the reasons why the institute is refusing to return the shield. A report by Sarah Keenan, senior professor at Birkbeck Law School, claims the British Museum “changed its story” about the origins of the Gweagal Shield when a two-day workshop to “test the argument the shield was collected at Botany bay in 1770” led participants to argue it is not from Cook’s landing. Mr Kelly said repatriation was important in light of “all the stuff that’s happened in the past” and it would be a “huge moment in time to have the British Museum and others actually return things to the Aboriginal people because it would be a great step towards the healing process.” He added ancestral spears taken by Cook and his men at the same time were held at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge; he also viewed those privately last year. Mr Kelly’s claim to the artefacts has been backed by a motion passed in 2016 by New South Wales’ parliament, which acknowledged his clan as the shield’s rightful owners; Australia’s Senate followed suit two months later. Australian historian Keith Vincent Smith told The Independent: “I can certainly say the Gweagal at Botany Bay are the rightful owners of the shield and spears taken from there by Joseph Banks and James Cook in 1770.” In a paper entitled Confronting Cook, Mr Smith describes how information about Cooman was passed down through generations, after an Aboriginal woman’s account of what happened was documented in the 1840s. He said the shield is likely to be the same as the one seen in drawings from the time. Mr Kelly, who is visiting the UK for the fourth time in collaboration with pressure group BP Or Not BP? said he was amazed at what was on display at the British Museum. During last year’s visit he said he took part in the group’s ‘British Museum Stolen Goods Tour’ to protest a controversial BP-sponsored exhibition of Iraqi artefacts. This week, he leads the group’s ‘British Museum Stolen Goods Tour: Colonialism, Carbon & Cook” with speakers discussing “looted items” on display from Iraq, Palestine, Greece and Australia. He said: “For me, this tour is all about getting different cultures together because we’re all in it for that one cause. I think it’s a great opportunity for us to unite and to show the British People and British Museum there’s a real need for these items to be repatriated and we can make the world a better place if we did.” He said Aboriginal items living in museums made it “harder to have a connection to the past”. BP Or Not BP’s Danny Chivers said the opportunity for Mr Kelly to privately view his ancestral shield was a positive step. He said: “It shows on some level they must accept the legitimacy of his request, even if they haven’t shown any signs of returning it.” But Mr Kelly said museums need to start thinking about new ways of “making their collections legitimate.” He added: “As long as there’s stuff that’s been wrongfully taken, there’s always going to be someone like myself looking for ways to get their culture back so we can teach our kids about our history, and about where we come from.” The British Museum was asked if it believed in the legitimacy of claims by historians and ancestral records that the shield belongs to the Gweagal clan but it did not provide a specific response. A spokesperson at the Museum said “colleagues were delighted to welcome Rodney” and that the institute had “repeated the offer on Tuesday, that we would be very happy to discuss a loan of the shield” as it had done to the National Museum of Australia in 2016. She added: “It was a very positive visit, with suggestions for future collaborations to understand and interpret both the shield and other objects more fully. The Museum looks forward to continuing these discussions.” | Anu Shukla | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/aboriginal-man-private-viewing-ancestral-shield-james-cook-australia-british-museum-a8896501.html | 2019-05-02 15:49:00+00:00 | 1,556,826,540 | 1,567,541,378 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
760,270 | theindependent--2019-05-21--British Museum to unveil worldaposs largest manga exhibition outside Japan | 2019-05-21T00:00:00 | theindependent | British Museum to unveil world's largest manga exhibition outside Japan | The world’s largest exhibition of manga outside of Japan is set to open at the British Museum in London later this week. The Japanese word used to refer to comics or cartoons, manga originally translates as “pictures run riot”. It has been popular in its homeland for nearly 200 years but enjoyed global success in recent decades. From its beginning with 19th century Japanese artist Hokusai - best known for his work The Great Wave - the London exhibition will span manga’s varied history and look at the different techniques of design and narrative that drive its works. Its influence over anime and video games - not least the Pokemon phenomenon – will also be explored. Taking place as part of the UK/Japan Season of Culture 2019-2020, the exhibition will run from 23 May to 26 August. | Liam James | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manga-exhibition-british-museum-japan-anime-pokemon-history-a8923501.html | 2019-05-21 12:10:45+00:00 | 1,558,455,045 | 1,567,540,274 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
785,533 | theirishtimes--2019-03-22--National Museum unveils community themed programme | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | theirishtimes | National Museum unveils ‘community’– themed programme | The National Museum of Ireland has announced a 2019 programme that features engagements with Culture Night, Dublin Pride and the Stoneybatter Festival, among other events. The programme of activities includes five flagship exhibitions ranging from “an artistic interpretation” of mother-and-baby homes, to women’s experiences of rural electrification and a conference and exhibition on the War of Independence and Civil War. In keeping with its Master Vision Statement 2018 - 2032, the museum, which welcomed 1.2 million visitors last year, has adopted the theme of “community” to be the backbone of its 2019 activities. The museum will play a role in events such as the Stoneybatter Festival in Dublin’s north city, recording images and documenting the festivities as part of a living history record that will offer future generations a look at what a festival in Dublin was like in 2019. The Museum will also host a Dublin Pride Block Party in June to celebrate LGBTQI+ culture and history in the city. Director of the National Museum Lynn Scarff, who took up the position last July, said the museum’s role was “to preserve and present the stories of Ireland”. She said more then 160,000 people engaged with the museum’s education and outreach programme in 2018 and that this figure is expected to rise to 170,000 this year with 500 events and workshops, 400 school visits and 2,200 self-directed school initiatives and 1,100 facilitated group initiatives. Nigel Monaghan, acting head of collections, said the museum’s Irish Community Archive Network had archived the records of 17 separate communities that wanted to document their history – 16 of them in Galway because of the collaboration of Galway County Council. Over the next three years this number would rise to about 70, he said. Dr Audrey Whitty, keeper of art and industry at the museum, said a Women in Design conference would be held in May to draw attention to the work of pioneering women – from furniture designer Eileen Gray and contemporary lighting artist Niamh Barry to contemporary artist in glass Alison Lowry. Ms Lowry’s response to the Magdalene laundries and the mother-and-baby homes is called Dressing our Hidden Truths. It is described as an “artistic response to the shameful parts of our recent past that were hidden truths for many years”. It was put together with the aid of Diane Croghan, who was 13 when she climbed inside a laundry van to escape the Sisters of Mercy Training School in Summerhill, Co Wexford. Ms Croghan told The Irish Times she was looking forward to seeing the exhibition open to invited guests on Monday and the public on Wednesday. | null | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/national-museum-unveils-community-themed-programme-1.3835162 | 2019-03-22 13:26:09+00:00 | 1,553,275,569 | 1,567,545,245 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
916,600 | theseattletimes--2019-09-11--Greece British Museum damp insults Parthenon Sculptures | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | theseattletimes | Greece: British Museum “damp” insults Parthenon Sculptures | ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s Culture Minister says alleged damp in a section of the British Museum housing the Parthenon Sculptures is an “insult” to the 2,500-year-old works for whose return Greece has pressed long and unsuccessfully. Lina Mendoni’s comments Wednesday followed publication in Greek media of photos ostensibly showing damp and mold stains on the hall’s ceiling, which suffered a minor leak during a rainstorm last year. She said the “picture of neglect” at the London museum “strengthens Greece’s just demand” for the sculptures’ return, which the two-month-old conservative government in Athens has revived, seeking a loan of the works in 2021. Greece says the marbles were illegally removed from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis during the Ottoman Turkish occupation of Greece in the early 1800s. The British Museum rejects that. | The Associated Press | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/greece-british-museum-damp-insults-parthenon-sculptures/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2019-09-11 16:03:10+00:00 | 1,568,232,190 | 1,569,330,491 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
927,276 | thesun--2019-01-15--McJesus sculpture of a crucified Ronald McDonald sparks riot in the Holy Land as outraged Christia | 2019-01-15T00:00:00 | thesun | ‘McJesus’ sculpture of a crucified Ronald McDonald sparks riot in the Holy Land as outraged Christians try to burn down museum | A SCULPTURE called 'McJesus' which depicts a crucified Ronald McDonald has sparked riots after it was displayed in a museum in the Holy Land. Hundreds demonstrated at the museum in the northern city of Haifa last week, throwing rocks at police and even attempting to firebomb the building, according to reports. Israel's Arab Christian minority called for the work's removal while church representatives brought their grievances to the district court, demanding the removal of it and the exhibit's other offensive items, including Barbie doll renditions of a bloodied Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Israeli police say rioters hurled a firebomb at the museum and threw stones that wounded three officers. They were forced to disperse angry crowds with tear gas and stun grenades. Museum director Nissim Tal voiced shock at the outrage, saying the exhibit had been on display for months. He said the displays were intended to criticise what many view as society's cult-like worship of capitalism. The same exhibit had toured multiple other countries without incident, he said. The museum has refused to remove the artwork, but did hand a curtain over the entrance to the exhibit and posted a sign saying the art was not intended to offend. Tal said: "This is the maximum that we can do. "If we take the art down, the next day we'll have politicians demanding we take other things down and we'll end up only with colourful pictures of flowers in the museum." "We will be defending freedom of speech, freedom of art, and freedom of culture, and will not take it down. The unexpected outrage apparently has its roots in images shared on social media. The Finnish artist who created the artwork, Jani Leinonen, has also asked that it be taken down - but for a different reason. He would like it taken down as a protest against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, in order to join a number of other artists who have boycotted the country in recent years. Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to church leaders, said: "We need to understand that freedom of expression is interpreted in different ways in different societies. "If this work was directed against non-Christians, the world would be turned upside down." Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has been accused of censorship for pushing legislation mandating national "loyalty" in art, also called for the removal of the "disrespectful" artwork. We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours. | Geraden Cann | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8198893/mcjesus-sculpture-crucified-ronald-mcdonald-outrages-christians-israel/ | 2019-01-15 12:28:25+00:00 | 1,547,573,305 | 1,567,552,391 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
939,514 | thesun--2019-02-19--Sun reader has selfie on show next to Rembrandts work in museum after winning competition | 2019-02-19T00:00:00 | thesun | Sun reader has selfie on show next to Rembrandt’s work in museum after winning competition | Lucky Alexander Slack enjoyed a trip to Amsterdam courtesy of us — and had his selfie displayed at the Rijksmuseum SUN reader Alexander Slack certainly had a 53rd birthday to Rem-ember. The winner of our great Sun Rembrandt competition enjoyed a trip to Amsterdam courtesy of us — and had his selfie displayed next to the Old Master’s works. We asked readers to send in pics inspired by selfie king Rembrandt. And our judges, who included Sun royal photographer Arthur Edwards, loved Alexander’s cheeky entry. The former carer had posed with feathers in his hat and a ruff collar made from folded up Sun pages. On Friday, hundreds of selfie paintings and etchings by Rembrandt went on show in the Rijksmuseum to mark 350 years since his death — along with Alexander’s fun portrait. Thousands of tourists saw the modern image — plus a crew from BBC2’s Newsnight, which is expected to screen footage of it tonight. Stephen Smith, the show’s culture correspondent, said: “I can see why Alexander’s effort caught the eye of Arthur Edwards, the Rembrandt of royal photographers. “It has the streetwise swagger of the Old Master in his prime, his playfulness and utter lack of pomposity.” Alexander, from Penzance, Cornwall, said: “I can’t believe I am here with my picture next to one of the greatest artists ever. “Thank you so much to The Sun and to Rijksmuseum for giving me the experience of a lifetime.” | Vicky Lytaki | https://www.thesun.co.uk/competitions/8456776/sun-reader-has-selfie-on-show-next-to-rembrandts-work-in-museum-after-winning-competition/ | 2019-02-19 00:37:37+00:00 | 1,550,554,657 | 1,567,548,023 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
1,008,020 | thetelegraph--2019-06-01--Sothebys returns rare medieval sculpture to France as British museum curator discovers it was stole | 2019-06-01T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Sotheby's returns rare medieval sculpture to France as British museum curator discovers it was stolen | Sotheby’s has quietly returned an important 1450s sculpture to France after discovering that it should never have sold it in 1998 because it was stolen from a church in 1969. The depiction of Saint Michael slaying the dragon – carved in alabaster by medieval English craftsmen - will be reunited with its original altarpiece in Notre-Dame-du-Tertre, in Châtelaudren, Côtes d'Armor, in Brittany. After its theft, it had somehow made its way to London, where Sotheby’s sold it to a private British collector. Its return to France has been made possible by the eagle eye of Dr Lloyd de Beer, a curator of Late Medieval European Collections at the British Museum. He told the Sunday Telegraph that he had done a double-take in coming across an old photograph of it. While doing some research in Normandy, in the archives of the Museum of Antiquities in Rouen, he opened a Châtelaudren file and found documents headed “Altarpiece for the Life of Christ and the Virgin” and an image of the St Michael sculpture marked “stolen in 1969”. He immediately thought: “Gosh, that’s interesting, I’ve seen that before.” He had seen it in an anonymous private collection in England. He contacted the owner, telling them: “I think that something you own was stolen many years ago from a French church.” He added: “Something that the owner thought had come legitimately to them had this sad history. They wanted to do the right thing and return it. They’d bought it at auction from Sotheby’s, so they returned it to them, saying, ‘it’s up to you to organise its return because you had ultimately sold something that had come up nefariously in the past’.” The church dates from the 14th and 15th centuries and boasts a remarkable panelled vault composed of 138 panels representing the Old and the New Testaments, dating from the 15th century. It is a listed historical monument. The St Michael sculpture, which measures 40 by 20 cm, was one of seven panels created in Midlands workshops for the altarpiece. Whether it was commissioned or purchased by the church is unclear. Dr De Beer said: “These are rare sculptures because, in England, most were smashed at the Reformation. Most of the ones that survive in England were broken into little pieces or had their heads knocked off. This one’s survived in excellent condition with its painting and gilding.” He added that English alabaster sculptures were, in many ways, the greatest export industry of England in the Middle Ages, sold by merchants from about the 1380s onwards: “You had all these workshops in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire… These sculptures [were] very desirable on the Continent. They were going to Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, Italy… But the greatest concentration is in Northern France... “At the English Reformation, lots of altarpieces that were in English churches were taken abroad to be sold. It’s really hard to know if the objects that are in churches on the Continent were pre-Reformation commissions or whether they were sold on. There is a 16th-century document in Rouen that says that a church in Normandy bought an altarpiece from a church in England.” The St Michael sculpture was sold by Sotheby’s London for almost £6,000. Its value today is likely to exceed £10,000. Sotheby’s reimbursed its buyer and organised the sculpture’s return through the French Ministry of Culture. It is now in Paris, waiting to be transferred to Châtelaudren. All seven of the altarpiece’s sculptures were stolen in 1969. Apart from St Michael, three others - depictions of St Christopher, the Resurrection and the Coronation of the Virgin - have all been recovered. One of them was traced to a Dutch antiques dealer, and two others to Belgium. Theft is a problem faced by churches on both sides of the Channel. Christine Jablonski, a curator of historical monuments in France, said: “It’s so painful when an object is stolen - for everybody because it’s a loss for the heritage. We’re really excited that this object is coming back. We’re really grateful to Lloyd de Beer for spotting it. We know that a stolen object can appear somewhere, but it’s always a surprise.” She added that the recovered sculptures will be returned to the chapel: “An architect is going to be in charge of the new presentation…, probably in a secured showcase.” A Sotheby’s spokeswoman said: “We are pleased to have been able to assist in facilitating a resolution satisfactory to those involved.” | Dalya Alberge | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/01/sothebys-returns-rare-medieval-sculpture-france-british-museum/ | 2019-06-01 16:00:00+00:00 | 1,559,419,200 | 1,567,539,438 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
1,020,789 | thetelegraph--2019-11-22--Returning museum objects to former colonies risks 'denying Britain's history' | 2019-11-22T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Returning museum objects to former colonies risks 'denying Britain's history' | The move follows an announcement by Manchester Museum that it is to restore 12 Aboriginal objects taken from Australia more than 100 years ago, including sacred ceremonial artefacts and a garment made with emu feathers. Visiting the museum last week Mangubadijarri Yanner, an indigenous leader, said the treasures had been "taken without our permission" by early 20th Century British colonialists. "The repatriation of our sacred cultural heritage items is a fundamental part of the healing and reconciliation process," Mr Yanner said. Stephen Welsh, curator of Living Cultures at Manchester Museum, described the collection as "a product of empire", originally built on "racial hierarchies, cultural hierarchies, social Darwinism". In his new book Who Owns History, the barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC accuses the British Museum of having “become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property,”, much of which is not even on display, and calls on it to return key artefacts, such as the Elgin Marbles. But Ms Jenkins said that many demands for the return of objects come not from their original countries but from western campaigners. "You need to ask who is doing the claiming and how many claims are actually made,” she said. She added: "This idea of [artefacts] belonging to one culture is quite narrow. The Parthenon in Greece was once a temple, then a mosque. Culture is not ‘fixed’.” Ms Jenkins cites the Benin Bronzes, which though arguably stolen by the British when they invaded present day Nigeria, where themselves crafted as a result of the existing slave trade. Writing in the BBC’s History Magazine earlier this year she said: “It is not possible to repair that past. The best way to respect the lives of the people who came before us is to research and understand history without such an agenda. “We should aim to live in a world where artefacts from other times and places are shared. We should aim to unlock the past, not overturn it. That is what museums are for, and what they do best. That is why they should keep their treasures.” Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, said museums should not “automatically bow to calls to return artworks plundered by 19th century colonisers” He said: “To decolonise is to decontextualise: the history of empire is embedded in its meaning and collections, and the question is how that is interpreted.” The former Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent added: “There remains something essentially valuable about the ability of museums to position objects beyond particular cultural or ethnic identities.” The British Museum said: "We believe the strength of the collection is its breadth and depth which allows millions of visitors an understanding of the cultures of the world and how they interconnect– whether through trade, migration, conquest, or peaceful exchange." Manchester Museum has received four repatriation requests during the last 10 years, including one for a skull from Hawaii which an indigenous group asked to be returned in 2010. This will remain at the museum until a clearer provenance can be determined. Several European countries, including France and Germany, have said they are committed to handing back objects, with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opening talks with Sri Lanka and Indonesia and describing Holland’s’ failure to return stolen artefacts as a “disgrace”. Edinburgh University defended the restitution of the skulls to the Vedda tribespeople. Professor Tom Gillingwater, Chair of Anatomy at the University, said: “We are pleased to be able to return these culturally-important artefacts to help ensure the Vedda’s legacy endures for generations to come.” | Patrick Sawer | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/22/returning-museum-objects-former-colonies-risks-denying-britains/ | Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:30:00 GMT | 1,574,461,800 | 1,574,470,340 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
1,028,991 | thetorontostar--2019-09-11--Greece British Museum damp insults Parthenon Sculptures | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | Greece: British Museum “damp” insults Parthenon Sculptures | ATHENS, Greece - Greece’s Culture Minister says alleged damp in a section of the British Museum housing the Parthenon Sculptures is an “insult” to the 2,500-year-old works for whose return Greece has pressed long and unsuccessfully. Lina Mendoni’s comments Wednesday followed publication in Greek media of photos ostensibly showing damp and mould stains on the hall’s ceiling, which suffered a minor leak during a rainstorm last year. She said the “picture of neglect” at the London museum “strengthens Greece’s just demand” for the sculptures’ return, which the two-month-old conservative government in Athens has revived, seeking a loan of the works in 2021. Greece says the marbles were illegally removed from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis during the Ottoman Turkish occupation of Greece in the early 1800s. The British Museum rejects that. Get more of the Star in your inbox Never miss the latest news from the Star. Sign up for our newsletters to get today's top stories, your favourite columnists and lots more in your inbox Sign Up Now | The Associated Press | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/europe/2019/09/11/greece-british-museum-damp-insults-parthenon-sculptures.html | 2019-09-11 16:03:53+00:00 | 1,568,232,233 | 1,569,330,473 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
1,029,189 | thetorontostar--2019-09-26--Illinois State Museum returning artifacts to Australia | 2019-09-26T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | Illinois State Museum returning artifacts to Australia | SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois State Museum in Springfield has agreed to return 42 culturally significant objects to Australia. The gesture comes nearly a century after they were brought to the United States. The museum says in a news release that it’s the first institution in the world to repatriate artifacts as part of the Australian government’s Return of Cultural Heritage Project. It’s an attempt to bring back indigenous materials taken from the country. Boomerangs, necklaces, shields, spears and other items that will be returned were collected in Australia between 1929 and 1931 by University of Chicago linguistic anthropologist Gerhardt Laves. They were transferred by the university to the state museum in 1942 for incorporation into its rotating exhibit series on international cultures. They haven’t been exhibited by the museum since 1981. Get more of the Star in your inbox Never miss the latest news from the Star. Sign up for our newsletters to get today's top stories, your favourite columnists and lots more in your inbox Sign Up Now | The Associated Press | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/09/25/illinois-state-museum-returning-artifacts-to-australia.html | 2019-09-26 02:53:30+00:00 | 1,569,480,810 | 1,570,222,192 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
1,069,386 | urbanintellectuals--2019-08-02--4 Reasons to Visit the Smithsonian African American Museum in Washington DC | 2019-08-02T00:00:00 | urbanintellectuals | 4 Reasons to Visit the Smithsonian African American Museum in Washington D.C. | The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) was opened on September 24, 2016. It is one of several Smithsonian museums, though what makes this museum so unique is that it is exclusively dedicated to African American history, artifacts, culture, art, treasure, knowledge, and more. Various reasons make people visit museums, but what makes NMAAHC stand out from the field? The following are some of the most compelling reasons to visit the Smithsonian African American museum in Washington D.C.: The museum is located on a beautiful five-acre stretch of land in the heart of Washington, D.C. There are various elements attributed to the south used in the creation of the exterior, such as the native trees, a pool, and a fountain at the south entry. Its location, including its close proximity to the National Museum of American History, the 14th Street corridor, and Constitution Avenue and many of the Smithsonian museums. The building itself encompasses black history and show cases African American legacy and tremendous contribution to global society. The museum’s design demonstrates and pays homage to past black craftsmen because the Yoruba design has been used in the design of the museum. Metal screens called Corona have been used on its exterior. The ironwork also showcases the intricate design from the freedmen and enslaved whose great skills stand the test of time. People visit museums to obtain information. NMAAHC is full of information on the rich culture of African Americans and their African ancestors, their history, triumphs, struggles, sacrifices, and much more. The scope spans from the pre-enslavement era, the period of enslavement, the civil rights movements, and the progress of African Americans to present. NMAAHC in Washington D.C. has more than 45,000 objects available that offers an abundance of information and context to visitors. For students, great inspiration from African American giants in various realms will improve their perspective and motivate them in their endeavors. For example, they can learn about great personalities like Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and Maya Angelou some who reigned in athletics and about others who left a mark in fields like literature, music, and dance. Historical events will help students understand themselves, their country and culture. They will see the struggles that their ancestors had in fighting for their rights that are now being enjoyed. The vibrant displays of our national historical moments, cover ground and information that was unfortunately never taught in schools, will benefit students who will relish their past, and will influence their future endeavors. There are several exhibits and items in the museum that present opportunities for future research that interested students can embark on. The interactive exhibitions and detailed information will provide answers to any researcher, historian or a curious onlooker. The rich African American history, well-documented in writing and conveyed through many artifacts and items in museums and through African American contributions to the present national development, underscore the reasons why you should visit the Smithsonian National Museum of History and Culture in Washington D.C. The great learning opportunities, interesting facts, and objects lead to the need for repeated visits to savor the richness of the Blacks’ culture, potential, treasure, knowledge and more. | Verlie S | https://urbanintellectuals.com/4-reasons-visit-smithsonian-african-american-museum-washington-d-c/ | 2019-08-02 11:00:32+00:00 | 1,564,758,032 | 1,567,535,050 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
175,860 | eveningstandard--2019-05-30--Best London exhibitions in June 2019 Art galleries museums and culture in the capital | 2019-05-30T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Best London exhibitions in June 2019: Art galleries, museums and culture in the capital | The arrival of summer comes hand in hand with a bumper line-up of exciting exhibitions in the capital. June is a big month for female artists, with a number of London’s top institutions hosting retrospectives on creatives from the UK, Russia and further afield. Elsewhere, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is back for another year with some notable names on the agenda. Ready to hit the galleries? These are the exhibitions to look out for this June. A new exhibition at Serpentine Gallery will celebrate the prolific career of Faith Ringgold, who has challenged perceptions of African American identity and gender inequality for more than half a century. The show will include paintings, story quilts and political posters made during the Black Power movement — including one made to free activist Angela Davis from prison. It’s double the trouble over at the Gagosian Gallery this June, as the space will host an exhibition on the two-figure paintings of Francis Bacon. The show will focus on the figurative painter’s interest in relationships, both physically and psychologically, through a selection on his works. This storytelling element will make up a key theme of the show, with two pieces forming the centre of it — Two Figures (1953) and Two Figures in the Grass (1954). The artworks have not been seen publicly together since a major retrospective on Bacon’s career, at the Grand Palais in 1971. Three trailblazing female artists, whose work aims to rethink traditional genres, will be celebrated in an exhibition at Victoria Miro. Works from María Berrio, Caroline Walker, and Flora Yukhnovich will make up the show, which is in collaboration with the Instagram account The Great Women Artists. Themes of migration, the workplace and the gendered language of paintings will be explored through collage-based works, large-scale paintings and more. Natalia Goncharova was a force to be reckoned with — not only was she the founder of the Russian avant-garde movement but she was also a costume designer and theatre set creator. Tate Modern will host the UK’s first ever retrospective on the revolutionary artist, exploring her innovative collection of work, from her bold body art and religious paintings to her experimental book designs. It will also look to where she found inspiration, from textiles to Russian folklore and beyond. This year the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition celebrates its 251st birthday and, as with every year, there are some exciting names to look out for. British painter Jock McFadyen has coordinated the prestigious show for 2019, with 1200 works on display, picked out from 16,000 entries. High profile artists on the bill include Tracey Emin, Phyllida Barlow, Jeremy Deller and Frank Bowling — whose piece Ella and Her Mum Zoe’s Visit will be on show. Whitechapel Gallery has not one but two exciting exhibitions launching this June. The first, kicking off at the beginning of the month, is on American-Iraqi artist Michael Rakowitz — also known as the man behind Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. Rakowitz takes inspiration from historic buildings and artefacts to create new, invigorating environments. This show is his first major exhibition at a European gallery and will explore themes of loss, history and ritual. Further ahead, the venue will host an exhibition on Helen Cammock, who is shortlisted for this year's Turner Prize . The London-based creative makes pieces across a wide range of mediums, including image, photography, writing, poetry, spoken word, song, performance, printmaking and installation. The exhibition will showcase testimonies on survival and resilience from activists, migrants and refugees. The Southbank Centre's new exhibition will shine a light on gender fluidity, as well as non-binary, trans and intersex identities in a new group exhibition. More than 100 artworks from 30 international artists will examine gender expression, including installations, video, paintings, sculptures and wall drawings. Visual activist Ajamu and performance artist Martine Gutierrez will be among the names to feature. Identity and immigration in modern Britain will be the subject of Somerset House’s latest exhibition. Set to showcase the work of ten photographers who were born or based in Britain, with family origins abroad, the show will capture their experience of what it’s like to live as an immigrant (or as a descendant of immigrants) in the UK. Both stills and moving images will make up the show, which has been co-curated by writer Ekow Eshun and creative director Darrell Vydelingum. Dulwich Picture Gallery is taking visitors back in time this summer, to the short-lived but impactful period of British printmaking in the 1930s. The exhibition will feature works by artists from the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, an institution that was renowned for producing prints that reflected everyday modern life. Vibrant prints depicting London in the inter-war years will form the basis of this new show. Cindy Sherman constantly reinvents herself through her art, and a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will pay homage to the American photographer’s chameleon-like work. More than 150 photographs by the contemporary artist will go on show, alongside new work that's not been seen before. Among the exhibits will be her Untitled Film Stills series from 1977-80, which reimagines her as stereotypical female film characters from the golden age of Hollywood. | Lizzie Thomson | https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/london-exhibitions-best-art-galleries-museums-history-culture-paintings-this-month-a4053176.html | 2019-05-30 15:15:00+00:00 | 1,559,243,700 | 1,567,539,679 | arts, culture, entertainment and media | culture |
375,669 | newyorkpost--2019-05-05--Sandbags deployed along Lake Ontario to prepare for flooding | 2019-05-05T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | Sandbags deployed along Lake Ontario to prepare for flooding | OSWEGO, N.Y. — New York state says it has deployed more than 800,000 sandbags, hundreds of pumps and 920 feet (280 meters) of temporary dams in eight counties along Lake Ontario in preparation for potential flooding. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that officials are concerned that more rain, or high winds, could cause damage. The Democrat spoke in Oswego after viewing the nearby lakefront from a state police boat. Emergency management officials said Wednesday that the worst of the flooding from heavy rain and snow melt was predicted to begin within a week. Cuomo says high winds are expected next weekend and could whip up waves and damage. Rising waters caused extensive damage along the lake in 2017. The flooding cost New York state $100 million in recovery funding. | Associated Press | https://nypost.com/2019/05/05/sandbags-deployed-along-lake-ontario-to-prepare-for-flooding/ | 2019-05-05 21:57:26+00:00 | 1,557,107,846 | 1,567,541,135 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
386,284 | npr--2019-07-25--Small Towns Fear They Are Unprepared For Future Climate-Driven Flooding | 2019-07-25T00:00:00 | npr | Small Towns Fear They Are Unprepared For Future Climate-Driven Flooding | Small Towns Fear They Are Unprepared For Future Climate-Driven Flooding It technically began last fall when Hurricane Florence swelled the Ohio River, but really it was all the unnamed storms that came after her — one after another after another, bringing rain on rain on rain across the central U.S. until the Mississippi River hit flood stage this winter. Much of the Mississippi, and the massive tributaries that feed it, stayed flooded until June. That meant more than 140 days of cascading disasters for hundreds of small towns from Minnesota to Louisiana, and catastrophic damage to ranch and farm communities that dot the Mississippi's swollen branches. It was the most prolonged, widespread flood fight in U.S. history. The entire Mississippi River basin — an area that drains about 40 percent of the continental United States — was at flood stage this spring for the first time in recorded history, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For those who were elected to lead their communities through hard times it was, frankly, exhausting. Now, as the water recedes for the first time in months, a group of mayors from small and midsize towns along the Mississippi River are calling for more federal support to upgrade infrastructure and help move residents out of harm's way. A bipartisan House bill put forward this week by representatives from Minnesota and Illinois would set aside more federal money for low-interest loans that could be used protect against future floods. Many leaders of riverfront towns support the proposal because while the flood defenses in major cities largely performed well in this spring's deluge, many smaller communities were overwhelmed. Downtown Davenport, Iowa, was underwater this spring after a temporary sand-filled flood barrier broke, and neighborhoods in Greenville, Miss.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Pike County, Mo.; Fort Smith, Ark.; and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota were inundated. Up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries, residents and local emergency responders spent weeks filling sandbags as a last-ditch effort to protect lives and property. That has local emergency planners concerned about the future. Climate scientists warn that as the Earth gets hotter, more rain is falling in shorter periods of time across the Mississippi River basin. The 12-month period that ended in May was the wettest ever recorded in the United States. In the future, more extreme precipitation will likely mean higher rivers for longer periods. In an April opinion piece published by USA Today, the mayors of Davenport, Minneapolis and Baton Rouge argued that the location and design of current infrastructure offers insufficient protection against the effects of a warming Earth. "Our broken river infrastructure is no match for what scientists predict is the new normal," they wrote. "We should not have to depend on sandbags. Not in America." In Greenville, the Mississippi River dropped below flood stage this week for the first time since February. The city's mayor, Errick Simmons, was part of a group of mayors who traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to ask the federal government for a revolving loan fund to help communities prepare for future floods "We have had the longest record period of flooding ever – over 141 days," Simmons says. In some places, the water came under levees that were inadequate to hold the river back for so many months on end. "That long-standing water has resulted in major damage," he says, including dozens of collapsed streets, about 100 buildings damaged or destroyed by water and thousands of residents affected by sewer pump failures. Poorer residents are affected most seriously by the flooding and sewer failures. About 35 percent of Greenville's residents live in poverty, according to the most recent U.S. Census data. "It's really strained poor folks," Simmons says. "When it rains, it pours on our disadvantaged and poor communities. When we have these sewer failures in their neighborhoods, because of standing water they can't flush their commodes. And it's a quality of life issue." Simmons says the city has spent weeks struggling to fix the problem because the water level underground is so high that when crews dig down to repair sewage pumps, for example, they hit water, in some cases just a couple feet below the surface. This year's flooding might be the most prolonged, but it's just the latest in a string of floods that have exacerbated existing infrastructure problems in Greenville. The city also dealt with damaging water in 2011 and 2016. Mayor Simmons says he'd like to make Greenville more resilient to the floods he knows are coming, by upgrading the sewage and road infrastructure and by helping people who are currently living in low-lying areas — especially those who feel they can't afford flood insurance — move to higher ground. These are exactly the types of policy interventions that the federal government recommends for cities dealing with the effects of climate change. But Simmons says the city can't afford it on its own, and the current federal grants that are available aren't enough. "The only way you can do something about this aging infrastructure is if you get federal help," he says. Otherwise, "the only tools we have [are] to increase property taxes on people who are already impoverished, or have a regressive tax like [raising] sewer rates to fix the aging infrastructure." The underlying issue, flood experts say, is that so many Americans live in harm's way. Millions of Americans currently live in flood-prone areas, either by necessity, preference, policy or a combination of all three, and climate change is exacerbating their risk. "Stronger floodplain regulations are critical," says Laura Lightbody, the head of the flood-prepared communities initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts. "More things, assets and people in harm's way means greater impact, costs and lives lost." Many local and state governments continue to allow, and even encourage, development in flood-prone areas despite that growing flood risk. In an opinion piece published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, river engineer Desiree Tullos wrote that there are currently "perverse incentives for occupation of flood-prone areas along with a widespread lack of awareness of the associated risks." Along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, some places are more heavily populated than others. Flood insurance data offers one rough indication of where residents are concentrated in flood-prone areas, in part because those who reside in the floodplain and have a mortgage are required to buy insurance. An analysis by Pew of recent flood insurance policy data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency showed that the highest rate of flood insurance contracts are in counties around the mouth of the Mississippi. Don't see the graphic above? Click here. Many of the most densely populated flood-prone areas are in southeast Louisiana, including New Orleans. But while New Orleans residents are somewhat protected by billions of dollars of levees and other infrastructure, many smaller communities are not. In Ascension Parish, La., which is located along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, the local government warns that the entire area is susceptible to flooding. Nonetheless, the population in the county has steadily grown over the past two decades even as flooding has gotten more severe. The area was badly damaged by flooding in 2016, and it was threatened again this year. Curtailing development in flood-prone areas has helped other communities mitigate the damage from high water. Tulsa, Okla., for example, has implemented stringent rules about where and how homes and buildings are constructed, as Joe Wertz of Oklahoma Public Radio has reported. Parts of the city flooded this year as the Arkansas River rose, but years of restrictions on building in the floodplain likely prevented more damage. After a series of floods in Iowa, local officials worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to move levees farther from the river, making more room for the water and effectively limiting development in the most flood-prone areas. In Illinois, the state and federal governments have spent millions of dollars moving people out of flood-prone areas since the Great Flood of 1993. But even in places lauded for their relatively strong flood-control policies, local leaders are worried that they are still under-equipped to handle the kinds of prolonged, record-breaking floods that battered them this year and are more likely in the future. "Since 1993, we've moved residents out of the floodplain and other repetitive-loss areas," Rick Eberlin, the mayor of Grafton, Ill., said during a call with reporters this week. But his riverfront town north of St. Louis is still susceptible to damaging floods. Roads were underwater this spring when the Mississippi rose to its second-highest crest ever. Eberlin is among the local leaders calling on the federal government to make more money available for smaller towns like his to pursue flood mitigation projects, specifically the types of infrastructure upgrades that make room for the river and further disincentivize development in the most flood-prone areas. That includes restoring wetlands and moving levees back from the river's edge. "We are a smaller city," Eberlin says. "We're asking for a helping hand." | Rebecca Hersher | https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/744203716/small-towns-fear-they-are-unprepared-for-future-climate-driven-flooding?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-07-25 14:07:31+00:00 | 1,564,078,051 | 1,567,535,871 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
568,175 | tass--2019-07-29--Emergencies Ministry prepares for second flood wave in Russias Far East | 2019-07-29T00:00:00 | tass | Emergencies Ministry prepares for second flood wave in Russia’s Far East | "The Russian Emergencies Ministry is preparing for a second wave of floods in the Far East. A group is being built up for preventive purposes, and the deployment of forces and means for elimination of possible effects is being checked. To prevent inundations, hydrotechnical facilities are being reinforced, and water-filled dams in places that are most prone to floods are being mounted," the ministry said. MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. The Russian Emergencies Ministry is building up a group in the Far Eastern regions where a water rise is forecasted due to precipitations, the ministry’s press service told TASS on Monday. The Emergencies Ministry said that heavy rains are expected in the Sakha, Buryatia, Trans-Baikal, Primorsky, Khabarovsk, Amur and Sakhalin Regions and the Jewish and Chukotka Autonomous Regions, as well as on the Kuril Islands; the weather will be the worst on July 30-31. "Based on the situation development model as a result of the integrated effect of cyclones, water rise in rivers and the flood wave travel, they will have the highest influence on the southern areas of the Amur Region and the Jewish Autonomous Region and the southern and central parts of the Khabarovsk Region. Considering this, the water level in the town of Blagoveshchensk may reach 6.5 meters with inundation of communities downstream," the Emergencies Ministry added. The flood crest will hit Komsomolsk-on-Amur on August 10. In light of this, the Emergencies Ministry promised to mount water-filled dams there by August 6. Such dams were also transported to the Khabarovsk Region. | null | https://tass.com/society/1070865 | 2019-07-29 12:43:26+00:00 | 1,564,418,606 | 1,567,535,435 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
1,011,711 | thetelegraph--2019-07-29--Prepare your homes for flooding warns the Met Office as sandbags are handed out ahead of midweek do | 2019-07-29T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Prepare your homes for flooding, warns the Met Office as sandbags are handed out ahead of midweek downpour | Prepare your homes for flooding, the Met Office has warned as sandbags were handed out ahead of the expected midweek downpour. Severe weather warnings with the potential for homes and businesses to be “flooded quickly” have been issued for the next two days by the Met Office. Forecasters have said that a second band of low pressure will hit the country on Tuesday with half a months rainfall predicted in just a few hours in parts of the South West and Wales. The Met Office said the warnings meant “that homes and businesses could be flooded quickly, with damage to some buildings from floodwater, lightning strikes, hail or strong winds.” They added that the floodwater could be “fast flowing or deep” with a substantial risk of lightning strikes, hail and strong winds. Yesterday, Fire Services worked alongside the Environment Agency in Manchester to hand out sandbags after flooding on Sunday night as further bad weather is predicted over the coming days. Yellow severe weather warnings for thunderstorms were issued for parts of England and Wales today as well as for parts of England, Scotland and Wales tomorrow. | Jessica Carpani | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/29/prepare-homes-flooding-warns-met-office-sandbags-handed-ahead/ | 2019-07-29 17:44:24+00:00 | 1,564,436,664 | 1,567,535,448 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
1,013,222 | thetelegraph--2019-08-15--Homeowners told to prepare for flooding as England could see a months worth of rain in one day | 2019-08-15T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Homeowners told to prepare for flooding as England could see a month's worth of rain in one day | Homeowners have been told to prepare for flooding as some parts of the UK could be hit with almost a month’s worth of rain tomorrow. The Met Office issued weather warnings across the west of the country as they predicted as much as 60mm of rain could fall across Dartmoor, in Devon. The average rainfall for August in England is 69.3mm, meaning almost an entire month’s worth of rain could hit the area in just 24 hours. Yellow weather warnings are in place across much of the west, including Wales where 80mm of rain is expected to fall in parts. The Met Office has warned that transport could be affected and flooding of a few homes and businesses is possible. The heaviest rainfall may coincide with peak travel times during Friday afternoon and early evening, causing difficult driving conditions, it said. The forecasted bad weather follows last week’s unseasonably windy spell, which saw gusts of up to 60mph in the south east. Helen Roberts, a Met Office meteorologist said: “There is some pretty wet and quite windy weather on the way for Friday, a deep area of low pressure pushing from the Atlantic that is going to bring a spell of rain for all. | Lizzie Roberts | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/15/homeowners-told-prepare-flooding-england-could-see-months-worth/ | 2019-08-15 20:53:27+00:00 | 1,565,916,807 | 1,567,534,143 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
188,844 | eveningstandard--2019-11-11--Yorkshire floods: RAF helicopter brought in to bolster defences as area braces itself for more rain | 2019-11-11T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Yorkshire floods: RAF helicopter brought in to bolster defences as area braces itself for more rain | A military helicopter has been working through the night to bolster defences in flood-hit South Yorkshire as the area braces itself for more rain. The RAF Chinook began ferrying bags of aggregate on to flood banks in the Bentley area of Doncaster on Sunday evening - close to an area of housing which was inundated by floodwater on Friday. The military intervention came at the request of the Environment Agency, which said on Twitter: "We've asked for military support to move aggregate to the #BentleyIngs area. "The aggregate is being used to add further strength to a #flood defence in the area." The air drops in the Doncaster area came as the Met Office issued fresh weather warnings for heavy rain in South Yorkshire and as people who stayed in a flooded village cut off by river water were urged to leave by the council. Around half the 700 residents of Fishlake, near Doncaster, left the village as the River Don burst its banks last week. Those who stayed behind have been helping themselves amid the waist-high floods, with the local cafe and pub supplying food to those trapped inside their homes. But on Sunday - as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "in awe" of the resilience of flood-hit communities - Doncaster Council said it will not be providing "on the ground support" in Fishlake as the advice remains for residents to evacuate. Chief executive Damian Allen said: "We are concerned over reports that some residents remain in the Fishlake area. "South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue crews are on hand to evacuate any Fishlake residents who may be stuck in their homes, and we would urge everybody to take advantage of this. "The council are unable to offer on-the-ground support to residents who are in severe flood warning areas, based on advice from the Environment Agency." Mr Allen said a rest centre had been set up in nearby Stainforth, and the latest advice is that the Environment Agency does not expect flood waters in Fishlake to start to go down for at least the next 24 hours. The council's statement came after villagers complained about a lack of support from the local authority. The dispute in Fishlake heightened as the Met Office said on Sunday that more rain is expected to hit the UK overnight. It has issued yellow weather warnings for heavy rain on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. All cover the South Yorkshire area and the crucial catchment area of the River Don, which remains high along its length. The warnings cover the same areas that are still dealing with the aftermath from Thursday and Friday's downpours stretching from Yorkshire to Derbyshire and the East Midlands. Several areas were deluged with one month's worth of rain in a day, and a woman died after being swept up in floodwaters. The body of Annie Hall, the former High Sheriff of Derbyshire, was found in the River Derwent on Friday morning after she was engulfed by floodwater in Darley Dale, near Matlock. Mr Johnson visited Matlock on Friday while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn met flooded residents in Conisborough, South Yorkshire, on Saturday. On Sunday evening the number of "danger to life" severe flood warnings was reduced from seven to five. All are along the River Don in Yorkshire. There were also 43 active flood warnings and 103 flood alerts. | Jason Collie | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/yorkshire-floods-raf-helicopter-brought-in-to-bolster-defences-as-area-braces-itself-for-more-rain-a4283536.html | Mon, 11 Nov 2019 04:41:00 GMT | 1,573,465,260 | 1,573,475,414 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
1,020,010 | thetelegraph--2019-11-15--UK weather: Ten thousand homes planned for high-risk flood plains, analysis reveals | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | UK weather: Ten thousand homes planned for high-risk flood plains, analysis reveals | Close to 10,000 new homes are set to be built on high-risk flood plains across England, according to analysis by Greenpeace UK. As the rain continues to batter northern parts of the country, the conservation group released its Unearthed investigation. By cross-referencing house-building plans in 10 flood-prone local authorities - including Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the Midlands - with the Environment Agency’s (EA) flood risk map, Greenpeace identified proposals to build 9,688 homes in high-risk areas. • Across Lincolnshire, which currently has five flood warnings in place, 5,227 homes are planned in high-risk flood zones. • In Sheffield and Doncaster, the two areas hit the hardest by recent flooding in England, hundreds of new-builds are planned in high-risk zones. In addition, 5,123 homes are planned for medium-risk areas, including a "new town" just over one mile from Fishlake, which has seen heavy flooding this week. • Figures obtained from the EA show that in 2017-18 in almost half the cases where the agency objected to a planning application from a local authority, the EA did not know whether its advice was followed. But a source at the Environment Agency told The Telegraph that it was local planning authorities who are responsible and accountable for approving proposals for new development in their local areas. | Gareth Davies | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/15/uk-weather-ten-thousand-homes-planned-high-risk-flood-plains/ | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 12:44:36 GMT | 1,573,839,876 | 1,573,864,827 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
1,011,875 | thetelegraph--2019-07-30--UK weather Prepare your homes for flooding warns Met Office as sandbags handed out | 2019-07-30T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | UK weather: Prepare your homes for flooding, warns Met Office as sandbags handed out | Prepare your homes for flooding, the Met Office has warned as sandbags were handed out ahead of the expected midweek downpour. Severe weather warnings with the potential for homes and businesses to be “flooded quickly” have been issued for the next two days by the Met Office. Forecasters have said that a second band of low pressure will hit the country on Tuesday with half a month's rainfall predicted in just a few hours in parts of the South West and Wales. The Met Office said on Monday the warnings meant “that homes and businesses could be flooded quickly, with damage to some buildings from floodwater, lightning strikes, hail or strong winds.” They added that the floodwater could be “fast flowing or deep” with a substantial risk of lightning strikes, hail and strong winds. On Monday, Fire Services worked alongside the Environment Agency in Manchester to hand out sandbags after flooding on Sunday night as further bad weather is predicted over the coming days. Yellow severe weather warnings for thunderstorms were issued for parts of England and Wales on Tuesday as well as for parts of England, Scotland and Wales on Wednesday. | Jessica Carpani | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/29/prepare-homes-flooding-warns-met-office-sandbags-handed-ahead/ | 2019-07-30 05:46:30+00:00 | 1,564,479,990 | 1,567,535,339 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
688,390 | theguardianuk--2019-02-03--More than half of care homes fail fire safety inspection | 2019-02-03T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | More than half of care homes fail fire safety inspection | The majority of care homes inspected in a major fire safety audit failed basic checks, it has emerged, triggering concerns that the lives of elderly people are being put at risk. Of the 177 homes inspected by the London Fire Brigade (LFB), 101 – 57% – were issued with a formal notification instructing them to address safety concerns. The brigade said it believed the findings would be repeated if similar inspections were carried out across the country. Dan Daly, LFB assistant commissioner, said: “Care home owners need to review their fire risk assessments urgently. If you were placing your loved one into the care of others, you would expect them to be safe but, for too many, the very roof they are under could put them at risk.” The brigade launched the review after a series of fires at old people’s homes. In February 2018 a resident in his 80s died and another was left in a critical condition after a fire at the Woodlands View care home in Stevenage. In 2017 two people died in a Cheshunt care home after a fire travelled through the roof, quickly engulfing the building. Just under half – 45% – of the homes inspected were found to have an unsuitable or insufficiently comprehensive fire risk assessment, a significant concern for the LFB. “To make a proper fire risk assessment you need to properly understand how fire can travel and develop, otherwise you’re just guessing your safety plan,” Daly said. “You wouldn’t let an underqualified surgeon operate on you, so why allow someone without the proper experience to undertake your fire risk assessment?” One in seven homes, or 14%, were found to have poor emergency planning or a potential lack of staff to implement the plan. A similar proportion of homes had problems with their protected escape corridors, while there were failures relating to fire doors at 29% of the homes inspected. One in 10 provided inadequate training for staff. The LFB said it feared that fire safety training for care home staff was becoming generic. Against the backdrop of the Grenfell tragedy, the findings make sobering reading, and the brigade has written to the care homes it inspected, alerting them of the need to conduct adequate risk assessments. “It is concerning that operators of care homes do not in all cases understand the need for their fire risk assessment to be carried out by an assessor that is competent and experienced in these fire safety complexities,” the LFB said in its letter, seen by the Observer. Debbie Ivanova, a deputy chief inspector at the Care Quality Commission, which monitors care providers, said it was the duty of the businesses running the homes to ensure that they had the right fire protection measures in place. “We know that good care home providers invest in proper and regular fire training for their staff, and ensure that emergency plans are kept up to date,” she said. “But as the LFB’s findings make clear, good fire safety isn’t the norm everywhere.” | Jamie Doward | https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/03/care-homes-fail-fire-safety-inspections-risk-to-elderly | 2019-02-03 09:00:07+00:00 | 1,549,202,407 | 1,567,549,782 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
785,561 | theirishtimes--2019-03-23--Dublin Fire Brigade orders fire safety review at Sandyford complex | 2019-03-23T00:00:00 | theirishtimes | Dublin Fire Brigade orders fire safety review at Sandyford complex | Dublin Fire Brigade has ordered the developer of a 632-unit boom-time apartment development to conduct a full fire-safety review after concerns were raised by an investigation undertaken at the scheme. Simonsridge in Sandyford, Co Dublin was built in 2006 by developer Shannon Homes. A preliminary investigation by management company KPM uncovered a range of potential fire safety issues, according to correspondence sent by the manager to residents at the development. The issues are understood to relate to fire safety features in common areas, as well as other structural and fire-stopping elements. The management company has also passed its findings to Dublin Fire Brigade, which confirmed it has asked Shannon Homes to undertake a full investigation at the scheme. Residents at Simonsridge, a major development which spans several sub-estates, have also been asked to volunteer as fire wardens in order to maintain an increased level of vigilance. Shannon Homes had not responded to a request for comment prior to publication. Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) confirmed it became aware of fire safety concerns at the development in late 2018. “DFB contacted the developer in January 2019 requesting a full fire safety report,” said the fire brigade. Residents were told about the latest developments in an email from KPM earlier this month. The email, which has been seen by The Irish Times, states that “investigations have been on-going to assess the presence of potential fire safety related issues in Simonsridge”. “Preliminary findings were presented to Dublin Fire Brigade, who in turn have directed Shannon Homes, the original developers of Simonsridge, to employ a fire safety specialist to investigate matters further and report back to Dublin Fire Brigade within two weeks.” A second email sent to residents by the management company shows they are being asked to volunteer as fire safety wardens. “In an effort to minimise risk and to increase awareness of fire safety among residents we are looking for at least one person per building who may be interested in becoming a fire warden for their building”. A spokesman for KPM said that the company would not comment on individual developments. However, he confirmed that the company recently met with Dublin Fire Brigade and following that meeting “we have taken the advice of DFB and written to residents in a number of developments in the Dublin region with regard to fire safety”. “In a number of cases, investigations into legislative compliance levels within residential buildings and adherence to original fire cert applications are ongoing. Our number one priority is the life safety of residents.” KPM has previously told The Irish Times that it identified fire safety issues in “almost all” of the 60 apartment blocks it surveyed after the Grenfell tower disaster. The company has called for reform of how apartment blocks are managed and the provision of a State-backed remediation fund. A recent investigatoin by The Irish Times uncovered legacy issues at four boom-era apartment developments in Dublin, prompting widespread calls for a new system to remedy defects. | null | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dublin-fire-brigade-orders-fire-safety-review-at-sandyford-complex-1.3835677 | 2019-03-23 01:59:37+00:00 | 1,553,320,777 | 1,567,545,120 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
785,721 | theirishtimes--2019-04-01--Fire safety work ongoing at 24 sites says Dublin Fire Brigade | 2019-04-01T00:00:00 | theirishtimes | Fire safety work ongoing at 24 sites, says Dublin Fire Brigade | Works are under way to remedy fire safety deficiencies at 24 apartment developments around Dublin city, according to Dublin Fire Brigade. The fire service said it is aware of two dozen instances where the deficiencies found in apartments are serious enough to require remediation, which can cost tens of thousands of euro and involve significant works. It would not share the names of the developments or their locations, but said it was working with management companies on the remediation programmes. The developments are spread around the city. “Where fire safety deficiencies are highlighted that require remedial works, Dublin Fire Brigade will work with the OMC [owners’ management companies] or management companies to ensure the deficiencies are rectified and works prioritised on a risk-severity basis,” DFB said in a statement. The figures only refer to remedial works currently under way, according to the fire service. The number of developments facing potential fire safety issues which have been identified but are not yet being remediated is likely to be significantly higher. Since 2012, the fire service has inspected 7,809 premises, including 890 apartments. Depending on the seriousness of what is found, issues can be addressed immediately, while other issues require the completion of fire-risk assessments or follow-up inspections. A smaller number require more substantial remediation works to varying degrees, it said. It has extensive powers under the fire safety Acts, including ordering the evacuation of a building, as it did at Priory Hall in 2011. A spokesman for the fire service said it would use its enforcement powers “when warranted. However, our main focus is on safety and we will work with OMCs to ensure that they carry out any remedial works required, to help them improve the fire safety in their building.” This comes after it emerged that property owners at Verdemont, in Blanchardstown, are facing bills of up to €50,000 each to remedy fire safety issues at the block. Documents seen by The Irish Times show apartment owners have consulted with accountancy firm BDO about potential financing solutions, including private equity firms and investment funds. Under one plan, an investment fund could purchase apartments from owners and complete the works required. According to a note sent to residents, management has also met with representatives of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who have brought their concerns to the attention of junior housing minister Damien English. | null | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/fire-safety-work-ongoing-at-24-sites-says-dublin-fire-brigade-1.3846183 | 2019-04-01 23:30:07+00:00 | 1,554,175,807 | 1,567,544,488 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
786,566 | theirishtimes--2019-04-24--Urgent fire safety risks found at care centre | 2019-04-24T00:00:00 | theirishtimes | ‘Urgent’ fire safety risks found at care centre | The State’s health watchdog found “urgent action” was required to address fire safety risks at a Roscommon care centre during an unannounced inspection in December. The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said governance and management systems at St Eithne’s Rest Care Centre in Tulsk required “review and significant improvement” to ensure the service provided was safe. The 10-bed residential centre accommodates members of the local community with low and medium dependency needs. The inspection was carried out to determine what progress had been achieved in addressing issues following a previous inspection in September. The September inspection found the centre needed to strengthen its governance and management structures; to take action to reduce and manage the risk of fire, and to limit its number of residents to a level that could be cared for safely. During the December inspection, Hiqa found the centre had not taken the necessary action to mitigate risks and had failed to improve regulatory compliance. Hiqa said some of the residents living in the centre had high dependency needs, which the centre was neither structured nor resourced to manage safely. This issue had been discussed with the centre in October, but it failed to take definitive corrective action. Inspectors were not assured there was sufficient staff with an appropriate skill-mix available to effectively meet the needs of residents. They also observed that residents were sitting in the sittingroom for most of the day unsupervised. They called for a complete staffing review to ensure that a safe standard of care was delivered. The centre said steps have since been taken to address the concerns outlined by Hiqa. The inspection report was one of 48 on residential centres for older people published by Hiqa on Wednesday. Elsewhere, Hiqa was critical of Corrandulla Nursing Home in Co Galway for a failure to supervise residents adequately. Inspectors said “poor practices” were observed at the centre, which housed 22 residents on the day of the inspection in January. “The inspector observed a resident receiving assistance with their meal,” Hiqa said. “The resident’s chair was in a tilted position. The chair was left tilted for the duration of the meal, which meant that the resident was looking up at the ceiling at all times. “The positioning of the chair also excluded the resident from taking part in any conversation had by the other residents sitting at the table. A full review on the dining experience for residents was required.” The centre informed Hiqa that it would seek to take on additional staff to address the concerns raised. Hiqa also identified HSE centres in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and Skibbereen, Co Cork, where staff had not been vetted by the Garda. Furthermore, significant fire safety risks were identified at Mount Carmel Community Hospital in Co Dublin. Of the 48 reports published, inspectors found evidence of good practice and compliance with the regulations and standards in 39 centres. In general, these centres were found to be meeting residents’ needs. In the nine centres found to be non-compliant, inspectors identified issues of concern in relation to residents’ rights, staffing, training and staff development, risk management, infection control, and medicines and pharmaceutical services. | null | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/urgent-fire-safety-risks-found-at-care-centre-1.3870367 | 2019-04-24 15:44:49+00:00 | 1,556,135,089 | 1,567,541,927 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
789,485 | theirishtimes--2019-10-01--Fire safety and governance issues identified by Hiqa in nursing homes | 2019-10-01T00:00:00 | theirishtimes | Fire safety and governance issues identified by Hiqa in nursing homes | Almost half of the nursing homes that were subject of the latest batch of inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) were found to be non-compliant with regulations. Of 29 inspection reports released by the health watchdog on Tuesday, 14 contain evidence of non-compliance with fire precautions, proper governance and other issues. At Hollybrook Lodge, a nursing home run by St James’s Hospital at St Michael’s Estate in Inchicore, Dublin, inspectors said it was not clear if sufficient resources were in place to meet residents’ recreational needs. “Inspectors were told that up to 90 per cent of the residents on site had dementia or a similar cognitive impairment, and many were observed throughout the day not engaged in any meaningful activity,” Hiqa said. It also found evidence of insufficient resources being provided to maintain the building, that some governance policies were out of date and that personnel and Garda vetting records were not maintained on site. Inspectors also identified gaps in staff training, and delays in addressing maintenance issues. Hiqa noted that staff routinely referred to residents as patients, and also raised other issues more akin to hospital practice than a nursing home environment. These included residents remaining in bed until noon, and residents being placed in the dining area up to 50 minutes before meals were served. The centre was non-compliant on fire regulations as 29 staff had not received training and some doors were found to be wedged open on the day of inspection. At the Powdermill nursing home in Ballincollig, Co Cork, inspectors found the provider was not taking adequate precautions against the risk of fire in relation to the storage of oxygen cylinders, the evacuation of residents with limited mobility and the standard of the fire detection and alarm system. The report was critical of evacuation arrangements for residents on the first floor in the event of a fire, and said improvement to fire checks were needed. With most residents eating their meals in their bedrooms, the report says their experience could be enhanced by providing more suitable seating arrangements. At Rivervale nursing home in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, inspectors found many rooms in the building, as well as equipment and furniture, were not clean and not in a good state of repair. They found staining on walls, dust and cobwebs on walls, ceilings and behind furniture, and armchairs with damaged upholstery. “This impacted upon the pleasant appearance of the centre, as well as affecting the ability of some surfaces and items to be cleaned effectively in line with good practice standards for the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections,” the inspection report noted. | null | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/fire-safety-and-governance-issues-identified-by-hiqa-in-nursing-homes-1.4036213 | 2019-10-01 11:41:11+00:00 | 1,569,944,471 | 1,570,221,852 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
939,479 | thesun--2019-02-19--New cars could soon have airbags on the OUTSIDE to reduce damage and injury in an accident | 2019-02-19T00:00:00 | thesun | New cars could soon have airbags on the OUTSIDE to reduce damage and injury in an accident | AIRBAGS could soon inflate on the outside of your car milliseconds before you're involved in a crash And the safety precaution could seriously improve your chances of surviving an accident. German auto supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG has spent the past 10 years working on an external airbag the deploys along the entire side of a vehicle. When the system senses a crash is about to occur, an airbag will activate and create a buffer between the other vehicle or object. Recent testing showed the airbag can absorb the majority of the force during a crash, which then allowed the in-car airbags to properly deploy. The airbags can fully inflate in less than 100 milliseconds and provide a buffer the width of a car's front bumper. And recent tests have shown the airbags can help reduce the severity of injuries in a car accident by up to 40 per cent. The company is currently in talks with auto manufacturers and expects to start installing the airbags in new models within the next two years. Dr Michael Michael Büchsner, Head of ZF’s Passive Safety Systems Division, said: "Occupant safety is paramount when developing new vehicles for automated and autonomous driving. "Our concept of the pre-crash external side airbag is a great example of how ZF wants to achieve its Vision Zero, a world without accidents and emissions. "ZF is in the early stages of the process to clarify potential hurdles and clear the path for market introduction of this technology." | James Gratton | https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/8461052/new-cars-could-soon-have-airbags-on-the-outside-to-reduce-damage-and-injury-in-an-accident/ | 2019-02-19 15:27:22+00:00 | 1,550,608,042 | 1,567,548,028 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
597,353 | thedailycaller--2019-01-10--Toyota Wants 17 Million Vehicles Back Because Airbags Are Potentially Deadly | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | Toyota Wants 1.7 Million Vehicles Back Because Airbags Are ‘Potentially Deadly’ | Japanese automaker Toyota wants 1.7 million vehicles in North America back because of “potentially deadly” Takata airbag inflators, reported The Associated Press Wednesday. It’s the next step in what has been one of the biggest automotive recalls in U.S. history, reported the AP. Japanese manufacturer Takata’s front passenger air bag inflators killed at least 23 people worldwide and injured hundreds more. The inflators can “explode with too much force and hurl shrapnel into drivers and passengers,” according to the AP. Toyota announced it will replace the inflators or entire air bags on 1.7 vehicles in North America, 1.3 million of which are in the U.S, reported Fortune. The problem with the air bag inflators traces back to their chemical element, reported the AP. Takata used ammonium nitrate to generate an explosion to inflate the air bags, but excessive humidity and temperature changes can cause the chemical to deteriorate. That’s why inflators in the South along the Gulf of Mexico pose the greatest risks, according to the AP. Toyota is reaching out to owners of the vehicles at risk in late January. Meanwhile, Ford and Honda are also recalling many vehicles with Takata inflators, bringing the tally to 10 million inflators slated to be replaced starting in January, according to the AP. This particular wave of recalls dates back to 2014. (RELATED: Report Warns Of Dire Consequences If Lawmakers Lift Electric Vehicle Tax Credits) Airbag inflator Takata had to see bankruptcy protection over the malfunctions, reported Fortune. Toyota also announced a recall of more than 1 million hybrid vehicles worldwide for defective wiring in September. There was also a worry President Donald Trump’s 25-percent tariff on imported auto and auto parts would raise vehicle prices in the U.S. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Evie Fordham | https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/09/toyota-airbag-recall/ | 2019-01-10 00:40:32+00:00 | 1,547,098,832 | 1,567,553,175 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
604,439 | thedailycaller--2019-06-28--Deadly Airbags Force Honda To Recall 16 Million Vehicles | 2019-06-28T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | Deadly Airbags Force Honda To Recall 1.6 Million Vehicles | Honda announced Friday it is recalling 1.6 million vehicles due to potentially deadly Takata airbag inflators. The move puts Honda six months ahead of schedule to finish its total recall of the 22.6 million problematic airbags in 12.9 million vehicles, The Associated Press reported. “Honda is announcing this recall to encourage each owner of an affected vehicle to schedule repair at an authorized dealer as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement. “Replacement parts are available, all from alternate suppliers, to begin free recall repairs immediately, and a free rental car is available to the vehicle owner for the day of the recall repair or longer if a replacement part is temporarily unavailable,” it added. The recall also affects Acura and Honda models from 2003 through 2015 that have already received replacement inflators manufactured by Takata in February 2017 or earlier and were scheduled for a second recall. Honda was forced to recall the cars equipped with Takata inflators because they have exploded with too much force and sent metal shrapnel into drivers, injuring hundreds and killing 24 people. About 70 million Takata inflators have been recalled in the cars of 19 automakers overall, necessitating the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to schedule their timing. For Honda, whose recalled vehicle total was one of the highest, repairs or replacements have been completed for 83% of the cars. (RELATED: Honda Recalls 772,000 Vehicles In The US Because Some Air Bags Eject Metal Shrapnel) Cars impacted include the following models from Honda: 2001-2012 Accord, 2010-2015 Crosstour, 2001-2011 Civic, 2002-2011 CR-V, 011-2015 CR-Z, 2003-2011 Element, 2007-2014 Fit, 2010-2014 Insight, 2002-2004 Odyssey, 2003-2015 Pilot and 2006-2014 Ridgeline. Models from Acura include: 2003 3.2CL, 2013 ILX, 2003-2006 MDX, 2015 RDX, 2005-2012 RL, 2002-2003 3.2TL, 2009-2014 TL, 2009-2014 TSX and 2010-2013 ZDX. The automaker is urging car owners, who will be notified by letter beginning around Aug. 15, to schedule repairs as soon as possible. Problems with the airbags have forced the Japanese automaker into bankruptcy, according to USA Today. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Whitney Tipton | https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/28/airbags-honda-recall-vehicles/ | 2019-06-28 23:17:12+00:00 | 1,561,778,232 | 1,567,537,773 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
670,329 | theepochtimes--2019-10-04--California Takes Steps to Strengthen Wildfire Prevention and Control | 2019-10-04T00:00:00 | theepochtimes | California Takes Steps to Strengthen Wildfire Prevention and Control | California is well into wildfire season, but the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) is always open to trying new technology to prevent and fight fires, while working with local fire departments to manage specific incidents, Scott McLean, CalFire deputy chief of communications, told The Epoch Times in an interview. “We’re always coming up with new ideas to control fires,” McLean said. On Oct. 2, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill modifying the state’s regulations on utility power shutoffs during severe wildfire conditions. The new law requires electric companies to mitigate the impact of shutoffs for customers with certain medical needs and even provide financial assistance for backup electricity to those customers. The largest utility in California, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., shut off power in a large area of Northern California in September amidst dangerous weather conditions, impacting tens of thousands of customers. According to Scientific American, CalFire is also now working on 35 high-priority fire prevention projects, including clearing brush and dead trees near homes and roadways. The projects are reportedly exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental impact analyses for such projects, due to a declared state of emergency by the governor in March. “These 35 priority projects were identified by geographic areas with populations that are particularly at risk during natural disasters,” stated the governor’s office at the time. The Walker Fire, California’s biggest fire to date in 2019, burned a total of 54,608 acres after starting on Sept. 4 in the Plumas National Forest. It cost an estimated $35.6 million to fight. There are at least a dozen major fires now burning across the state, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group InciWeb site. “Good weather, a cooling trend and rain in the northern part of the state are helping us to make progress with these fires,” McLean explained. With the need to respond to 225 fires per week and guide fire departments throughout the state, CalFire relies heavily on technology to gain maximum advantage over weather, brush, and other elements that make fires difficult to fight. Additional state funding has enabled CalFire to obtain 400 seasonal firefighters, 13 new engines and crews to run them and a new Sikorsky S-70i Firehawk helicopter, the first of 12 replacement firefighting helicopters. CalFire’s fire history maps — which are incorporating new technology that gives a more detailed view on small, isolated wind events and other weather factors — are being compiled by a team that updates various aspects of the fire after each incident, including causes, containment, evacuation zones and damage, according to McLean. The maps combine detailed data about weather, topography, vegetation and the placement of roads and homes with fire hazard security zones, providing a more accurate look at the different zones in real time. The maps are now being linked with apps that can be accessed on CalFire’s website. The website itself is being redesigned to incorporate new technology and make it easier to enable people to interact with the system. “We always incorporate fire maps with historical data into our fire behavior prediction processes so that we can effectively deploy limited resources in the most efficient manner possible,” said Captain Tony Imbrenda, public information officer at the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which just received two Canadian firefighting aircraft known as “super scoopers.” Los Angeles County has been leasing the aircraft from Quebec, Canada during each fire season for the last 26 years, reported the Los Angeles Times. According to Imbrenda, “These aircraft will be used as part of a first alarm brush assignment if incident commanders feel that their capabilities will be appropriate for the given incident. Their 1600-gallon capacity and fast turnaround time help us to accomplish the goal of preventing small fires from growing into large incidents that extend into multiple operational periods.” Imbrenda reported that Los Angeles County is placing two new Firehawk helicopters into service this season, bringing its air fleet to five Firehawks and five Bell 412s. He described it as “the largest, most robust initial air attack in the world.” Supported by helicopters and fixed wing air tankers from Cal Fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department can “pour a lot of resources on fires while they are still small, greatly increasing overall efficiency,” he said. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Imbrenda believes that the timing of the equipment could not be better because of “offshore weather patterns” that “bring hotter, drier and windier conditions to the area, drying out fuels and increasing the probability of ignition.” While the conditions that cause such fires have not yet materialized in 2019, authorities want to be ready. According to Imbrenda, “The weather is such that it could support that type of fire season, so whether or not it’s going to happen, it remains to be seen, but we always prepare for the worst.” | Ilene Schneider | https://www.theepochtimes.com/california-takes-steps-to-strengthen-wildfire-prevention-and-control_3083628.html | 2019-10-04 20:35:05+00:00 | 1,570,235,705 | 1,570,633,696 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
671,161 | theepochtimes--2019-11-06--Stanford Scientists Invent Fire Prevention Gel | 2019-11-06T00:00:00 | theepochtimes | Stanford Scientists Invent Fire Prevention Gel | California scientists have developed a weather-resistant gel that lasts for months and can be sprayed on vegetation to prevent deadly and destructive wildfires. Unlike traditional fire retardants, the gel-like fluid is water and wind resistant, so it can be sprayed on grasses and other vegetation and remain effective for months at a time—long enough to last an entire wildfire season in California. It’s also non-toxic and biodegradable. The gel was invented in a lab at Stanford University by assistant professor of materials science and engineering Eric Appel and a team of students following about three years of research and development. The substance contains the same safe, active ingredient found in the red-colored fire retardant that most Californians have seen cascading down from aircraft during fire season. The groundbreaking discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could change how California—and maybe the world—approaches fire prevention. “It gives people an opportunity for the first time to work on proactive fire prevention,” Appel told The Epoch Times. Still, Appel wants to be clear about what the new gel can and can’t do. “There’s a common misconception that we’ve created a magic retardant that can stop catastrophic fires as they’re burning, and that’s not true,” he said. “That’s just impossible.” Raging wildfires spew burning embers high into the air. Carried in the wind, embers can travel up to a mile away. When they land, these red-hot firebrands can easily ignite other blazes, making fires extremely difficult to contain. “They’re throwing embers a mile down the road, and every new ember can start a new fire,” Appel said. “So, the whole point of our work was to create a new tool to stop the fires from starting in the first place.” Traditional fire retardants, such as inorganic salt ammonium polyphosphate (APP), stick to the surface of plants and bind to carbon, creating a layer that is fire resistant, according to the study. When APP burns, it produces water which helps to extinguish the fire. But because APP itself doesn’t adhere well to vegetation in damp or windy conditions, it’s only useful for fighting fires in specific conditions and does not play a role in preventing them. It’s not that APP doesn’t work; it’s that it doesn’t stick to the vegetation long enough, Appel said. The Stanford scientists mixed APP with the new gel and discovered that the combined substance formed a fireproof prophylactic coating that sticks to plants much longer. About 50 percent more of the APP stuck to the vegetation when it was mixed with the new gel. Further tests showed that grass treated with the gel would not ignite, even after a rainstorm. “So, we came up with a new class of performance additives that get more of the retardant onto the vegetation and keep it there for the duration of the peak [wildfire] season,” he said. The additives consist of cellulose polymers that are derived from plants and used as viscosity modifiers (agents that determine how thick fluids are) in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical drugs, as well as colloidal silica, which is chemically identical to sand or silicon dioxide. The new gel is safe to use and biodegrades without consuming oxygen, Appel said. “We tested them with an environmental toxicologist here at Stanford and all of the components are already used in food and beverage manufacturing,” Appel said. “We specifically investigated the toxicity to both mammalian cells and to bacteria of different sorts, so we were specifically evaluating the new performance enhancers that we were utilizing and we showed that they biodegrade slowly anaerobically. They don’t degrade aerobically but they also don’t inhibit aerobic degradation so that is actually something that we wanted from an environmental perspective.” A rainstorm in Northern California about a month ago, just before the first major red flag warnings would have been enough to wash away traditional non-proactive fire retardants, which cannot withstand precipitation, heavy dew, fog, or even high winds. “That’s why we designed the material to persist through all that kind of weathering and environmental exposure. Only when there is a major rainfall of two or three inches when the season is over—and nobody is worried about fires anymore—would the materials wash off into the soils and then biodegrade,” Appel said. “It stays on until we have a big rain.” The research team is currently conducting tests with the California Department of Transportation and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). “They are actually using it to pre-treat roadsides in a couple of high-risk areas in Southern California, in areas that are notorious for having many ignitions every year,” Appel said. And, so far, no fires have started in any of the areas that have been treated. According to the study, about 84 per cent of the 300,624 wildfires in California over the last decade occurred in high-risk areas. About 75 percent were started on roadsides, and nine percent at the sites of power utility structures. “The point is that if you can put a protective barrier over these areas, then you could stop the fires at their source,” Appel said. “We’re not talking about just drawing fire lines to combat an actively burning fire. What we’re trying to do is stop them before they start.” The gel, recently branded as a product called Fortify, shows promise of commercial success with more than 50,000 gallons already sold. The best way to apply the product is by using agricultural equipment to spray it on vegetation near high-risk areas. It could also be sprayed from planes or dropped from helicopter buckets, though that has not yet been tried, Appel said. The field tests also found that cutting grass in high risk areas does little, if anything, to slow the spread of wildfires. “We showed in the paper that mowed grass burns just as fast as unmowed grass, so even if you mow grass along the roadsides, it’s not preventing fires from starting,” Appel said. Removing all the vegetation from roadsides doesn’t work either because it destabilizes the soil, triggering mudslides. Using the new gel, is the best of both worlds, because the vegetation stays in place. “Just treating standing grass was completely effective in preventing ignitions whereas mowing or whatever else obviously wasn’t at all,” Appel said. The idea to create the gel sprang from a casual conversation Appel had had with his brother-in-law, Jesse Acosta, who had worked as a fire prevention forester for the state of Hawaii, and is now at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The two were talking about how wildfires often occur in the same problem areas, and they began to toss back and forth “what if” scenarios about how to prevent them. The challenge stuck with him, setting the gears of his mind in motion. The more he thought about it, the more he began to connect the dots between the wildfire puzzle and his work at Stanford. “My research lab is mostly focused on biomedical problems, and so we are—I guess you could call us—a drug delivery lab. We don’t make the active drug molecules. We don’t engineer new proteins or make new molecules, but we engineer materials that get those molecules where they need to be when they need to be there,” Appel said. “One of our biggest research areas in in sustained or prolonged delivery so what we’re doing is developing technology that allows you to have a single injection once every six months instead of needing to take a pill or an injection every day. So, it encapsulates the drug and very slowly delivers it over a very long period of time.” “You can see the connection. A lot of the engineering design criteria for this fire-retardant system is very similar to what is needed to keep a drug in the body for a long period of time, because you need to encapsulate the active ingredient and make sure the active ingredient still does what it is supposed to do but keep it where it needs to be,” Appel said. Soon after, Appel set to work with grad students and postdocs in his lab to develop the new gel. Anthony Yu, a fifth-year materials scientist grad student, and Hector Lopez Hernandez, a mechanical engineering postdoc, led most of the research and development. “Those two together really figured out why these materials work together the way that they do and all of the nitty-gritty nerdy science stuff that’s in the actual publication,” said Appel, the study’s senior author. “We don’t have a tool that’s comparable to this,” said Alan Peters, a CalFire division chief in San Luis Obispo who monitored some of the tests, in a statement. “It has the potential to definitely reduce the number of fires.” | Brad Jones | https://www.theepochtimes.com/stanford-scientists-invent-fire-prevention-gel_3136756.html | Wed, 06 Nov 2019 18:01:22 +0000 | 1,573,081,282 | 1,573,081,300 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
147,868 | drudgereport--2019-05-04--California Dispatches Goats to Prevent Wildfires | 2019-05-04T00:00:00 | drudgereport | California Dispatches Goats to Prevent Wildfires... | Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/I8GcgOggB4Y/california-dispatches-goats-to-eat-brush-prevent-wildfires | 2019-05-04 22:07:38+00:00 | 1,557,022,058 | 1,567,541,227 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
360,055 | newsweek--2019-01-14--Californians Start Goat Fund Me Campaign in Effort to Bring Animal Farmers to City Prevent Wildfi | 2019-01-14T00:00:00 | newsweek | Californians Start 'Goat Fund Me' Campaign in Effort to Bring Animal Farmers to City, Prevent Wildfires | Officials in Nevada City, California—population 3,100—have launched a “Goat Fund Me” campaign in a bid to prevent deadly wildfires spreading in the small Gold Rush community, tucked away in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The crowdfunding initiative is seeking $30,000 for a controlled, or “prescriptive,” grazing program which will involve the deployment of a small army of goats and sheep on city land. The idea is that the animals will eat overgrown vegetation, minimizing the amount of flammable material. “There is little need to stress how important it is to the safety and wellbeing of Nevada City citizens and neighboring residents that we reduce the fire load in our surrounding forests and neighborhoods,” the project's GoFundMe page states. “The unprecedented fires in California, particularly in Paradise, have hit all too close to home and have become the ultimate Cautionary Tale.” “Our city staff, fire and police departments, as well as city council members realize how important it is that we take proactive steps NOW,” the statement continued. “This is why we have been working for weeks with local ranchers to launch a goat/sheep prescriptive grazing on city-owned land including the over 450 acres of city-owned greenbelt.” Time is of the essence for city officials, who created the fundraiser because local goat and sheep ranchers are only available in the city on a large scale this winter (the herds have been rented out for the rest of next year,) and it usually takes weeks or months to secure funding for this type of project through traditional means. The project will use goats to eat bushes, trees and shrubs, while the sheep will feed on grass. According to the GoFundMe page, prescriptive grazing can cost anywhere between $500 and $1,000 per acre, which is a relatively affordable way to manage overgrown vegetation. Furthermore, a herd of 200 goats can clear about acre per day. The campaign was launched last month by Nevada City Vice Mayor Reinette Senum and has now raised nearly $12,000. The funds will go directly to the city to be overseen by financial director Loree McCay. Senum said the community—which lies around 47 miles southeast of the town of Paradise that was destroyed in November by the deadly Camp Fire—is particularly vulnerable to wildfires. “We’re an outdoorsy community, she told the Los Angeles Times. “We spend a lot of time in nature and we’re packed with brush that turns into tinder that needs to be cleared. “Why not do something—and as soon as we can? If we’re not proactive, if we don’t help ourselves, no one else is going to step up.” “These goats, they’re easy on the land, they’ve got little hooves and have a low impact compared to heavy machinery," Senum said. | null | https://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-goat-fund-me-nevada-city-california-paradise-camp-fire-prescriptive-1289851?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution | 2019-01-14 10:57:34+00:00 | 1,547,481,454 | 1,567,552,489 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
383,775 | npr--2019-02-07--Millions Could Lose Power Under PGEs Plan To Prevent Wildfires | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | npr | Millions Could Lose Power Under PG&E's Plan To Prevent Wildfires | Millions Could Lose Power Under PG&E's Plan To Prevent Wildfires Pacific Gas & Electric could shut off power to more than 5 million customers when extreme weather conditions are ripe for wildfires to break out, the company said Wednesday. It's an expansion of the company's previous power shutoff program, which only let the company turn off power to about half a million customers. Several power companies submitted their required "wildfire mitigation plans" to California regulators this week. But PG&E's plan may be especially consequential, given that its power lines have been blamed for several northern California fires over the past few years. The company filed for bankruptcy last month in the wake of billions of dollars in potential liability for two years of wildfires. The company told the state's public utilities commission that to address wildfire risk, "shutting off power will likely be necessary and may need to be performed more frequently due to the extreme weather events and dry vegetation conditions." "We understand the urgency of the situation, that lives could be at stake and that we need to move more quickly," the company said. In 2018, the company's "public safety power shutoff" program affected up to 570,000 customers. This year, the company plans to include its entire 5.4 million electric customer base in the shutoff program. PG&E said it would try to alert customers within 48 hours of a power shutoff. PG&E will only turn off power "as a last resort," a company official told The San Francisco Chronicle. And the company stressed it wouldn't consider shutting off power to all customers at once, the Chronicle reported. PG&E also plans to trim or remove an additional 375,000 trees in 2019, to clear leaves and branches from around distribution lines. And it plans to conduct many more "enhanced" inspections of distribution poles and transmission structures, it said. The California Public Utilities Commission will need to review and approve the proposal. PG&E cautioned that its bankruptcy could impact the company's ability to successfully implement its plan. Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network consumer group, told the Chronicle that PG&E's plan is a sign of mismanagement of the power grid and failure to properly keep trees trimmed. "We're paying them to keep the power on," Toney said. "Now we're paying them to shut us off. There's an irony in that." Of the seven other utilities that submitted plans to regulators, "none included the significant reforms PG&E was proposing," the Associated Press aid. | Matthew S. Schwartz | https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/692249102/millions-could-lose-power-under-pg-es-plan-to-prevent-wildfires?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-02-07 10:08:27+00:00 | 1,549,552,107 | 1,567,549,360 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
582,971 | theblaze--2019-05-03--Californians deploy goats to help prevent wildfires | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | theblaze | Californians deploy goats to help prevent wildfires | 'We're trying to be practical and strategic' | Breck Dumas | https://www.theblaze.com/news/california-deploys-goats-to-assist-in-preventing-wildfires | 2019-05-03 21:25:07+00:00 | 1,556,933,107 | 1,567,541,331 | disaster, accident and emergency incident | emergency planning |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.