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Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, has erupted seven times in the past two weeks
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Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, has erupted seven times in the past two weeks, with some eruptions blowing blankets of black ash over nearby areas. The volcano erupted on February 16th and has had bursts of activity ever since. A recent eruption from the volcano, which is located in Italy, spewed ash over the Sicilian town of Zafferana Etnea. Now, locals are working to blow the soot away. Marco is a resident of Zafferana Etnea and said that soot can make it dangerous for local residents. "This morning at 9:30 the ash started falling and I've been here since, working to get rid of it," he said. "Unfortunately, as you can see, we are making piles of ash on the side of the road because we don't have enough bags to get rid of it," Marco added, showing bags full of black ash. "We hope that the municipality can remove it promptly because it's dangerous on the road," he added. There have been no reported injuries or deaths due to the volcanic eruptions so far. But clearing up the ash remains a challenge. Residents often have had to run for cover as rocks are hurled into the air, only to crash back down on anything in the way. Watch the full Euronews report in the player above. Additional sources • AP It's "unrealistic" to think the COVID-19 pandemic will be over before the end of the year, a top World Health Organisation (WHO) official stressed on Monday. Dr Michael Ryan, director of WHO's emergencies programme, told reporters from the organisation's headquarters in Geneva that "right now the virus is very much in control". "It will be premature, and I think unrealistic, to think that we're going to finish with this virus by the end of the year." He noted however that "if the vaccines begin to impact not only on death and not only on hospitalisation, but have a significant impact on transmission dynamics and transmission risk, then I believe we will accelerate toward controlling this pandemic." "If we're smart, we can finish with the hospitalisations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with the pandemic" before the end of the year, he went on. The number of new cases rose globally in the week ending February 22 — the first weekly increase recorded since early January. Confirmed cases roses in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, and South-East Asia. WHO chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that "this is disappointing, but not surprising." "We're working to better understand these increases in COVID-19 transmission. Some of it appears to be due to relaxing of public health measures, continued circulation of variants, and people letting down their guard," he added. He reiterated his call for greater vaccine solidarity, stressing that "countries are not in a race with each other, this is a common race against the COVID-19 virus." "It's regrettable that some countries continue to prioritise vaccinating younger, healthier adults at lower risk of disease in their own populations ahead of health workers and older people elsewhere." "We're not asking countries to put their own people at risk. We're asking all countries to be part of a global effort to suppress the virus everywhere," he said. The WHO wants vaccination against the deadly virus to have started in every single country within the first 100 days of the year. Dr Tedros flagged that Ghana and the Ivory Coast became the first countries on Monday to start their vaccination campaign with doses provided by the COVAX programme. The programme will deliver 237 million doses of vaccines to 140 participating countries before the end of May.
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Volcano Eruption
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MK Airlines Flight 1602 crash
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MK Airlines Flight 1602 was an MK Airlines Boeing 747-200F cargo flight on a flight from Halifax Stanfield International Airport, Nova Scotia, Canada to Zaragoza Airport, Spain. It crashed on take-off in 2004, killing the crew of 7. [1][2][3] It was the fourth accident for MK Airlines, as well as the deadliest. [4]
The Boeing 747-200 was originally manufactured for South African Airways in 1980 as ZS-SAR, making its first flight on 24 October of the same year, and being delivered on 6 November. [5] At some point during its service with SAA, ZS-SAR was converted to a freighter. On 11 November 1992, ZS-SAR was leased to Garuda Indonesia as 3B-NAS. Sometime before September 1995, the aircraft was returned to SAA, and in March 2000, was sold to MK Airlines as 9G-MKJ. [6][7][8]
The captain was Michael Thornycroft, who had been with MK Airlines since its establishment in 1990. He had 23,200 flight hours including 4,000 hours on the Boeing 747. Thornycroft also had dual South African-United Kingdom citizenships. The first officer was Gary Keogh, who had 8,537 flight hours and was described as a "competent" pilot and was "comfortable" with computers. The flight engineer was Peter Launder, who had 2,000 flight hours. There was also a relief captain and flight engineer. The relief captain was David Lamb, and the relief flight engineer was Steven Hooper, who had 1,600 and 1,990 flight hours respectively. [9]:4–6 The ground engineer was Mario Zhan, who held dual South African and German citizenships, and the loadmaster was Chris Strydom. Six of the seven crew members were from Zimbabwe; the seventh (Captain Thornycroft) was from South Africa. [10][11]
At 00:03 local time, on 14 October 2004, MK Airlines Flight 1602 took off from Windsor-Locks-Bradley International Airport. The aircraft was loaded with a cargo of lawn tractors, and made an intermediate stop at Halifax at 02:12 to be loaded up with approximately 53,000 kilograms (53 t; 117,000 lb) of lobster and fish. Flight 1602 taxied to Runway 24 (now assigned '23' designation), and the takeoff roll was commenced at 06:53:22. When the aircraft reached 130 knots (150 mph), the control column was moved aft to 8.4° to initiate rotation as the aircraft passed the 5,500-foot (1,700 m) mark of Runway 24; with 3,300 feet (1,000 m) left on the runway, the aircraft began to rotate. The pitch attitude stabilized briefly at approximately 9° nose-up, with an airspeed of 144 knots (166 mph). Because the 747 still had not lifted off the runway, the control column was moved further aft to 10°, and the aircraft responded with a further pitch up to approximately 11°; at this time, a tailstrike occurred. The aircraft was approximately at the 8,000-foot (2,400 m) mark and slightly left of the center-line. The control column was then relaxed slightly, to 9° aft. The pitch attitude stabilized in the 11° range for the next four seconds, and the tailstrike abated as a result. With approximately 600 feet (180 m) of runway remaining, the thrust levers were advanced to 92% and the engine pressure ratios (EPRs) increased to 1.60. With 420 feet (130 m) remaining, a second tailstrike took place. As the aircraft passed the end of the runway, the control column was 13.5° aft, pitch attitude was 11.9° nose-up, and airspeed was 152 knots (175 mph). The highest recorded nose-up pitch of 14.5° was recorded at one minute and two seconds after takeoff initiation after the aircraft passed the end of the runway at a speed of 155 knots (178 mph). The aircraft became airborne approximately 670 feet (200 m) beyond the paved surface and flew a distance of 325 feet (99 m). The lower aft fuselage then struck an earthen berm supporting an instrument landing system (ILS) localizer antenna 300 metres (980 ft) beyond the end of the runway, separating from the plane. The plane then headed forwards in a straight line for another 1,200 feet (370 m), breaking into pieces and bursting into flames when it struck the ground. [12]
Over 60–80 firefighters and 20 pieces of apparatus from Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency responded to the call. It took nearly three hours to extinguish the post-crash fire. [13]
An investigation into the crash revealed that the flight crew had used the incorrect speeds and thrust setting during the take-off attempt, with incorrect take-off data being calculated when preparing the flight (incorrect V speed calculation, as the result of the crew re-using a lighter take-off weight of 240,000-kilogram (530,000 lb) from the aircraft's previous take-off at Bradley, instead of the correct weight of 353,000-kilogram (778,000 lb). The official report blamed the company for serious non-conformances to flight and duty time, with no regulations or company rules governing maximum duty periods for loadmasters and ground engineers, resulting in increased potential for fatigue-induced errors. [9][14]
MK Airlines disputed the findings, citing the fact that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was too heavily damaged in the post-crash fire to yield any information. [15]
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Air crash
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2016 Ecuador earthquake
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The 2016 Ecuador earthquake occurred on April 16 at 18:58:37 ECT with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The very large thrust earthquake was centered approximately 27 km (17 mi) from the towns of Muisne and Pedernales in a sparsely populated part of the country, and 170 km (110 mi) from the capital Quito,[1] where it was felt strongly. [4] Regions of Manta, Pedernales and Portoviejo accounted for over 75 percent of total casualties. [5] Manta's central commercial shopping district, Tarqui, was completely destroyed. [6] Widespread damage was caused across Manabí Province, with structures hundreds of kilometres from the epicenter collapsing. At least 676 people were killed and 16,600 people injured. President Rafael Correa declared a state of emergency; 13,500 military personnel and police officers were dispatched for recovery operations. Ecuador lies above the destructive plate boundary where the Nazca Plate is subducting beneath the South American Plate. The convergence rate between the plates in Ecuador is 61 mm (2.4 in) per year. The depth, location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are all consistent with rupture along the plate interface in the form of a megathrust earthquake. A major earthquake in 1906 ruptured the plate interface for at least 400 km immediately northeast of the 2016 event. [1]
At 18:58 ECT on April 16, a 7.8 Mw earthquake struck the coast of Ecuador approximately 27 km (17 mi) south-southeast of Muisne, in the province of Esmeraldas, at a depth of 20.6 km (12.8 mi). [1]
Tremors were felt in neighboring Colombia and Peru;[10] a clinic in Cali, Colombia, was evacuated as a precautionary measure. [11] A tsunami alert was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, Panama, and Peru. [10][12] This is the largest earthquake to strike Ecuador since the 1979 Tumaco earthquake. [13]
According to Mayor Gabriel Alcivar, much of the town of Pedernales, about 35 km to the south-southwest of the earthquake's epicenter, was leveled. In Guayaquil—approximately 300 km (190 mi) from the epicenter—an overpass collapsed on a car, killing the driver. [11] In Manta the control tower of the airport was severely damaged;[14] an Air Force officer was injured and the airport closed. [15] Six homes collapsed and many others lost power in the nation's capital city of Quito. [16]
The earthquake was presaged by a magnitude 4.8 foreshock eleven minutes before the main quake struck,[17] and followed by over fifty-five aftershocks in the first twenty-four hours. [18]
At least 676 people were killed and more than 16,600 others were injured in the earthquake. [7][8] It was the worst natural disaster to hit Ecuador since the 1949 Ambato earthquake. [26] Over 300 fatalities occurred in the cities of Manta and Portoviejo, both of which are located in Manabí Province. [5] President Rafael Correa stated that the reconstruction would cost "billions of dollars. "[7][27]
The number of fatalities was estimated as several hundred within thirty minutes of the earthquake. [28] However, the media reported the number of fatalities as significantly lower than what actually happened and than what was estimated within thirty minutes as the figure of reported fatalities with time shows. The number of injuries reported by media also remained below the ultimate count and below the correct estimate within 30 minutes by QLARM as seen in the next figure. By April 24, the fatality count had reached 654, and 8,340 had been reported as injured. [29]
Estimates of fatalities are based on calculations of the damage to the built environment using the program QLARM. [30] Within minutes of an earthquake only its epicenter is known, not the extent of its rupture. The USGS shake map for this event shown on this page depicts the extent of the rupture area as a rectangle. With the length of the rupture as outlined by the aftershocks, a map of the likely mean damage by the settlement can be calculated. This map takes into account what intensities have been reported to the USGS for this earthquake. The numbers of fatalities and injured calculated theoretically, based on the damage map shown here, agrees well with the reported numbers. [29]
The extent of the rupture can sometimes be known from aftershocks during the few hours following the main shock. In that case, maps of the intensity of shaking expected in each settlement may be calculated as in the figure below at the left for the 2016 Ecuador earthquake. Based on this ground motion, the mean damage expected in each settlement s then calculated. These maps allow first responders to target heavily damaged area. Large cities tend to have buildings more resistant to shaking than villages, therefore the damage is less for city dwellers than for villagers, on average. In Colombia, near the city of Cali, one miner died as a result of the earthquake, becoming the only reported death outside of Ecuador. [31]
In response to the earthquake, a state of emergency was declared throughout the country and the national guard was mobilized to assist in rescue and relief efforts. [citation needed] Approximately 10,000 military personnel and 3,500 police officers were deployed. [13] President Rafael Correa cut his trip to Italy short in order to return to Ecuador. [11] Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines were shut down as a precautionary measure. On April 17 the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters was activated by UNITAR/UNOSAT on behalf of UN OCHA, thus providing for the charitable and humanitarian re-tasking of satellite assets. [32]
On April 20, a 6.1–6.2 magnitude aftershock struck 15 miles west of Muisne around 3:30 am, local time. [33][34] The quake had a depth of about 9 miles. [33] José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil was also closed due to communication issues. [15]
A UNICEF representative reported that the government is considering relocating "one or two" towns in the aftermath of the earthquake. There were also concerns about the Zika virus outbreak and the risk of dengue fever for people displaced by the quake.
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Earthquakes
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US decision to pull out of World Health Organization
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President Donald Trump’s announcement on 29 May 20201 that the US would withdraw from the World Health Organization came as little surprise to those who had been following his administration’s attempts to find a scapegoat for the covid-19 crisis. The attacks on WHO have to be seen within a larger geopolitical context of increasing tension and blame between the US and China, with WHO caught in the middle like a child not wanting to pick sides between warring parents.2 But are these attacks fair, and what will US withdrawal mean for WHO? WHO was established in 1948 as the chief director and coordinator of international health work in the United Nations. Its roots are deeply embedded in outbreak response—the initial rationale for sovereign states coming together was to agree on infectious disease regulations at the first international sanitary conference in 1851.3 WHO’s strengths are in its technical, normative, and convening efforts. Technically, it shares data between countries including standards, guidelines, and key health information. Normatively, it has the unique ability to agree international law, such as the International Health Regulations, which govern the reporting and response to health outbreaks, as well as set norms through codes of practice and global strategies. WHO’s convening efforts centre on its World Health Assembly, which brings together governments from across the world to agree on priorities, debate issues such as access to essential medicines, and pass resolutions for action.4 Although WHO can advise, support, and encourage, it cannot go into countries to change policies, investigate the source of outbreaks, or penalise bad behaviour. WHO has attempted to bring these three roles together to tackle the covid-19 pandemic. After China reported the new outbreak to WHO’s country office on 31 December 2019, WHO quickly sent out a bulletin to other countries about a new respiratory pathogen.5 As more data emerged, the organisation helped to develop test kits that could be sent to parts of the world lacking laboratory capacity and tried to encourage data sharing from China so that other countries could learn.6 On 30 January 2020 WHO declared covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern, a strong warning that the virus was on its way and countries should prepare.7 On 24 February it’s mission to China reported on the epidemiology of the virus and China’s response. The clear messages were to prioritise testing, contact tracing, isolation of carriers and their contacts, physical distancing as needed (lockdowns), protection of health workers through adequate protective equipment, and ramping up hospital capacity.8 WHO was criticised at the time for praising China’s handling of the epidemic—now understood to be the price for China’s ongoing cooperation.9 Since then, WHO has continued to update its technical advice and has monitored all parts of the world when donor countries in Europe and the US were consumed with their own outbreaks. WHO’s job is technical advice, producing international guidance, and bringing countries together. The recent virtual World Health Assembly showed that the organisation has delivered those roles adequately.10 In the medium term the US withdrawal from WHO will cause serious financial damage. The US is one of the largest contributors of “extra budgetary funds,” which make up 80% of WHO’s total budget.11 Although influential organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the European Commission are important donors in global health, the potential funding gap left by a US withdrawal will be hard to fill. Altogether, the US granted an estimated $419m (£330m; €360m) to WHO in 2018-19, roughly 16% of WHO’s total funding for these two years.12 This magnitude of deficit could be devastating to critical global health agendas such as child survival, polio eradication, and neglected tropical diseases, which aren’t covered by other organisations. However, the legal ramifications of such a withdrawal mean that the Trump administration may require Congressional approval. In 1948, a joint resolution by the Senate and the House of Representatives requires the US to give at least one year’s notice and to meet all outstanding financial obligations to WHO in the financial year leading to an exit.13,14 Currently, $60m is outstanding from the latest fiscal year, not including debts of nearly $40m from previous years.15 These are the checks and balances within the US political system that prevent rash actions by any one player. If Joe Biden wins the November presidential election, he has already promised to reverse Trump’s decision to withdraw. In the larger trajectory of history, Trump’s words will likely remain just words especially if Joe Biden wins the November election.There is even time for a U turn from Trump. But WHO should hope for the best while preparing for the worst—through an emergency response from donors and increased contributions from remaining member states.16 Whatever happens, the organisation’s work must continue. No other agency is able to perform all three important functions. Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and have no relevant interests to declare.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 crash
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LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 was a plane that crash-landed about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of Rogóżno railway station, on 2 November 1988. In the accident one person was killed and several were seriously injured. The plane, an Antonov An-24W, registered SP-LTD, named "Dunajec", took off from Okęcie airport, Warsaw for regional flight 703 to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. It had 25 passengers on board (including the famous radio presenter Tomasz Beksiński) and four crew members. The captain was Kazimierz Rożek (with 30 years of experience) and the co-pilot was Waldemar Wolski. The emergency started about two minutes before the planned landing, at 10:25, when the plane was flying east to runway 27. According to officials, pilots turned on the anti-icing installation too late and, during approach, both engines immediately shut down because of icing of the engine intakes. Just after that, Rożek and Wolski, knowing that they would not reach the airport, started an emergency descent, which ended in a glade. The aircraft landed on a glade at high speed[citation needed]. It became airborne above a drainage ditch and crashed further on. In the moment of crash-landing, one person – a 69-year-old woman from Rzeszów – was killed. Within several seconds after the crash, two stewardesses and two militia officers evacuated all passengers from the aircraft, which quickly caught on fire. The crash-landing has been the last fatal air crash in Polish commercial aviation so far. It was one of the main reasons for which LOT Polish Airlines removed all An-24 served planes (this particular aircraft was 22 years old) and replaced them with ATR 42 and ATR 72.
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Air crash
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2009 Cinchona earthquake
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The 2009 Cinchona earthquake occurred at 1:21:35 pm local time on January 8 with an Mwc magnitude of 6.1 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). The shock took place in northern Costa Rica, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north-northwest of San José and was felt throughout Costa Rica and in southern central Nicaragua. The earthquake took at least 34 lives,[4] including at least three children, left about 64 people missing,[4] and injured at least 91. [3] Hundreds of people were trapped and two villages were cut off. [5] Most of the victims died when a landslide occurred near the La Paz waterfall by the Poás Volcano, and 452 people including 369 tourists were evacuated from the area in helicopters. [6] 1,244 people were displaced in the immediate aftermath. [4][7] In addition, a hotel, houses, roads, and vehicles were damaged, and several bridges were also destroyed. [6] The town of Cinchona was heavily hit, and all of the buildings there were heavily damaged. [8] Power was temporarily disrupted in San José. [2]
The Costa Rican Red Cross sent at least 400 people to assist in the recovery. [7] The agency said, "Some 42 communities were affected and sustained serious impacts on civil and electrical infrastructure... [They] are going to need a lot of help. "[7]
Four helicopters were also dispatched in order to help aid efforts. [7] The Comisión Nacional de Emergencias (National Emergency Commission) requested private helicopters to help with the aid. [9] Additionally, the United States and Colombia dispatched helicopters with aid to assist with the relief and recovery efforts. [10]
About 2,000 aftershocks were felt throughout Costa Rica. [4]
On January 12, President Oscar Arias declared a five-day period of national grieving out of respect for the victims, and asked the organizers of the Fiestas de Palmares to postpone them. On January 13, the Banco de Costa Rica announced that it would offer home financing credit to homeowners who want to rebuild or fix their home. [11]
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Earthquakes
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Archeological treasures from Sanxingdui Ruins go on display in Hangzhou
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Gold masks, jade, ivory artifacts and bronze objects, the new discoveries from the six new sacrificial pits of Sanxingdui Ruins have been a sensation across China recently by virtue of their unique designs and exquisite craftsmanship. Located in Guanghan City at southwestern China's Sichuan Province, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been dubbed as one of the world's greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. Originally discovered in the late 1920s, the ruins covering an area of 12 square kilometers are believed to be the remnants of the Shu Kingdom, dating back some 4,800 years and lasting over 2,000 years. Now, 139 sets of Sanxingdui antiques, including 65 top-level national treasures, have been transported to Hangzhou and are on display at West Lake Gallery through January 4. The exhibition is divided into three sections, namely people, witchcraft and the kingdom. Visitors have swarmed to view the imagination and creativity of the ancient Chinese which far surpassed what people today had expected. The ring-shaped sunbird is one of the highlights at the exhibition. This ancient artifact is made of gold leaf with a weight of 20 grams and a thickness of 0.02 centimeters. The center of the artifact is a sun pattern with 12 points. Surrounding the sun, there are four birds, flying in the same counter-clockwise direction. According to scientists' research, the gold content in the artifact was as high as 94.2 percent. In 2005, the image of the gold sunbird adornment became the symbol of China culture heritage. The sunbird could testify that the ancient Shu Kingdom people had already mastered gold processing technology about 3,000 years ago. Apart from the sunbird, there are other gold pieces in the shape of frogs and golden masks on display. Scientists believe that these ancestors might melt gold by hot forge first and then hammer it into thin sheets before painting and carving patterns. During decades of excavation, archeologists have also unearthed bronze artworks in the shapes of frogs, birds, tigers, snakes and the sun. They might designate the cosmology and world view of ancient Sanxingdui people. The exhibition shows a bronze sun-shaped object which looks similar to a modern-day steering wheel. It is considered a proof of the sun-worship tradition in ancient Sanxingdui area. A bronze figurine that features a pair of protruding eyeballs and two big ears sticking out like wings is on display in Hangzhou. A gold face mask is thought to be worn for a great role in rituals. Showcased is a real-size replica of a 180-centimeter-high bronze statue. It is believed to be the largest bronze statue ever discovered in the world. The ring-shaped sunbird is made of gold leaf, with four birds flying surrounding the sun. A clay handle of a spoon carved with a bird head, a ritual object for worshipping ancestors, is on display. As for bronze figurines, they often feature a pair of protruding eyeballs and two big ears sticking out like wings, as evidenced by the exhibits. It's said the first king of the ancient Shu Kingdom had protruding eyeballs and big ears, so his people made him an exaggerated facial mask and worshiped him as a god who could see thousands of miles ahead and hear from every corner. A real-size replica at the entrance measures 180 centimeters in length. It is believed to be the largest bronze statue ever discovered in the world. The man is crowned and dressed up with three layers of narrow-sleeve costumes adorned with ornate patterns and extending his big arms as if trying to embrace something. He is believed to be the incarnation of a god, wizard and man, in charge of the supreme power. Since the object in his hands had already disappeared, scientists still have no idea what exactly it is. Different sizes of bronze figurines have been excavated from Sanxingdui throughout the decades. Archeologists categorized them into different hierarchies according to crowns, costumes and hairstyles. The one wearing a gold face mask is thought to have a great role in rituals. Ancient Shu Kingdom people had a system of witchcraft. The wizard hosted ritual ceremonies by using varied talismans. The exhibition displays a clay handle of a spoon carved with a bird head, which is a ritual object worshipping ancestors. In 1986, 1,720 unique relics were unearthed in the No. 1 and No. 2 pits, making a stir in China. In 2019, archaeologists discovered six new sacrificial pits while investigating the area where the No. 1 and No. 2 pits are located. More surprises have emerged as the excavation keeps progressing. So far, archaeologists have unearthed various cultural items, including pieces of gold masks, gold foil, bronze masks, bronze trees, ivory and jade. Some pits are still under excavation.
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New archeological discoveries
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North Korea feeds war rations to the poor after heatwave ravages food supply
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North Korea is releasing emergency military rice reserves as its food shortage worsens, according to South Korea's spy agency, with a heatwave and drought reducing the country's supply. The country's moribund economy is continuously being battered by the protracted COVID-19 pandemic, and while mass starvation and social chaos have not been reported, observers expect further deterioration of North Korea's food situation until the autumn harvest. Seoul's National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary committee meeting that North Korea is supplying rice reserved for wartime use to citizens left with little food, other labourers and rural state agencies, according to Ha Tae-keung, one of the politicians who attended the session. Ha cited the NIS as saying an ongoing heatwave and drought have wiped out rice, corn and other crops and killed livestock in North Korea. The NIS said North Korea's leadership views fighting the drought as "a matter of national existence" and is focusing on increasing public awareness of its campaign, Mr Ha said. Another politician, Kim Byung-kee, quoted the NIS as saying that North Korea normally needs about 5.5 million tonnes of food to feed its 26 million people but is currently short of 1 million tonnes. He said the NIS told polticians that North Korea is running out of its grain stockpiles. The price of rice, the most important crop in North Korea, had doubled from early this year. The price briefly stabilised in July before soaring again, Mr Kim cited the NIS as saying. Ha said North Korea is trying to control the price of grains to which its public is most sensitive. The politicians didn't elaborate on North Korea's food situation or actions it was taking. But Kwon Tae-jin, an expert at the private GS&J Institute in South Korea, said North Korea is likely releasing the military reserves to sell them at a cheaper price than at markets to stabilise prices. He said rice prices are "considerably unstable" in North Korea because the government has a limit in supplying such rice. North Korea had similar food shortages in past years before the pandemic, according to Mr Kwon, but its needs were met by the smuggling of rice and other grains via the North's border with China. But the North's ongoing pandemic-caused border shutdowns made it extremely difficult for such smuggling to happen, worsening this year's food shortage, Mr Kwon said. The NIS has a spotty record in confirming developments in North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries. But its latest assessment came after Mr Kim admitted his country faces the "worst-ever" crisis due to the pandemic and other difficulties and even a possible dire food shortage. During a key ruling party meeting in June, Mr Kim urged officials to find ways to boost agricultural production, saying the country's food situation "is now getting tense". Earlier, he even compared the ongoing pandemic-related difficulties to a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Mr Kwon said North Korea's current food problem will continue until it harvests corns, rice and other grains in September and October. But he said North Korea won't likely suffer a humanitarian disaster like the 1990s famine, during which he said the public found little grains left at most markets. Other experts say China, North Korea's main ally and aid benefactor, also won't likely let a massive famine happen. They say China worries about North Korean refugees flooding over the border or the establishment of a pro-US unified Korea on its doorstep.
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Famine
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SEFCU, CAP COM merger would create one of state's largest credit unions
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A view of the SEFCU Headquarters on Thursday, July 29, 2021, in Albany, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski/Times Union)Paul Buckowski/Albany Times Union Show More Show Less Mike Castellana, left, of SEFCU says a merger would help the credit unions compete with the various FinTechs competing for consumer dollars. ALBANY - The proposed merger of SEFCU and CAP COM would, at $8 billion, place the combined organization in the nation’s top 30 credit unions and one of the top five in New York state. It also would be one of the Capital Region’s largest locally-based financial institutions, including commercial banks. But the merger is about more than the simple “day-to-day, hand-to-hand combat,” that credit unions and commercial banks wage with one another as they compete for customers, said Michael Castellana, president and CEO of SEFCU. It’s also about competing with the likes of Apple, PayPal and other companies that are rushing into the financial services field with new variations of digital payment plans, loans and other consumer offerings. “You need scale to be competitive,” said Castellana. “We are competing with the Apples and the Googles and the PayPals of the world.” Apple, for instance, is offering a new Point of Sale service, in which consumers can essentially get financing for an item and set up a payment plan at the store counter or online. So if you want the latest iPad, iPhone, or other product (not necessarily from Apple) you can get instant touchless financing through Apple and start making monthly automated payments. Offering those services, though, takes a certain amount of size and scale in order to hire the technical talent and set up the newest software systems to deliver such loans. “The fintechs are very aggressively trying to move into retail financial services,” said Castellana. Fintech is a moniker given financial technology companies that are as much app and software developers as banks. Fintechs offer convenience, allowing customers to make a live or web-based purchases and get what amounts to instant credit or loans for a purchase, be it a mattress, a vacation or big screen TV. But interest rates can be high: One Point of Sale company says they can charge up to 30 percent. Credit unions are capped at 18 percent. Aside from Fintech competition, mergers among credit unions have increased over the years, just as they have among for-profit banks and other businesses that frequently grow by buying up or merging with competitors. In recent years, the Postal Employees of Troy and City of Schenectady Employees federal credit unions joined CAP COM. And SEFCU has merged with the Health Employees Federal Credit Union. Earlier, they merged with credit unions in Binghamton, Syracuse and Buffalo, giving them an expansive upstate footprint. Credit unions are basically nonprofit banks. Instead of shareholders or stockholders, they are owned by their members who have deposits and loans with them. The proposed merger, which the CAP COM and SEFCU boards of directors approved last month, still needs approval by the federal National Credit Union Administration which regulates federally chartered credit unions. Then it would require a vote by the members. In terms of size, the merger wouldn’t be a joining of equals. SEFCU, which began life in 1934 as the State Employees Federal Credit Union, as of 2020 had 358,366 members and assets of $4.7 billion with deposits of $4.3 billion according to the NCUA (Assets for credit unions and banks are actually loans, such as mortgages and car loans, which generate money through their interest payments.) CAP COM, which dates to 1953 and began life as Capital Communications federal credit union open to employees of the old New York Telephone, has 147,088 members, $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits. CAP COM appears to be getting a slightly better return of 1.42 percent on assets compared to SEFCU’s 0.61 percent. There would be advantages for both parties through a merger. They could expand their footprint and potentially consolidate some branches, although CAP COM President and CEO Chris McKenna said that hasn’t been decided. And the merger could help them update some of their computer and other systems to – again – better compete with the new fintechs. Both Castellana and McKenna stressed that a merger would not lead to layoffs. That makes sense, given the current scarcity of employees at any number of businesses these days, driven in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nor has that been a factor. “It has nothing to do with the pandemic,” said McKenna who said the talks began in January. Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Castellana said the merger plan would make him chief executive officer and McKenna would be president. Not all of their competitors are happy. The for-profit banking industry has for some time noted that credit unions, which decades ago started as small, locally based organizations, have grown steadily larger and more consolidated. But they may have a competitive advantage in that they pay no taxes. “Creating an $8 billion financial institution that is larger than roughly 90 percent of all the banks headquartered in New York State goes far beyond that original mission,” Clare Cusack, president and CEO of the state Bankers Association said, referring to the credit unions’ humble origins. Cusack also notes that credit unions don’t have the same community investment requirements, which are federal mandates to put a certain amount of money into under-served neighborhoods. Credit unions such as SEFCU and CAP COM, though, have long pointed to their donations and contributions to community charities, and other organizations. And they note that they’ve made lots of, maybe more, mortgages and loans to low- and moderate-income customers over the years. Cusack adds that traditional banks face the same competition from fintech firms that credit unions are confronting. SEFCU and CAP COM aren’t the only credit unions in the Capital Region or in the state. There are a number of smaller ones that also provide loans, mortgages, deposits, credit cards and other services. “I think it will give us some opportunity for growth,” said Lucy Halstead, president and CEO of First New York Federal Credit Union, with $437 million in assets. While larger unions like SEFCU have operations in Buffalo, Binghamton and Syracuse, First New York is only in Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Schoharie and Rensselaer counties. Halstead believes that geographic concentration gives them an opportunity to know their customers better. And she notes that First New York, as well as SEFCU and CAP COM, continue to be based in the Capital Region unlike larger national banks that have, through consolidations and mergers, moved their headquarters out of the area over the years.
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Organization Merge
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Body found inside a vehicle in Upshur County creek identified
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UPDATE: Justice of the Peace Wyone Manes has identified the woman as 48-year-old Dondi Young of Upshur County. GLADEWATER, Texas (KLTV) - A startling discovery made by an East Texas motorist this morning, spotting a crashed vehicle well off the roadway, and the driver is found dead inside. It was around sunrise when Upshur County authorities say a passing driver notified them that they had spotted what appeared to be a crashed vehicle off the north side of highway 80, between Gladewater and Big Sandy, saying it was well off into the wood line. Investigators say it appeared the vehicle ran off of the road at the White Oak Creek bridge, and rolled into a creek about 50 feet into the woods. As emergency crews arrived they went out to the vehicle and found a 48 year old woman inside, deceased. The woman was the only occupant. There were no reports of any accidents in the area, and its unknown how long the car had been there. There are no homes or intersection near the area, with investigators saying that might be why no one reported an accident. “We don’t know anything. a passerby just happened to see the car,” said one responder on the scene. DPS troopers and Gladewater fire along with wreckers worked to pull the vehicle out and gather information on who the driver was.
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Road Crash
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War on Waste: Concentric rings of rubbish circle fast food restaurants, study finds
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A group in Melbourne's west has confirmed what many have suspected — fast food outlets are surrounded by circles of trash.
Members of the Werribee River Association [WRA] have been recording where they find the most takeaway food rubbish as part of a study they're calling Circles of Litter.
"We've discovered a couple of patterns of rubbish in these areas out west, and it would apply right across Melbourne," Werribee riverkeeper John Forrester told ABC Radio Melbourne's Jon Faine.
He said they were generally finding takeaway food litter in distinct circles, with popular fast food restaurants at the centre.
"People who walk away from these common takeaway food sources, they do drop their litter at certain points," he said.
"We have begun to notice patterns up particular roads where the litter is quite commonly found."
Mr Forrester said the first ring of takeaway litter appeared about 500 metres from the outlet, which he said was approximately the distance it took to consume a hamburger while walking.
A second ring appears on main roads a little further on, most probably dropped by people in motor vehicles.
He said most litter was found between 1.2 and 2.5 kilometres from a major fast food restaurant.
Fast food outlets Mr Forrester has contacted have sent employees to clean up rubbish in the immediate area. Listeners commenting on ABC Radio Melbourne's Facebook page confirmed the pattern was common across the city, but many said the "car radius" could be extended much further.
"The closest McDonald's is 15km from my town and I still find their rubbish littered out the front of my house," Ryan McCulloch said.
"We live 70km from a McDonald's and still get it," Barbara Kemp said.
One listener suggested a method for tracing those littering from cars.
"Our local carpark has number plate recognition. Can we put that in the drive-throughs and print the rego on the paper bag?"
Mr Forrester said the WRA had conducted a separate study which tracked the sorts of litter found around greenfield housing developments.
It found that tradies' rubbish was the first to appear, followed by packaging from household goods and then wrappers from consumer items.
But one type of litter was constant. "Takeaway food is common right throughout all of those cycles of suburb growth," Mr Forrester said.
"It's a whole-of-community problem. We've got to solve this with builders, developers, government and so forth."
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Environment Pollution
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Resurgence of Ebola Virus
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This Operations Update No. 8 is to notify partners on the current situation in view of the resurgence of Ebola Virus in Biena, Butembo Territory in North Kivu Province and seek further support that will help contain the outbreak before it spreads further. The operation time frame is also to be extended to 30 September 2021, given the minimum surveillance period as per protocols. The first suspected patient was admitted to a health centre in Biena before being referred to the Matanda hospital in Butembo where she eventually died on 3 February. She was the wife of an Ebola survivor. On 7 February 2021, the Minister of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo confirmed the laboratory results and declared an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the territory of Butembo, North Kivu Province. Following this, the DRC RC, with support from IFRC organised strategy meetings to immediately start response activities that would minimise the spread of the disease. A provincial response team from the Ministry of Health, supported by WHO, is already in the field and is working on contact tracing and disinfection of sites. Red Cross teams were activated in four health zones: Musienene, Biena, Butembo and Katwa and engaged in the response to provide services such as infection prevention and control (IPC), community mobilisation and awareness-raising, psychosocial support (PSS) and, if necessary, safe and dignified burials (SDB). Between 7 to 14 February 2021, 2 more confirmed cases were registered out of 180 listed contacts, 129 were followed up with a 72% follow-up rate. Concerns arose on the 19 of February, as the first EVD cases were detected out of a known transmission chain, thus starting a new generation of cases that increases the risk profile and can potentially lead to exponential growth. As of 4 March 2021, the situation is the following: 11 confirmed EVD cases, including 4 deaths, across 6 health areas in 4 health zones: Biena, Katwa, Butembo and Musienene. Two health workers among confirmed cases; 57% case fatality rate. 856 people vaccinated; only 36% of cases were among people who had been listed as contacts and benefited from vaccination, demonstrating critical gaps in surveillance; average time to have people isolated after first symptoms is five days. 10 patients transferred, 9 to various local hospitals and 1 case to an Ebola treatment centre (ETC), by DRC Red Cross rapid response teams (RRT). In the three-week period 7-28 February, DRC RC teams were activated in the four health zones: Musienene, Biena, Butembo and Katwa where more than 245 Red Cross volunteers of the DRC Red Cross, with the support of the IFRC, have undertaken the following activities: Community engagement and accountability (CEA) activities - 92 volunteers were mobilized, who sensitized a total of 2,574 people in Biena, Musienene, Butembo and Katwa. To reinforce DRC Red Cross capacities, 24 new volunteers were mobilized in Biena for CEA, and for preparedness, 80 new volunteers were mobilized in Kalunguta, Beni and Mabalako. Trainings of volunteers in safe and dignified burials (SDB) in Biena and Musienene. The rapid response teams are active in Butembo and Katwa. Infection prevention and control (IPC) assessments took place in Biena, Katwa and Butembo, with the Ministry of Health; and evaluation of 10 health facilities was undertaken in the Biena health zone, with the revival of hygiene committees in the health facilities. Psychosocial support (PSS) - meetings took place with traditional leaders in Biena and Musienene to assess psychosocial support needs in communities. Moving forward, the DRC Red Cross and IFRC will continue to provide support in the affected areas in the following key pillars: Community engagement and accountability activities Safe and dignified burials and safe patient transfers Infection prevention and control, including assessments of health facilities Psychosocial support – assessment of needs and provision of psychosocial support Strengthening the capacities of DRC Red Cross volunteers and mobilization of Rapid Response Teams For the past two and a half years, the DRC Red Cross, with the support of the IFRC, has built strong capacities in EVD preparedness and response; it has the structures, staff, volunteers, expertise, and logistics in place. The area of resurgence of cases is an area of armed conflict, and the DRC Red Cross is one of the few organisations with access to the area with the support of Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners, including the ICRC. The Red Cross is therefore uniquely placed to respond to the latest resurgence of cases and to play a critical role in this latest public health emergency. The DRC RC will shift the focus from preparedness and recovery to response, under the framework of this Emergency Appeal. Unfortunately, due to the funding shortfall in this operation, the IFRC is not in a position to maintain sustained support to DRC RC to continue the response to this resurgence beyond March 2021. An allocation from the IFRC Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) is being sought to maintain operation ongoing for the coming weeks, while fundraising efforts are ongoing, seeking for CHF9.2 million to continue the operation until September 2021.
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Disease Outbreaks
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Makeshift gold mine collapse kills at least 12 miners in DRC
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A dozen clandestine miners have died when a makeshift gold mine collapsed in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN radio Okapi reported. The accident took place around midday Saturday near Bondo in Lower Uele province, the report quoted regional deputy Eddy Pascal Sinango as saying. It was the latest in a series of mine accidents that have killed around 50 people so far this year, Okapi added, quoting local Radio Tele Uele (RTU). "Seventeen people entered a gold shaft in a quarry that was closed by mine officials since last January," Okapi said in reference to the latest disaster on Monday. Landslide-prone area A landslide killed 10 immediately, while six others were injured, two of whom died after being taken to hospital, it added. Okapi quoted RTU as saying that a similar accident occurred later Saturday around 55 kilometres (35 miles) from Bondo. One miner died in that accident after he returned into a shaft to retrieve his pump after it began to rain. RTU said that around 20 landslides have occurred in the area since January.
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Mine Collapses
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Santon crash: Suspended sentence for man who caused girlfriend's death
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A man whose girlfriend died after he lost control of his car and crashed head-on into a van has been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence. Jay Waters, 22, was convicted of causing death by careless driving in August following the crash on 25 October 2019. Nineteen-year-old Katie Robley died in hospital the following morning. Deemster Graeme Cook said Waters would have to live with the "tragic" results "for the rest of your life". Victim impact statements from Ms Robley's parents were read out at the sentencing hearing at Douglas Courthouse. Her father Anthony Robley said his daughter's death had "torn my soul in half" and he would now never get the chance to "walk her down the aisle". Ms Robley's mother, Rebecca Taylor, said the couple were in a "loving relationship" and Waters would "never have deliberately" put her daughter in harm's way. Addressing the Deemster after the prepared statements were read out, Ms Taylor said: "Please do not send Jay to prison because we have all been through enough." Waters was convicted of causing Ms Robley's death and causing serious injury to the van driver after a week-long trial. The couple had been returning to her sister's home in Ballasalla after a night out in Douglas when the crash happened on A5 New Castletown Road in Santon at about 22:30 BST. Expert evidence suggested he had lost control of the car after clipping a kerb on a bend near the Santon Motel, before spinning into the path of an oncoming Ford Transit van. Suspending the sentence for two years, Deemster Cook said: "Nothing I say or do will bring Miss Robley back. You know that, and you will have to live with that for the rest of your life." Waters was also ordered to pay £4,000 in court costs.
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Famous Person - Commit Crime - Sentence
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2015 Nadia riots
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Nadia riots was a communal riot [1] that occurred in Kaliganj block, Nadia district of West Bengal during 5 May 2015. 4 people were killed and 8 injured . [2][3][4] Mainstream media and local politicians didn't condemn the incidents as the victims were from Scheduled Caste Hindus and accused are Muslims. [5] Nadia has seen communal tensions in the past. [6]
Clash started when a Hindu procession, which was returning from Dharmaraj Mela at Jamalpur in Purbasthali, was attacked while passing by a mosque in Juranpur village. [7] Firing and hurling of petrol bombs were reported. The attackers were well prepared and managed to source weapons and explosives quickly. [8]
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Riot
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Two deny causing death of man and leaving woman with severe burns in Dubai gas explosion
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Kaniz Abu Bakar with her husband Muheeb Shaikh before the explosion. She was badly injured in the blast. Courtesy Muheeb Shaikh Two men have denied causing the death of a man and the 100 per cent disability of a young Indian woman in a Dubai gas explosion.
They also denied causing Dh524,000 worth of damage to a building following the 2019 blast in Al Mankhool.
Hundreds of residents had to leave the residential block after the September 28 explosion.
An Egyptian manager of operations, 33, and a Pakistani technician, 34, on Monday also denied additional charges of risking people’s lives at Dubai Court of Misdemeanours.
A third Indian defendant, 32, has been at large since the incident.
Prosecutors said the men failed to take precautions when attending to a gas blockage at apartment 607.
While trying to fix the problem, they allegedly caused a gas leak that led to the blast.
The apartment tenant, Kaniz Abu Bakar, 37, sustained severe burns to more than 70 per cent of her body and was left with a 100 per cent disability. Her flat door struck an Indian neighbour in the head and killed him, the court heard.
The Pakistani defendant, who was with Ms Abu Bakar in the kitchen, suffered burns to about 30 per cent of his body which doctors estimated as 15 per cent permanent disability.
Judges were told six flats were damaged as a result of the explosion.
“They violated safety regulations of their profession which requires them to take all precautions including making sure the flat is empty of people during their work,” prosecutors told the court.
An investigation revealed the technicians didn’t use a gas detector, despite having one in their car, the court was told.
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Gas explosion
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Hawaii has ‘best seat in the house’ to view total lunar eclipse combined with supermoon
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The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show. This super “blood” moon will be visible Wednesday across the Pacific — offering the best viewing — as well as the western half of North America, bottom of South America and eastern Asia. According to NASA , visibility of the total phase in the contiguous U.S. is at 1:11 a.m. HST. Get news on the go with KHON 2GO , KHON’s morning podcast, every morning at 8 Better look quick: The total eclipse will last about 15 minutes as Earth passes directly between the moon and the sun. But the entire show will last five hours, as Earth’s shadow gradually covers the moon, then starts to ebb. The reddish-orange color is the result of all the sunrises and sunsets in Earth’s atmosphere projected onto the surface of the eclipsed moon. “Hawaii has the best seat in the house and then short of that will be California and the Pacific Northwest,” said NASA’s Noah Petro, project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. New Zealand and Australia also will have prime viewing. The eclipse is set to begin May 25 at 10:46 p.m. HST, with the Moon entering the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow at 11:45 p.m. Part of it will remain in the umbra until 2:53 a.m. To catch totality – the period when all of the Moon’s surface is blanketed by the Earth’s dark shadow – look up between 1:11 a.m. and 1:26 a.m. Circling the moon for 12 years, the orbiter will measure temperatures changes on the lunar surface during the eclipse. Telescopes atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea also will monitor the moon, Petro said. The moon will be setting and the sun rising along the U.S. East Coast, leaving skygazers — Petro in Virginia included — pretty much out of luck. Europe, Africa and western Asia will miss everything. There will be livestreams available. Everyone everywhere, though, can still soak in the brighter than usual moon, weather permitting. The moon will be more than 220,000 miles (357,460 kilometers) away at its fullest. It’s this proximity, combined with a full moon, that qualifies it as a supermoon, making it appear slightly bigger and more brilliant in the sky. Last month’s supermoon, by contrast, was 96 miles (155 kilometers) more distant. Unlike a solar eclipse, there’s no harm in looking at an eclipsed moon. More lunar shows are on the horizon. “For people who might feel like we’re missing out, set your calendars for Nov. 19 of this year,” Petro said. This will be a nearly total eclipse where the moon dims but doesn’t turn red.
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New wonders in nature
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1996 New Hampshire Learjet crash
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The 1996 New Hampshire Learjet crash involved a Learjet 35A which disappeared on Christmas Eve 1996 near Dorchester, New Hampshire, in the United States. The crash led to the longest missing aircraft search in the state's history, lasting almost three years. [1] Media attention eventually resulted in Congressional legislation mandating improved Emergency locator transmitters (ELT) be installed in U.S.-registered business jets. [2]
The aircraft involved, registration N388LS, was operated by the Aircraft Charter Group and flown by pilots Johan Schwartz and Patrick Hayes for a repositioning flight to Lebanon, New Hampshire. They left Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Bridgeport, Connecticut at 09:19am and 25 minutes later were flying the approach into Lebanon Municipal Airport. After one attempt at the ILS approach, the crew reported that they were unable to receive the localizer, when they were actually several miles off course. They presumed ground equipment failure, and the pilot told the tower that he was executing a missed approach. The aircraft's last radar contact was as it proceeded outbound, seven nautical miles (13 km) northeast of the VOR, at 4,800 ft (1,500 m). [3] As the business jet neared the inbound course to the VOR, the captain called out the outer marker. The first officer agreed, and the captain stated that they could descend to 2,300 feet. Shortly thereafter, the first officer stated that he was descending the aircraft to 2,300 feet. Three seconds later, the Learjet impacted trees, then terrain. The wreckage was located at an altitude of 2,300 feet, on rising mountainous terrain, 061 degrees magnetic, 12.5 nautical miles from the VOR. It was raining and foggy at the time. Searches were mounted, unsuccessfully. The wreckage was found near Smarts Mountain almost three years later, on November 13, 1999, about 20 miles (32 km) from the airport. Debris was spread over a 150-yard (140 m) area in dense forest. The aircraft had descended into the ground 10.3 nautical miles (19.1 km) earlier than normal. The cause of the accident was listed as:
The captain's failure to maintain situational awareness, which resulted in the airplane being outside the confines of the instrument approach; and the crew's misinterpretation of a step-down fix passage, which resulted in an early descent into rising terrain. Factors included the captain's misreading of the instrument approach procedure, the crew's rushed and incomplete instrument approach briefing, their failure to use additional, available navigational aids, and their failure to account for the winds at altitude. [4]
The crashed aircraft had no Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) on board, as that class of aircraft when used for FAR Part 135 charter operations, was exempt from the Federal requirements for this type of beacon. As a result, Congress directed the FAA to require the installation of 406 MHz ELTs in all business jets (replacing the 121.5 MHz units installed in some). [5]
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Air crash
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Canceled last year, Dillsburg Farmers Fair returns in October
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/ Updated: Sep 23, 2021 / 03:21 PM EDT YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — The big banner is up in the center square in Dillsburg, announcing this year’s Farmers Fair. It runs from Oct. 11 to the 16. “I think people are so excited to see that Farmers Fair is happening this year because we did miss it last year,” Annie Cooke said. She’s in charge of the Fantastic Parade, the big event that closes the fair Saturday night. Dillsburg Farmers Fair returns in 2021 “Having a year off was disappointing,” adds Al Kauffman, the parade association Vice President, “But it’s nice getting back into the saddle.” They had to cancel last year due to Covid, and organizers of the Fair say they’re still being rattled by the aftershocks. In addition to being Vice President, Al Kauffman is chair of the association’s vendor committee. “I’m going to have some open spots this year,” he said. “The way our fair works is the spots are reserved for local community organizations, and the organizations have the option of operating the space themselves or subletting to a commercial vendor. We have vendors that have gone out of business because of covid, and I’m having issues finding vendors that are available who are willing or able to come in and work the event.” They are also having trouble selling tickets for the bleachers they set up for the Fantastic Parade. Apparently, people are reluctant to sit close together. In spite of these bumps in the road, though, there are lots of signs that things are on the rebound, especially after the association’s most recent meeting. List: Upcoming 2021 fall fairs in Central Pa. “The tractor committee, the antique cars, the street rods, they all gave reports things are moving forward, pre-registered vehicles, it looks like they’re going to have a good show,” Kauffman said. “Especially during the day, the daytime activities, we’ll find a lot of people out. People are anxious to get out and get back to our community event.” “Registrations are starting to come in for the parade,” Cooke said. “We have lots of entertainment coming.” The thing most needed, in times good or bad-volunteers. Kauffman says a lack of volunteers for the community organizations is one of the reasons there will be empty vendor spaces this year. Lancaster County fall fair season kicks off with Elizabethtown Fair “Some of them operate the space themselves, but a lot of them have gone to the point where they use commercial vendors because they’re having the same issue as everybody else, finding volunteers willing to work.” Cooke says they can always use more volunteers, especially the night of the Fantastic Parade. “It takes a lot of volunteers to help with registration that evening, so people will come in, that’s when we do our lineups, get lined up after registration, and step-off time for the parade is 7:30 p.m.” Farm equipment vandalized in broad daylight at Dillsburg Farmers Fair Fair officials say 2021 will be good, and 2022 will be even better. “I’ve already made contact with some vendors,” Kauffman said. “Who are willing and want to come but are not available this year. It is what it is for this year, we’ll take what we get and make the best of it, and next year work to make it even better.” “I know people are coming from as far as Colorado for Farmers Fair,” Cooke said. “Farmers Fair is kind of in our blood. The town of Dillsburg, a time for us to celebrate their farming heritage, have family reunions and class reunions, and it’s just real good to get together.”
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Organization Closed
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1978 Thessaloniki earthquake
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The 1978 Thessaloniki earthquake (Greek: Μεγάλος Σεισμός της Θεσσαλονίκης) occurred on 20 June at 23:03 local time. The shock registered 6.5 on the moment magnitude scale, had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), and was felt throughout northern Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. It was the largest event in the area since the 1932 Ierissos earthquake. [4]
It was the first earthquake that hit a big city in Greece. It is estimated that 49 people died, 37 of which were living in the same block of flats in the city center that collapsed. More than 220 people were injured and many thousands were left homeless. 3170 buildings (4.5%) were found to have severe damages (red label), 13918 buildings (21.0%) had moderate damages (yellow label), and 49071 buildings (74.5%) were found to have no damages (green label), as per the assessment of the Greek authorities. There have also been some recorded damages in archaeological monuments like the Arch of Galerius and Rotunda and the Church of the Acheiropoietos.
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Earthquakes
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Talk of mergers, acquisitions more common among cash-strapped Calgary non-profits
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Mergers and acquisitions are terms typically reserved for big business deals, but lately they've been popping up in conversations within Calgary's non-profit sector as it looks for ways to adapt to current economic challenges. This summer, Aspen Family and Community Network merged with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Calgary. Jeff Dyer, the CEO of the new organization who previously headed the Boys and Girls Club, says the idea was born out of necessity. "We took a serious look at the Alberta economy and knew that it was going to put major pressure on our core funders and our donors, and so we either needed to prepare for major cuts or dream big and merge," said Dyer. While the deal is the largest merger of non-profits in western Canada, there are smaller partnerships and potential mergers and acquisitions percolating, according to the Calgary Chamber of Volunteer Organizations. "The question that non-profits are asking each other and that funders are asking of them is: is there a duplication of services? Is there a better way to provide services for the people that we serve? How are we going to do that? So we are seeing some interesting innovations come out of those kinds of questions," said Karen Ball, interim CEO of the chamber. Whether it's a merger, acquisition, or new partnerships on service delivery, Ball says it's a good time to explore these ideas. She says although the chamber has not gathered Alberta data, national data indicates one-in-five non-profits are at risk of closing their doors due to the impacts of the pandemic. "We are, as a sector, now heading into an environment where we are going to be having to examine this more closely and look at what it means," said Ball. Dyer says in the case of the merger between Aspen and the Boys and Girls Club, each group realized they were often serving the same families in different ways. He says a lot of times, if the Boys and Girls Club was working with elementary or junior high students, Aspen was working with their parents. Dyer says joining forces meant they could save money by eliminating redundancies and then put that money into frontline services. "You don't need two offices, two finance departments, two of anything, really," said Dyer. In the case of the Boys and Girls Clubs merger, the CEO of Aspen Family and Community network retired, leaving Dyer at the helm of the newly formed organization. Still, Dyer says it's not an easy transition for either organization — especially in a sector unfamiliar with coming together. "Merging is hard. There's a lot of egos involved. It takes a lot of work. Most not-for-profit leaders are just worried about the people they serve. And they don't have a ton of time to be thinking about transformational business change, which ultimately is what a merger is." The head of Leftovers Foundation, which distributes food from restaurants, stores and bakeries to different service agencies, says COVID quickly forced her to reach out to other agencies to find ways to help their clients. "We were talking every day with each other to try to facilitate these large donations so that nothing went to waste," said Lourdes Juan. She says it's the first time in eight years she's had brainstorming meetings with other food serving agencies and those who serve Calgary's vulnerable population. She also ended up sharing warehouse space with another group. Now she says she'd be open to merging with another non-profit if they were aligned with her organization's values and mission. "If we can have more impact working together than we can in silos, which we are now realizing, it's just going to be better off for the community at the end of the day," said Juan. Dyer says in his case the merger is already proving successful. "The big difference is that those services haven't gone away. We would have had to cut frontline services in our community just to continue to operate, and we haven't had to do anything. In fact, we've grown. So that's the real testament. " Ball says mergers require time, expertise and money, and they are not always successful, so she advises non-profits to be clear on their motive to ensure a high level of success. "When you're asking the question, is this going to save our organization, then that might not be the right space to explore a merger," said Ball. She says it should be about whether a merger would be the best way to serve the targeted community. Ball says there are other ways an organization can ensure survival at this time, whether it be through a partnership in service delivery or by focusing on priority services and letting other things go. Alberta currently has about 26,000 nonprofit groups, including charities, which employ about 450,000 people, including full time and part time workers.
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Organization Merge
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Ukraine conducts international military excercise amid tensions with Russia
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Ukraine's relations with Russia has been on the downhill ever since the Russian military annexed Crimea in 2014. The Rapid Trident military exercise which involves 15 countries comes after Russia and Belarus conducted their military drill. The "Rapid Trident" military international military drills continued in Ukraine with fifteen countries gathered for the joint exercises. One of the first drills included the simulation of the liberation of a captured town from hybrid extremist groups. The joint multinational unit of the armed forces of Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland are involved in the exercise with over 6,000 servicemen including around 150 representatives from the US armed forces taking part in the drills. Also Read: US engaged in new cold war with rivals China and Russia, say most Europeans in poll Ukraine which is at war with Russia-backed separatists since 2014 began hosting the joint military exercises with the US and other NATO troops on Monday. Ukraine has been seeking integration with NATO in order to thwart Russia's military power on its border. The relations between Ukraine and Russia have been on the edge since 2014 when the Russian military annexed Crimea. Also Read: Russian military spotted near Ukraine border after US warning The drills are set to last until October 1. The US said the exercise was meant to "enhance interoperability among allied and partner nations". Also Read: Putin to review Russian military might as tensions with West soar The exercise comes after Russia staged a drill near EU borders of Russia and Belarus recently which Moscow said involved at least 200,000 troops even as nearly 20 Russian warships began large-scale live-fire exercises in the Black Sea on Monday. The drills have become a major point of friction between Ukraine and Russia as Moscow gathered thousands of troops on Ukraine's border in April as tensions escalated in the region. Putin's regime however pulled back troops later.
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Military Exercise
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Robbers in Brazil stage brazen bank raids, taking hostages; at least 3 dead
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Armed robbers hit several banks in a small Brazilian city on Monday, using locals as human shields, leaving a trail of explosive devices and shooting at police in an assault that killed at least three people, a senior state security official said. The brazen attack around midnight in Araçatuba, a city of roughly 200,000 people in the interior of Sao Paulo state, is the latest in a series of increasingly violent recent bank heists in Brazil. Experts believe a COVID-19 pandemic welfare program for poorer Brazilians has encouraged robbers to plan bold raids in sleepy regional cities where bank branches are storing more cash. More than 20 heavily armed men carried out the attack, using 10 cars, Alvaro Camilo, the executive secretary of Sao Paulo's military police, said at a news conference. As the criminals made their getaway, they used locals as human shields, and burned cars, while leaving a trail of explosive booby traps across the city, the military police said in a statement. The attackers used drones to monitor the streets as they entered the city, hit the banks, and made their getaway, the statement said. Camilo urged people not to leave their houses until the explosives have been found and deactivated. There were two separate firefights with police, and three people died, Camilo said. Two of the fatalities were local residents, while one of the alleged assailants was also killed. The statement said two attackers had been arrested. One passerby who was injured by an explosion had his leg amputated, it added. There were more than 350 police in the city, using two helicopters to track down the attackers, Camilo said. He added that a Banco do Brasil SA (BBAS3.SA) branch in Araçatuba was a repository to store cash - something state officials were not aware of. Late last December, there were two similar bank raids on consecutive days in the cities of Cametá and Criciúma, targeting Banco do Brasil branches in both cases. Camilo said it was to early to tell where the most recent raid was related to other recent attacks. Brazil has a long history of bank heists, and major lenders have struggled with a wave of violent robberies in recent years. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Subscribe for our daily curated newsletter to receive the latest exclusive Reuters coverage delivered to your inbox. A war of words fought in the media and rife with espionage - double agents, wire taps and hidden cameras - is raging in Cuba ahead of protests planned for Nov. 15, setting up a showdown between the government and a dissident movement that says its most potent weapon is the cellphone. The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it has been meeting this week in Washington with a delegation from El Salvador, for annual talks which the Fund said could "underpin" discussions about a new lending program.
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Bank Robbery
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2001 Grozny Mi-8 crash
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The 2001 Grozny Mil Mi-8 crash in Chechnya killed 13 Russian military personnel, mostly senior military officers including two generals. On September 17, 2001, a surface-to-air missile fired by a special Chechen group targeting Russian commanders downed a VIP Mil Mi-8 helicopter over Grozny, killing Major-General Anatoly Pozdnyakov, member of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Major-General Pavel Varfolomeyev, deputy director of staff of the Ministry of Defence of Russia, eight Colonels (Igor Abramov, Igor Khakhalkin, Yuri Makhov, Vladimir Smolennikov, Sergei Toryanik, Nikolai Lyubimsky, Igor Tribuntsov and Vladimir Talayev), and three crewmembers. [1]
In 2005, four members of a group called "Ichkeria defense" were sentenced for the downing of the aircraft. [2][3]
According to an alternative version, described by Anna Politkovskaya, the helicopter was downed by corrupt Russian forces. [4]
According to Politkovskaya:
The city was sealed off after a series of strange events there. Controls were so tight you couldn't even move between different districts within the city, let alone make your way out of Grozny on foot. On that day, 17 September, a helicopter carrying a commission, headed by Major-General Anatoly Pozdnyakov, from the General Staff in Moscow was shot down directly over the city. The general was engaged in work quite unprecedented for a soldier in Chechnya. Only an hour before the helicopter was shot down, he told me the task of his commission was to gather data on crimes committed by the military, analyse their findings, put them in some order and then submit the information for the president's consideration. Nothing of the kind had been done before. The helicopter in which they were flying out of Grozny was shot down almost exactly over the city centre. All the members of the commission perished, and since they were already on their way to Khankala airbase to take a plane back to Moscow, so did all the material they had collected. [5]
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Air crash
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Policies on student loans and for-profit colleges
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President Joe Biden is under pressure from the left to cancel large swaths of outstanding federal student loan debt. Miguel Cardona said he wanted Federal Student Aid to “renew its focus on streamlining access to and management of federal financial aid, easing the burden of student debt and carefully stewarding taxpayer dollars.” | Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP 03/15/2021 05:28 PM EDT Progressive activists are frustrated that President Joe Biden is not moving more quickly to scrap Trump-era Education Department policies on student loans and for-profit colleges, and they’re pressing his administration to be more aggressive. Biden is under pressure from the left to cancel large swaths of outstanding federal student loan debt, a high-profile fight expected to blow up in the coming months. The new president has rejected the most far-reaching proposals, such as writing off $50,000 per borrower, but the White House has said it’s reviewing how to proceed on the issue. In the meantime, progressives are escalating a more under-the-radar battle over how the Biden administration is managing the day-to-day operations of the federal government’s $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio and regulating student loan companies and for-profit education firms. “New leadership in the White House and the Department of Education means there is an ample opportunity to transform and reinvigorate” the Office of Federal Student Aid, a coalition of groups wrote in a letter being sent to newly confirmed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on Monday. “To do so, DeVos appointees at FSA must be replaced by strong advocates of student borrowers’ interests.” The progressive groups, led by Demand Progress Education Fund and the Revolving Door Project, outlines a range of concerns with who has been selected, or might be selected, for key roles overseeing student loans and investigations into colleges. Justice Democrats, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Our Revolution, a group tied to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are among the groups signing on to the letter, which was shared with POLITICO. Progressives are raising a slew of issues: They view some key Education Department officials as insufficiently aggressive or too tied to corporate interests. The Biden administration has continued to defend DeVos-era policies on student loans and for-profit colleges in court. And the Education Department hasn’t yet taken steps to undo Trump administration restrictions on the amount of loan forgiveness for defrauded borrowers or rescind a legal opinion shielding student loan companies from state regulators. Mark Brown, the DeVos appointee who had been serving as top student aid official, resigned earlier this month with more than a year left on his term, following weeks of pressure from consumer and labor groups as well as Warren. Brown’s departure clears the path for the Biden administration to appoint a new student aid chief. By MICHAEL STRATFORD Cardona immediately tapped Robin Minor, a longtime career official, to serve as the acting student aid chief. But progressive groups said that the appointment of Minor was disappointing. They said Minor, who is the office’s chief compliance officer, oversaw problems with student loan forgiveness claims and loan servicing in ways that went “against the interest of student borrowers.” The progressive groups also criticized the administration for keeping Lisa Bureau, who reports to Minor and as the student aid office’s director of investigations, taking issue with her previous work at a law firm representing colleges dealing with Education Department regulatory issues. Cardona said in a statement following Brown’s resignation that he wanted Federal Student Aid to “renew its focus on streamlining access to and management of federal financial aid, easing the burden of student debt and carefully stewarding taxpayer dollars.” The Biden administration is searching for a permanent student aid chief, who is appointed by the education secretary for a several-year term and not subject to Senate confirmation. The job was once a relatively obscure government management post, but it has become increasingly politically contentious in recent years. And the political jockeying over the next chief has already begun. Progressives are targeting a potential candidate for the job, Abigail Seldin, over her work for Education Credit Management Corporation, a widely-criticized student loan collection company that has also purchased troubled for-profit college campuses in a sale brokered by the Obama administration. Seldin developed a college cost calculator that she sold to ECMC and became the firm’s vice president of innovation and product management. She now runs a charitable foundation focused on higher education equity and has discussed the job with Biden administration officials, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Proponents of Seldin for the role say the criticism is unfair and that her work at ECMC was unrelated to its student loan business. She most recently funded an online tool to help college students petition their institutions for additional financial aid. Beyond the personnel moves, the Biden Education Department’s positions in court on higher education issues have also drawn the ire of some liberals. Last month, the Biden administration jointly filed a motion with DeVos’ personal attorney to fend off an attempt to compel the former secretary to testify in a class-action lawsuit over the Trump administration’s lengthy delays and sweeping denials of student loan forgiveness claims . The court filing , which was submitted by a Biden administration political appointee, said that the borrowers suing for loan relief had engaged in “harassment” and a “PR campaign.” By MICHAEL STRATFORD The Biden administration is also still defending lawsuits brought by Democratic attorneys general and other groups related to DeVos’ rollback of a rules aimed at cutting off federal funding to low-performing programs at for-profit colleges and other career schools and making it easier for students defrauded by their college to have their debts canceled. And the Education Department hasn’t yet heeded calls from Democratic state officials to rescind DeVos-era policies, sought by the student loan industry , that declared federal student loan servicers off limits to state regulators and restricted investigators’ access to information about the companies. “They should be moving faster — I know they just got a secretary but there’s so much that doesn’t rise to that level that they could be doing,” said Toby Merrill, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which frequently sued the Education Department under the Trump administration, including several cases over a student loan forgiveness program for defrauded students known as borrower defense. Merrill said she’s sympathetic to the decimation of staff at the department over the past four years and recognizes the slow pace of government rule-making. But she said that she would hope the department would change its approach to how it handles individual claims for loan forgiveness, for example, which wouldn’t need a new regulation. “It’s unbelievably outrageous that a whole list of policies and easy-to-change positions persist,” she said. Merrill’s group has urged the department to completely erase the debts owed by former students of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech, two massive for-profit colleges that collapsed during the Obama administration. “We’ve got to push from the get-go because we don’t have time to wait for the new administration to do the right thing,” she said. Education Department spokesperson Kelly Leon said the administration is focused on assisting student loan borrowers. "Helping students access federal aid and protecting student borrowers are critical parts of the Department’s mission and ones the Department takes seriously," Leon said in a statement. "The agency will continue looking for ways to best fulfill these priorities." The complaints from the left of the Biden administration’s early handling of student loan issues stands out because progressives have largely praised much of Biden’s approach over the past several months, including his passage of the sweeping $1.9 trillion Covid relief law. But it also comes as the Education Department’s student aid office braces for a series of major tasks in the coming months — even before any new administration policy prerogatives. The unit will be in charge of hammering out new contracts with loan servicing companies to collect federal student loan payments. It will be tasked with a Congressionally-ordered major overhaul and redesign of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And more immediately, the office will be responsible for managing the unprecedented restart of monthly loan payments for some 40 million Americans who are benefiting from pandemic relief that Biden has extended until Sept. 30.
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Financial Aid
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1897 Yellow River flood
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The 1897 Yellow River flood was a major natural disaster during the late Qing dynasty in China. After millennia of meandering north and south of the Shandong peninsula, the 1897 flood resulted in the course of the Yellow River generally followed to this day. [citation needed]
This article related to the history of China is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This article about a flood is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Floods
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Four killed after Migori gold mine collapses
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• By Thursday morning there was fear that more miners might be still trapped in the debris as search and rescue operations continue. • Area chief, David Oulo said the miners were prospecting gold in the area known for its rich mineral deposits when the mine collapsed, burying them alive. Four gold miners have died after the Osiri mines collapsed in Migori County. Fifteen others are nursing injuries in several hospitals with six of them in critical condition. The tragedy happened Wednesday evening at the gold mines in Nyatike subcounty. By Thursday morning there was fear that more miners might be still trapped in the debris as search and rescue operations continue. Area chief, David Oulo said the miners were prospecting gold in the area known for its rich mineral deposits when the mine collapsed, burying them alive. “Three bodies were badly mutilated after being crushed, the other suffocated to death when he was cornered in a tight spot. The others were treated at Macalder hospital. The others were rushed to the referral hospital,” Oulo said. According to the administrator, more people are still trapped in the debris although they were yet to establish the exact number. “There are conflicting reports on the exact number of the miners who were working here, some say they were 40 while others claim they were only 15, we are still tallying the number,” he said.
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Mine Collapses
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TWA Flight 541 crash
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TWA Flight 541 was a domestic passenger flight hijacked in the United States by Robin Oswald in an attempt to free Garrett Brock Trapnell, who was a prisoner at the United States Penitentiary, Marion (USP Marion). [1] The hijacking was successfully resolved when a Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) negotiating team had her release the passengers and then surrender. [2]
On January 29, 1972, Garrett B. Trapnell hijacked a TWA plane flying from Los Angeles to New York. He demanded $306,800 (equivalent to $1,898,157 in 2020), the release of the imprisoned Angela Davis and a conversation with President Nixon. [3] The hijacking was resolved when Trapnell was disarmed after being shot by an F.B.I. agent who pretended to be a negotiator. [3]
On May 24, 1978, Trapnell's friend, 43-year-old Barbara Ann Oswald, a US Army staff sergeant on leave, hijacked a Saint Louis based charter helicopter and forced the pilot to land in the yard at United States Penitentiary, Marion. While landing the aircraft, the pilot, Vietnam War veteran Allen Barklage, struggled with Oswald and managed to wrestle the gun away from her. Barklage then shot and killed Oswald, thwarting the escape. [1]
On December 21, 1978 Robin Oswald, the 17-year-old daughter of Barbara Annette Oswald, hijacked TWA Flight 541 and demanded Trapnell be freed or she would detonate dynamite strapped to her body. She was remembered by the hostages aboard the flight as a "beautiful" but serious girl, never showing alarm at her actions. [4]
FBI negotiators were able to free the hostages and have Oswald surrender with no injuries or deaths. The bomb that was strapped to her chest later emerged to be railroad flares wired to what appeared to be a doorbell. [5] Robin Oswald was charged as a juvenile with charges not being announced as is the law in Illinois. [6]
Garrett B. Trapnell died in prison, in 1993, of emphysema. [3]
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Air crash
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Britain's "Love Of France Is Ineradicable": UK PM Amid Security Pact Row
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday played down the diplomatic rift with Paris over a new security pact with Australia and the US, saying his country's "love of France is ineradicable".
Speaking to journalists as he flew to New York, Johnson insisted Britain and France have a "very friendly relationship", which he described as being of "huge importance".
The security agreement, and Australia's related decision to tear up a multibillion-dollar deal for French submarines in favour of American nuclear-powered vessels, has sparked outrage in Paris, with President Emmanuel Macron recalling France's ambassadors to Canberra and Washington in an unprecedented move.
French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said over the weekend that Britain was a "third wheel" in the affair, and accused London of "constant opportunism".
France has cancelled a meeting set for this week between its Defence Minister Florence Parly and her British counterpart Ben Wallace, a source at her ministry told AFP Sunday.
But on the plane Johnson downplayed France's concerns.
He said the pact, dubbed AUKUS, was "not in any way meant to be zero-sum, it's not meant to be exclusionary".
"It's not something that anybody needs to worry about and particularly not our French friends," he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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Tear Up Agreement
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U.S. economy has grown bigger — and weaker — since 9/11
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Analysis: GDP figures show attempts to revive business investment have not got off to a flying start Last modified on Thu 12 Aug 2021 18.25 BST If Rishi Sunak hoped his massive tax giveaway in the spring budget to spur business investment would have quick results, the figures for the UK’s national income (GDP) in the second quarter will have proved to be a disappointment. The amount businesses spent on new kit for the office and machinery for the factory inched higher by 2.4%, but the rise left overall spending on investment 15.3% below pre-pandemic levels. A lack of business investment was Britain’s achilles heel after the 2008 financial crash, when most of the nation’s growth relied on consumers spending every penny they earned and more. The uncertainty created by the EU referendum and more than four years of debate about how – or even whether – to leave the trade bloc prolonged the agony. In the budget, the chancellor told businesses they would get £1.30 off their tax bills for every £1 spent over the next two years if the money was dedicated to buying new stuff. It seems that a general nervousness about the future means this particular policy has not got off to a flying start. The manufacturing industry nudged forward in June, though it registered only a 0.2% increase to leave factories 2.3% short of pre-pandemic levels of output. Construction firms went backwards for the third consecutive month and, most worrying of all, Britain’s trade with the rest of the world suffered a setback. This left the services industry to generate much of the 1% increase in GDP during June and 4.8% boost to GDP over the second quarter. Increases in advertising, eating out and a degree of normality in the health service, which began to open up to the public for non-Covid-19 consultations after more than a year of restrictions, helped to lift the services sector, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Worries about the ability of manufacturers and construction firms to produce stronger levels of output as the year rolls on are most likely misplaced. They are both experiencing shortages of materials and skilled staff that are likely to ease over the next few months, even if the struggle to replace eastern European workers in the construction industry persists for many years to come. However, almost a third of the UK’s GDP is linked to trade and that is suffering badly, with little clarity over when and how it will fully recover. The level of GDP remains 4.4% below pre-pandemic levels, and to recover without the age-old reliance on consumer spending, exports need to rocket. According to the ONS, while imports and exports of goods to the EU in May and June were above levels recorded at the end of last year, showing a recovery from leaving the single market and customs union, the value of goods exports in June was £14bn compared with about £17bn in 2019. Worse, the upwards trend reversed. Total exports fell 1.5% to £48.7bn in June and goods shipments declined 3.6%. Trade with the rest of the world was in an even more parlous state. Goods exports to everywhere outside the EU were consistently £2bn above the level of exports to the EU in 2019. Now they are below EU levels. Brexiters argue that a comparison with the final months of 2020, when the UK was still in the EU customs union, remain valid. But the ONS charts reveal trade dipped in October, November and December 2020 as Boris Johnson wrangled with his own party over how to leave the EU. Unsurprisingly, the biggest increase in trade can be traced from this period. Likewise, comparisons with February 2020 present a false picture. While it might be used more broadly as the benchmark by the ONS to measure the extent of the bounce back in GDP from pre-pandemic levels, trade was already sliding in January and February 2020 as China, South Korea and much of Asia began to shut down their economies. So the pandemic was already compounding Brexit uncertainty in the first two months of last year, to leave trade levels artificially low. Interestingly, in that time France has slipped from being the UK’s fourth largest trading partner to fifth largest behind the Netherlands. According to government figures, in the year to March, trade with France fell by almost a quarter.
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Financial Crisis
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1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash
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The 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash occurred on the Isle of Wight in England on 15 November. With 45 lives lost, at the time it was the second worst aircraft accident within the United Kingdom, then at the time the worst ever air disaster to occur on English soil. [1]
The aircraft, an Aquila Airways Short Solent 3 flying boat named the City of Sydney, registered G-AKNU, departed Southampton Water at 22:46 on a night flight to Las Palmas and Madeira via Lisbon. At 22:54 the crew radioed to report that the number 4 propeller had been feathered (No. 4 engine feathered. Coming back in a hurry. [2] ). During an attempt to return, the Solent crashed into a disused chalk pit adjacent to heavily forested downland. The crash site is on a steep eastern slope of Shalcombe Down, above the small villages of Chessell and Shalcombe. At the time of impact the plane was banked 45 degrees to the right, the same side of the aircraft that had lost all engine power according to the accident report. The aircraft caught fire on impact. However three soldiers on a night-exercise were close by when the crash happened and were on the scene within minutes; they managed to rescue some of the survivors from the burning wreckage, suffering burns as they did so. [3]
Except for the tail, the aircraft was destroyed. Of the 58 on board, 45 were killed and 13 injured. [4] Initially 43 perished, but two more later succumbed to their injuries. [5]
In the days following, the crash-site became a scene of morbid interest and crowds of people came to see it; a police presence was required to keep them at distance. [3]
A public inquiry by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Ministry of Transport[6] concluded that the essential cause remains unknown. [2] The accident was caused by the stoppage of the No.3 engine while the No.4 engine was also stopped. What caused the initial failure of the No.4 engine is unknown. The cause of the subsequent number 3 engine stoppage was either an electrical failure in the fuel cutoff actuator circuit or the accidental operation of the cutoff switch. [1]
The soldiers who rescued crash survivors later received awards for their actions; Major W.J.F. Weller and Lieutenant J.R. Sherbourn were made Members of the Order of the British Empire, Company quartermaster sergeant J.W. Reid, was awarded the British Empire Medal. [7]
Aquila Airways, after operating for 10 years announced in July 1958 it would cease operations, nine months after the crash. [8]
A 50th anniversary memorial service was held in the village of Brook, Isle of Wight on 18 November 2007 to commemorate the lives lost. [9] In October 2008 a permanent memorial was dedicated at Brook's St Mary's Church, about 0.7 miles (1.1 km) due south of the crash site. [5][10]
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Air crash
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Nightclub and backpackers hostel fined for breaching coronavirus rules in Adelaide CBD
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A Victorian man who flew from Brisbane to Hobart on flight VA702 today has tested positive to COVID-19 and has not been allowed to board a flight to Melbourne
A Watch & Act warning is in place for a fire in the northern parts of Mokine, in WA's Northam Shire. Keep up to date with ABC Emergency
A nightclub and a backpackers hostel in Adelaide's CBD have been issued with hefty fines for failing to comply with coronavirus directions over the weekend.
South Australian police checked 111 licensed venues across the Adelaide CBD between Friday and Sunday, with two businesses — a Waymouth Street hostel and Zhivago nightclub on Currie Street — each receiving a $5,060 fine.
In a statement, Zhivago's management said the establishment would be contesting the fine, saying "every endeavour" had been made "to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of all patrons and staff".
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens last week voiced concerns about crowd behaviour in Adelaide's CBD when restrictions on nightclubs were eased.
Police officers carried out checks on COVID-19 compliance in the metro area over the weekend, and said 10 venues were "found not to have COVID Safe Plans in place".
The two businesses that were fined, along with another bar in Topham Mall, were also issued with directions under the Emergency Management Act.
Police released photos from inside the Zhivago nightclub showing the business packed with patrons.
However, the club insists it has operated within the rules as a bar, and will continue to do so until it is given approval to reopen as a nightclub.
It said police had inspected the premises about 11:00pm on Saturday and were "satisfied", before returning and issuing the business with an order to shut.
"Staff on the door urged patrons to hand-sanitise and practise social distancing and density rulings," the club said.
"At no point did we ever exceed the capacity set by our COVID Safe Plan which is listed at 250.
"The photos of the night provided to media by SAPOL do not show bar tables and chairs that were placed on the dancefloor."
Police said the earlier breach at the hostel was discovered when they attended the premises on Waymouth Street on Friday about 8:00pm to conduct a COVID-19 compliance check.
"Upon arrival police identified that the business failed to have a COVID Safe Plan in place and had concerns people were failing to physically distance from each other," police said.
Four people were also identified who had recently arrived from Victoria and who were self-quarantining at that nominated location, police said.
"Officers had concerns over their ability to quarantine from other patrons and engaged SA Health who moved the three men and one woman to a hotel on North Terrace to complete their self-quarantine," police said.
The four people have since been tested for COVID-19 but the results are not yet known.
All other residents were told to seek help if they develop flu-like symptoms and to self-quarantine immediately.
Last week, Commissioner Stevens said large crowds gathering inside and outside venues in the Adelaide CBD had prompted police to change the direction for nightclubs.
He said they would now be restricted from trading until they had an approved COVID-19 management plan.
"We were quite concerned about some of the activities we saw … in some respects there was a total disregard for social distancing," he said.
He said dancing within nightclubs was known to be a high-risk activity for COVID-19 transmission and some venues had failed to protect patrons.
He insisted allowing nightclubs to operate, albeit with a ban on drinking and dancing, was not a mistake.
Last Friday, a Victorian man was charged with breaching self-quarantine directions just hours after entering South Australia.
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Organization Fine
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Bristow Helicopters Flight 56C crash
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Bristow Helicopters Flight 56C was a helicopter flight that flew between Aberdeen and the Brae Alpha oil rig in the North Sea. On 19 January 1995, the AS 332L Super Puma helicopter operating the route, registered G-TIGK and named Cullen, was struck by lightning. The flight was carrying 16 oil workers from Aberdeen to an oil platform at the Brae oilfield. All 18 people on board survived. The commander of the flight was Cedric Roberts (44). He had been with Bristow Helicopters Ltd since 1974. He was a very experienced pilot with more than 9,600 hours of flying time under his belt. The first officer was Lionel Sole (39). Sole had been with Bristow Helicopters Ltd since 1990. He had more than 3,100 hours of flying time to his credit. [3]
En route, the helicopter ran into poor weather and was then struck by lightning. This caused severe damage to the tail rotor. Though the helicopter managed to limp for a few more minutes, the tail rotor eventually failed completely and the pilot was forced to perform an emergency autorotation onto the rough seas. Emergency floaters on the helicopter allowed the passengers and crew to be evacuated onto a life raft. Despite the high waves and bad weather, all the people on board the flight were rescued by the ship Grampian Freedom. The lightning strike was an isolated one in the storm, and may have been induced by the helicopter flying through the cloud. The accident investigation also revealed potential troubles with the composite material with brass strip design of the rotors which made the rotorblades prone to explosion and damage from lightning strikes. The events of Flight 56C were featured in "Helicopter Down", a Season 3 (2005) episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday[4] (called Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the U.S. and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and elsewhere around the world). Other North Sea helicopter incidents:
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Air crash
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Barra do Garças air disaster crash
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The Barra do Garças air disaster was a suicide attack that occurred in Barra do Garças, Mato Grosso, Brazil, on June 1, 1980, when pilot Mauro Milhomem attempted to crash a single-engine aircraft into the Hotel Presidente owned by his mother-in-law, killing six persons and himself and wounding four others. This incident is possibly one of the first cases of suicide by pilot in Brazil. Prior to the crash, Milhomem had an argument with his wife after he determined that she had been unfaithful to him; Milhomem threatened to crash a plane into the hotel owned by his wife's mother. [2]
On June 1, 1980, Milhomem, a pilot for the air taxi service Táxi Aereo Garapu, flew an Embraer EMB Sertanejo-721 single-engine airplane registered as PT-EGI with four passengers inside it to the Hotel Presidente where his wife was residing, and attempted to hit the hotel; he failed to control the aircraft and instead hit a tree, several utility poles, and ultimately a two-story building, and finally crashed into an accounting office. [3][2]
In addition to Milhomem, three people died immediately;[2] another died while being transported to Goiânia, and two more died within the two days following the crash. Four people were injured, two seriously, and were treated in a Barra do Garças hospital. [2]
Initially Aldirio Oliveira Vieira, an official of the Brazilian airport authority Infraero, said that the plane had been flying at a low altitude around the building, struck a utility pole with its right wing rupturing its gasoline tank, hit a second pole, and then crashed into an accounting office. [3] It was later determined that the pilot, Milhomem, had attempted unsuccessfully to execute a kamikaze-style attack on the hotel building which his mother-in-law owned. [2]
Milhomem's wife, Angela Milhomem, allegedly committed suicide a few days after the crash. [4]
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Air crash
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Stouffer's Inn fire
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The Stouffer’s Inn fire occurred on Thursday, December 4, 1980 at the Stouffer’s Inn of Westchester (now the Renaissance Westchester Hotel, part of Renaissance Hotels) in West Harrison, NY. The fire killed 26 people, most through smoke inhalation [1], specifically carbon monoxide,[1] hydrogen cyanide,[1] and nitrogen dioxide. [2] The fire is considered the biggest disaster in Westchester County history. [3]
The fire occurred in a third-story conference area where approximately 95 occupants were attending meetings in several conference rooms. The fire did not involve guest room facilities of the hotel complex. [1]
The fire originated at about 10:13am in an exit access corridor outside of meeting rooms in the three-story fire-resistive, non-sprinklered building which was classified as a place of assembly. In the early stages of the fire, meeting room occupants were faced with rapidly deteriorating, untenable conditions impeding their escape to safety. [1]
Twenty-six of the occupants of the third floor at the time of the fire died and 24 were injured. Five fatalities were found in The Common, with indications that at least two persons died while attempting to escape by means of the locked promenade access doorways. [1]
Four of the five fatalities were occupants of the Disbrow Room A who had attempted to escape through the exit access door located on the west wall of the room leading to The Common. One fatality was an occupant of the Wilson Room who had apparently turned right in The Common upon leaving the Wilson Room with others in that group. [1]
Eight fatalities were located in the North Corridor. Six of the 22 occupants of the Disbrow Room A who attempted to reach safety by means of the North Corridor succumbed in the corridor. Their bodies were located in nearly single-file fashion - - the manner in which they had left the Disbrow Room A and attempted their escape in the corridor. Two additional fatalities in the North Corridor were found in the corridor a few feet from the doorway into the Haight Room. These occupants of the Haight Room had attempted escape using the corridor. Eleven occupants of the Haight Room remained in the room. Six of these occupants had apparently taken refuge from fire conditions entering the room by taking refuge in a storage closet. Five of the fatalities were found in the meeting room area. [1]
Two fatalities were also located in the southeast corner of the Disbrow Room A. They were occupants of that room. [1]
As determined by local investigative authorities, the fire was of incendiary origin involving the ignition of flammable liquid on the carpet in the vicinity of the intersection of The Common and the North and West Corridors. [1] Police suspected arson because, arson investigator Joseph A. Butler Jr. said that the intensity of the fire "could not be explained by the burning of material in the area." A survivor said he saw a "river of fire" moving along a corridor ceiling "faster than a man can run. "[4] Luis Marin, who was employed by the hotel at the time of the fire as a busboy, was arrested following a four-month investigation by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. [5]
Marin was indicted by a Westchester County Grand Jury,[1] and convicted by a jury of arson and 26 counts of murder on April 10, 1982. [5] Four days later, judge Lawrence N. Martin dismissed all charges against Marin, and set him free. [6] Judge Martin decided the evidence was circumstantial, and that prosecutor Geoffrey K. Orlando's "brilliant" summation went "beyond the facts" of proving the identity of the arsonist. [6] The Court of Appeals of New York State upheld judge Martin’s decision, saying “while the evidence was sufficient to establish that the fire was intentionally set (see, People v Sims, 37 N.Y.2d 906), the deficiency in the People's case lies in proof of the arsonist's identity.”[7] No other suspects have since been arrested or tried. Coordinates: 41°1′2″N 73°43′4″W / 41.01722°N 73.71778°W / 41.01722; -73.71778
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Fire
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As most students return to classrooms, schools in some countries have been shuttered for 18 months straight
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Students across much of the world are trading in Zoom windows for chalkboards, in a global moment of hope and apprehension. In some places, including parts of the United States, many school doors shut for a year and a half have swung open, even amid resurgent coronavirus outbreaks. In five countries — Bangladesh, Kuwait, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — in-person schooling was paused nationally for 18 months. In the Philippines and Venezuela, there’s no end in sight. Many of the countries that have seen the longest pauses in classroom education were among those least equipped to transition to remote learning. Students are facing dire consequences, teachers say. On Monday, students across the Philippines began class, once again remote, in their third school year marred by the pandemic. For many teachers, the situation seems desperate, said Raymond Basilio, the secretary general of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, a large organization of education workers in the Philippines. Of the nation’s approximately 27 million students, only around 14 percent participated in online schooling last fall, according to a survey conducted in November 2020. More than three-fourths — including nearly all rural students — enrolled in a modular system: Every two weeks students or guardians must pick up their “modules,” stapled packets of worksheets, and return filled-out copies to their teachers. Each module is usually 10 to 16 pages. Families with resources, Basilio said, are more likely to have the means and wherewithal to buy sufficient Internet access and enroll their children in online school. They can also hire tutors to help their children keep up with unsupervised lessons. “That story is not the story for students who are the children of farmworkers, children of fisherfolk or urban poor workers,” he said. In the Philippines, more than 17 million people live below the poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank. By some accounts, the modules are haphazard and difficult to understand, and schools came under criticism early in the pandemic for glaring mathematical and grammatical errors, and bizarre questions and prompts. “We’re very worried about our future,” Basilio said. “High school teachers will be in a very problematic scenario. How will they teach higher order thinking skills if their students are not able to read, to write?” Hopes and fears as schools open their doors for new year In Venezuela, which along with the Philippines closed schools nationally early in the pandemic and is set to keep them that way, remote learning resumes this week. Wuisneidys Delgado, a biology teacher in the small town of Aragua de Barcelona, has been teaching on video calls and WhatsApp. Not only do some students lack Internet or computer access — but some teachers don’t have smartphones either, she said. Some Venezuelan teachers have been setting up informal, in-person classrooms in their homes as a last resort, news agency EFE reported. But experts are concerned that students have lost much of their opportunity to learn. Globally, in-person learning has made a comeback since last year, said Borhene Chakroun, the director for policies and lifelong learning systems at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 119 countries, students are attending school in person, up from 95 in September 2020. Some 8 percent of the world’s students are facing full school closures — down from 41 percent at this time last year. The UNESCO closure data does not include “partial reopening,” which could mean a few schools in a country are open. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe, have closed schools for certain age groups and grade levels, Chakroun said. Some are open with reduced in-person class time, such as in the Bahamas and Ecuador. In some countries, such as Indonesia, Mexico and the United States, school status varies across state and regional lines. UNICEF found that the first-ever day of school for 140 million of the world’s youngest students has been delayed because of the pandemic. The World Bank, the United Nations Children’s Fund and UNESCO launched Mission Recovering Education 2021 to urge governments to bring all students back to school for complete or partial in-person instruction before the end of 2021, arguing that the cost to students of remote learning outweighs the covid-19 risks. Covid infection rates remain high globally, but the coalition says that schools can reopen with precautions “even when community transmission hasn’t been completely contained and vaccination coverage is low,” citing lower transmission rates and levels of covid severity for children, and the adoption of safety measures. Robert Jenkins, global director of education for UNICEF, told The Washington Post that the sheer magnitude and duration of the disruption is unparalleled, with 1.6 billion schoolchildren affected at the pandemic’s peak and some students facing school closures for more than 76 weeks. Even amid the cyclones, floods and conflicts to which the agency has had to respond, “it would be almost unheard of for children to be out of school for such a long period,” he said, and the poor and marginalized have paid the steepest price. As schools reopen, more than 10,000 students and teachers across 14 states are quarantined for coronavirus exposure For Rumena Afroza — a high school English teacher at a small, rural school in central Bangladesh, one of the countries to close schools nationally for 18 months — the pause has been devastating. In March 2020, she made a Facebook messenger group to coordinate remote learning for her students. Of the 188 in her two classes, she was unable to reach more than 20 on Zoom. When she asked students make an appearance, distanced, in person, to hear a lesson plan, only 80 could make it. Some students were sent to work in the fields or in garment factories. Others just dropped out. Many female students were married. “I told my students, ‘Don’t marry before 18,’ ” she said, but the pandemic has made waiting difficult for many families with daughters aged 14 to 17. The pandemic has increased the number of girls at risk of becoming child brides by 10 million, according to UNICEF. Afroza was overjoyed when Bangladesh’s education minister announced last week that schools would reopen on Sept. 12. “Again we will be able to see the school garden full of flowers,” she said. “The parents who have become frustrated will dream again for their children in a new way. They will find the light of hope.”
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Organization Closed
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More than 10,000 outbreaks caused by mushroom poisoning were reported across a decade in China, according to a recently released study.
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More than 10,000 outbreaks caused by mushroom poisoning were reported across a decade in China, according to a recently released study.
Mushroom poisoning is the leading cause of foodborne disease outbreaks and outbreak-associated deaths in the country despite people being advised to not collect or eat wild mushrooms.
The 10,036 outbreaks resulted in at least 38,676 illnesses, 21,967 hospitalizations and 788 deaths from 2010 to 2020. The number of recorded outbreaks increased each year, from 37 in 2010 to 2,705 in 2020.
A large proportion of outbreaks occurred between May and October, according to data from the Foodborne Disease Outbreaks Surveillance System, which is managed by the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment.
Risk of picking wild mushrooms
Among all reported outbreaks, 84.7 percent were associated with food prepared in private homes, followed by 8.8 percent from food prepared in street stalls, and 2.5 percent in canteens. The major cause of domestic outbreaks was self-harvest of wild mushrooms. Non-expert wild mushroom picking increases the risk of poisoning because of the difficulties of distinguishing between poisonous and edible mushrooms.
Most outbreaks involved fewer than 10 patients but 12 had more than 30 patients, according to the study published in the journal China CDC Weekly .
A rise in incidents between 2010 and 2020 is associated with implementation of compulsory surveillance in 2011, increasingly strict requirements for outbreak reporting, and enhancement of reporting awareness.
Mushroom poisonings were reported throughout the country, but was highest in the southwest and central areas, likely due to the warm and damp conditions, said researchers.
Only 3,872 outbreaks were reported with mushroom names. Absence of relevant mushroom samples and ingestion of multiple mushrooms increased the difficulty of identifying causative species. More than 180 mushroom names were reported. Accurate and prompt species identification is crucial for diagnosis and treatment.
Educating people
Mushroom poisoning occurred every month, the study found, with peaks in summer and autumn. Seasonality suggests health education is crucial in those periods. Mushroom picking is more frequent in rural environments so education targeted for specific groups in such areas is also essential to reduce poisonings.
Researchers said efforts should be made to improve investigative procedures, reporting practices, and data collection as some of the epidemiological information is not complete or accurate.
Another study found the amount of mushroom poisonings and number of people affected doubled this past year in China compared to 2019.
Other work revealed poisonous mushrooms were the most common cause of outbreaks in China during a 14-year period.
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Mass Poisoning
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2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
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The 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships was the forty-sixth edition of the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships. [1][2] The competition was held from 23 October – 1 November 2015 at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, United Kingdom, and is the first time that Scotland hosted the event. [3] The competition served as a qualification for the 2016 Summer Olympics. [4]
Japan won the men's team all-around competition for the first time since 1978, and the United States won the women's team all-around title for the third straight time. In the individual all-around competitions, Kōhei Uchimura and Simone Biles won their sixth and third successive title, respectively. Qualifying in thirteenth place, team Romania failed to automatically qualify to the Olympic Games for the first time since 1966. On December 4, 2015, British Gymnastics announced that the event had been named "Sporting Event of the Year" by The Sunday Mail. [5]
All times are BST (UTC+1) from 23 to 24 October 2015 and GMT (UTC±0) from 25 October to 1 November 2015. [6]
The competition was held in The SSE Hydro, which opened in 2013. This arena hosted the Gymnastics events at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. [7]
As is traditional for any World Championships prior to the Olympic year, the Championships served as the first of two qualification rounds for artistic gymnasts to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the qualification round of Worlds, the top 8 teams in both MAG and WAG competitions received an automatic qualification berth to the Games. Teams placed 9–16th at the World Championships were invited to the 2016 Olympic Test Event in Rio and the top 4 teams from that event made up the 12 teams at the Olympics. Names with an asterisk (*) denote the team alternate. The United States led the medal table for second consecutive time, followed by Japan and Russia, while host Great Britain finished 5th with 5 medals. Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Manrique Larduet was qualified for the Olympics, as an individual, by medaling on this event. Oldest and youngest competitors
Oldest and youngest competitors
Medaling on the event allowed North Korea's Hong Un-jong to qualify to the Olympics as an individual. Oldest and youngest competitors
This was the first four-way tie in history for gold at a World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, but this is unlikely to happen again since the World Championships instituted a tie-breaking procedure similar to the Olympics to prevent a situation like this from happening again. Oldest and youngest competitors
Simone Biles of the USA defended her beam title from 2014, becoming the first back-to-back world champion on beam. With her ninth career world championships gold medal, she tied the record held by Larisa Latynina, Gina Gogean, and Svetlana Khorkina. Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands and Pauline Schäfer of Germany won the first medals for their countries on the balance beam. Schäfer also qualified as an individual to the Olympics by medaling (she had not directly qualified as Germany failed to make the team final, but made the Test Event). Oldest and youngest competitors
Due to an elbow injury prior to the final, Erika Fasana withdrew from the final, being replaced by Shang Chunsong. Additionally, Swiss gymnast Giulia Steingruber sustained a knee injury during the vault final the day before, rendering her unable to participate in the floor final. [8] She was replaced by Lieke Wevers of the Netherlands. Simone Biles won a record 10th career world championships gold medal. Oldest and youngest competitors
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Sports Competition
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1961 Nordic Athletics Championships
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The 1961 Nordic Athletics Championships was the inaugural edition of the international athletics competition between Nordic countries and was held in Oslo, Norway. It consisted of 34 individual athletics events, 22 for men and 12 for women. This covered a track and field programme plus a men's marathon race. Finland topped the men's points classification with 190.5 points, while Sweden won the first women's team title with 89 points. Iceland took part in the men's competition only and was the only nation not to have an athlete top the podium. Among the athletes in attendance were 1956 Olympic medalists Vilhjálmur Einarsson and Jorma Valkama and 1960 Olympic medalist Eeles Landström. [1]
Nina Hansen was the most successful athlete of the tournament, taking the women's titles in 80 metres hurdles, long jump and women's pentathlon for Denmark. Carl Fredrik Bunæs and Ulla-Britt Wieslander won 100 metres/200 metres sprint doubles in the men's and women's sections, respectively. Dan Waern of Sweden had a middle-distance track double and Finland's Reijo Höykinpuro similarly completed a long-distance track double.
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Sports Competition
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St. Vincent's La Soufrière volcano eruption spotted from space (photos)
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New satellite imagery captures the relentless eruptions of the La Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent, which began on Friday (April 9). La Soufrière, which last erupted in 1979, is located on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent. After decades of inactivity, the volcano started rumbling late last year, when scientists noticed a new lava dome had formed, oozing lava in the volcano's summit crater. Satellites operated by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Maxar Technologies have been tracking the La Soufrière volcano as it continues to spew smoke and debris miles high into the atmosphere, blanketing surrounding communities and creating heavy ashfall since its initial eruption on April 9. Related: Amazing images of volcanoes from space #LaSoufriere #volcano, on the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines erupts, spewing ash and smoke for miles. Up to 20,000 people have been evacuated from areas surrounding the volcano. These WorldView-2 #satellite images are from April 8, 2021. Maxar’s WorldView-2 satellite captured stunning aerial views of the volcano as billows of smoke poured out over the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Maxar Technologies shared the satellite images of the area, which were taken on April 8, when the local government issued evacuation orders for people in areas surrounding the volcano, ahead of its eruption. The company also shared satellite views of the town of Richmond Vale before and after the volcano erupted. The GIF, which Maxar shared on Twitter , captures drastic atmospheric changes, as clear skies on April 2 quickly become shrouded by ash in photos taken Tuesday (April 13). Ash from the ongoing eruptions has spread hundreds of miles eastward, impacting the skies above neighboring Carribean islands. Before and after #satellite imagery of the town of Richmond Vale on the island of #StVincent, seen on April 2 and today, April 13, with most of the area covered in a blanket of ash from the ongoing eruption of the #LaSoufriere #volcano. NOAA satellites have also recorded the aftermath of the volcanic explosion. A timelapse of images from the GOES East satellite captures plumes of ash and smoke above St. Vincent island, as the volcano continually erupted throughout the day on April 11. “The volcano continues to periodically erupt, and volcanologists say the activity could continue for weeks,” the NOAA wrote on Twitter . Before and after #satellite imagery of the town of Richmond Vale on the island of #StVincent, seen on April 2 and today, April 13, with most of the area covered in a blanket of ash from the ongoing eruption of the #LaSoufriere #volcano. pic.twitter.com/mSFtKvRWso April 13, 2021 See more The NOAA’s GOES-16 weather satellite captured an up-close view of one of the explosive eruptions that occurred over the weekend. The imagery, shared April 12 , shows a massive burst of ash and debris, which extended thousands of feet in the atmosphere. The GOES-16 satellite has been keeping a constant, watchful eye on the volcano since it first erupted. Satellite imagery from April 9 shows two views of the eruption: one captured in daytime true color, or “GeoColor,” imagery and another that shows the levels of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere as the volcano’s ash plume explodes above the island. UPDATE: The #LaSoufrière #volcano in St. Vincent & the Grenadines has erupted again today. @NOAA's #GOES16️ caught two views of it: (left) in #GeoColor imagery, and (right), in this SO2 composite, which detects the sulfur dioxide in the volcano's #AshPlume. #lasoufriereeruption The NASA-NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) has also been watching over the area, capturing nighttime views of St. Vincent, Guadeloupe and Barbados. Taken early Sunday morning (April 11), the image highlights the massive volcanic explosion over St. Vincent, as well as the ash clouds and gravity waves that extend to neighboring islands. The NOAA-20 satellite images were captured in “day-night band” using the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. Early Sunday morning, the Day-Night Band on the @jpssprogram's #NOAA20 satellite saw the eruption of La Soufriere volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent, along with giant ash clouds and gravity waves over Barbados and other nearby islands. La Soufrière erupted again on Tuesday (April 13), marking the fifth-straight day of explosions. Satellites will continue to observe the eruptions from space.
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Volcano Eruption
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2019 Brazil prison riots
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The Altamira prison riot occurred on 29 July 2019, when a riot broke out at the Centro de Recuperação Regional de Altamira prison in Altamira, Pará, Brazil, due to drug turf disputes between rival gangs within the prison. Over the five-hour conflict, 62 people died. Sixteen people were beheaded, and a fire lit at the beginning of the riot killed 46 more people due to smoke inhalation. Gang violence in Brazilian prisons is common. However, officials reported that the inmates had shown no signs prior to the riot that they would start something of such magnitude.
The Altamira prison is supposed to hold 200 inmates, but was reportedly holding over 450 at the time of the riot. It was later revealed that the prison only had 33 guards, with the municipality admitting this was nowhere near enough to ensure security. A new structure at the prison was being built to house the excess prisoners,though prison officials deny there was overcrowding, and many inmates were held in old container units. The design of these supposedly made the fire worse.
The gangs involved were Comando Classe A (CCA) and Comando Vermelho (CV), with CCA attacking CV. Comando Vermelho is a large Rio de Janeiro-based gangthat has a longstanding history of violent confrontation with Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), another large national group.Comparatively, the CCA is a small regional gang in Pará. According to The Guardian, the attack was part of a longstanding drug trade turf war that is ultimately between CV and PCC.
At around 07:00, while breakfast was being served, violence broke out after members from the CCA gang housed in one block set fire to another block, which housed members of the Comando Vermelho gang, according to local official Jarbas Vasconcelos. Two prison guards were initially taken hostage, but released soon after the fire had been lit; the gang intended to stop the officers from preventing their targeted attack, but did not want to harm them.
Police forces could not enter the building due to the fire.The violence lasted five hours, ending at noon. During prison searches, no firearms were found, only homemade blades.It was reported that gunshots could be heard at the nearby Altamira Airport, with one worker saying that the shooting lasted 30 minutes.
Fifty-seven people were initially reported dead. Sixteen of these were beheaded, while the others died as a result of smoke inhalation from the fire. [6] The prison's poor design meant the fire could spread more rapidly. [1] A charred body was later found buried under the rubble by the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Pará.The death toll rose to 62 after officials found four suffocated inmates inside a prison bus. The bus had been carrying the prison's most violent inmates, who were being transferred to a new prison after the riots.
The Ministry of Justice told media that the main perpetrators will be moved to secure prisons. The total number to be transferred is supposedly 46, with 10 of these going to high-security facilities.
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Riot
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The folly of UNESCO withdrawal
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This month, the Trump administration abruptly announced its intention to withdraw U.S. membership from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This is bad policy. The president threw away his most credible source of bargaining leverage over the organization without getting anything in return. If we are serious about reforming UNESCO and other international organizations, we should work together with our allies to secure meaningful reform. What are the stakes of United States not participating in UNESCO? A simple answer to this question can be found in a 2002 fact sheet published by the George W. Bush administration when it rejoined the organization. President Bush explained that U.S. membership was a “symbol of our commitment to human dignity” and that the United States would support UNESCO’s mission to “advance human rights and tolerance and learning.” According to the Bush administration, “UNESCO’s mission and programming reflect and advance a wide range of U.S. interests,” including supporting education for all, promoting tolerance and civic responsibility, building democracy, combatting terrorism, protecting natural and cultural heritage, and promoting the freedom of the press. By implication, the United States not participating in the institution will make it more difficult for the United States and the international community to achieve these objectives. As I show in my book, “ Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations ,” threatening to withdraw funding or membership from an international organization can be an effective strategy to secure reforms or policy changes. U.N. agencies are contested frequently because they tend to adopt “one country, one vote” principles while assessing disproportionate financial contributions from large economies like the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. Policymakers from these countries often complain of taxation without commensurate representation. Although UNESCO withdrawal looks like the latest example of Trump’s “America first” anti-globalism, it is actually fairly common for the United States to withdraw its membership from international organizations. Withdrawal is also not an obviously partisan issue. Harry Truman withdrew from Interpol in 1950, Jimmy Carter withdrew from the International Labor Organization in 1977, Ronald Reagan withdrew from UNESCO in 1984, and Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton Lobbying world Dole's casket arrives at Capitol to lie in state The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Uber - Senate gets busy, except for Build Back Better MORE withdrew from United Nations Industrial Development Organization in 1996. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Singapore, have also withdrawn from UNESCO over similar concerns. Japan recently threatened to withhold funding from the organization after its recognition of the Nanking massacre. What stands out about Trump’s withdrawal from UNESCO is the absence of any upside for the United States. We have just given up the most valuable leverage the we have over the organization, which is our membership status and financial contributions, without attempting to receive anything in return. The U.S. withdrawal document cites the “need for fundamental reform in the organization,” but the Trump administration has not articulated a clear set of objectives or engaged in an active negotiation with UNESCO to advance U.S. interests. UNESCO officials were blindsided by the abrupt US decision. Two previous episodes when the United States threatened to withdraw from international organizations are instructive. In 1984, the Reagan administration withdrew from UNESCO. The United States had legitimate concerns about UNESCO at the time, when the organization was seen as corrupt and often favoring Soviet priorities despite receiving the bulk of its funding from the West. However, rather than seeking to reform UNESCO from within, the United States announced its intention to withdraw on short notice and gave the organization little time to respond. As a result, we lost our influence and international prestige without any clear benefit. The United States became a passive actor, only rejoining the organization after its concerns were rendered moot by the end of the Cold War and reforms by then director general Koichiro Matsuura. The U.S. strategy towards the International Fund for Agricultural Development was much more effective. In the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was sharply critical of the fund for reasons similar to UNESCO, as it overrepresented the interests of other countries, in this case members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, even though it imposed a heavy financial burden on Western states. Rather than unilaterally withdrawing from the institution, the United States acted in concert with other developed countries, demanding greater influence over the organization while threatening to curtail funding. Although reform took time, the United States ultimately achieved its objective: In 1995, a major reform of the fund’s structure gave the United States and other developed countries much greater formal control over the organization. President Trump promotes himself as a shrewd negotiator. He will hopefully recognize that the United States has more to gain from cooperating with its allies and using its leverage to negotiate for reforms from international organizations. There is nothing wrong with renegotiation if international organizations are not serving U.S. interests. Walking away without trying is the height of folly.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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China Property Crackdown Alarms Analysts as Economic Risks Grow
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In the last decade and a half, the essayist and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb popularized the term black swan in reference to an event that comes as a big surprise, particularly for the economy and the financial system. While the term has become popular, what the world seems to see more of are gray rhinos. A gray rhino, a term coined by Michele Wucker, an American policy analyst, is a highly probable large threat that is likely to hit the world at large at a certain point of time. One such gray rhino is the Chinese company Evergrande, the second largest real estate company in the country. It is the most highly indebted real estate company in the world and has liabilities of around $300 billion. The company is facing huge cash flow issues and might not be able to service its liabilities, starting this week. A Bloomberg report dated 15 September points out that the ministry of housing and urban-rural development of China has told banks that the Evergrande Group will not be able to pay its debt obligations which stand due as of 20 September. In a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier this month, the company itself admitted to facing huge cash flow pressures. The contract sales of properties sold by Evergrande have been coming down over the last three months, with sales falling from $10.75 billion in June to $5.71 billion in August ($1=0.15 Chinese yuan). The month of September typically tends to be a good time for China’s real estate firms, but Evergrande expects the sales to continue declining during the month due to the negative media reports about the company. This decline in sales would “place tremendous pressure on the… cashflow and liquidity" of the company. To cut a long story short, China’s second largest real estate company, which claims to have 1,300 real estate projects across more than 280 Chinese cities, and which dabbles in everything from football to electric vehicles and health to mineral water, is in trouble. Some western commentators have even equated this to China’s Lehman Brothers (2008 financial crisis) moment. Will it come to that? An even bigger question, however, is how did a company, which is run by a man who was once the richest person in China, get into this situation? And will there be financial contagion due to troubles at Evergrande? Context to current crisis The Evergrande Real Estate Group was founded by Xu Jiayin in 1996 in the city of Guangzhou, which is very close to Hong Kong. In 1996, only 29% of the Chinese population lived in urban enclaves. By 2011, this had crossed 50%. In 2018, the urbanization rate was at 60%. In a May 2019 report, E-House, a company that offers real estate information services among other things, wrote: “During this period (1996 to 2008), an estimated 17 million people moved into the cities each year on average, fuelling demand for 8-10 million units of housing annually. Of those, an estimated four million units were first-time purchases." Xu latched on to this opportunity. Given the fact that he was the new kid on the block with limited financial resources, he decided to concentrate on mass market housing. Operating on scale, by 2004, Evergrande had become one of the ten largest Chinese real estate developers in a market that had more than 24,000 players. In 2016, Evergrande became a Fortune 500 company. And in 2017, Xu became the richest man in China. He is now the tenth richest man in China. Evergrande’s rise happened primarily because of what E-House calls the Evergrande model of “three highs and one low" (high debt, high leverage, high turnover and low cost). And it is this model of high debt and high leverage that has now landed Evergrande in trouble. Over the years, the Chinese home prices have risen. There are three major reasons for this. The first as we saw is the rural to urban migration, which created huge demand. The second is speculation. As Thomas Orik writes in China—The Bubble That Never Pops: “For mom-and-pop investors, real estate was the only show in town. Bank deposits, with their below-inflation returns, looked unattractive. The roller coaster stock market, lurching between huge gains and massive losses, was too volatile to act as a store of value." The third major reason is the government. As Orik writes: “For China’s government, real estate is the ballast that keeps the economic ship afloat." In fact, an estimate made by economists Kenneth S. Rogoff and Yuanchen Yang in an August 2020 working paper published by National Bureau of Economic Research in the US suggests that the real estate sector contributes around 29% of the Chinese gross domestic product (GDP). This has happened primarily because the Chinese government controls many important aspects of the country’s real estate market. As the E-House report referred to earlier points out: “The Chinese government controls key levers, including urban land, capital, infrastructure, and the pace of rural-urban migration. It can easily relax some of these levers to stimulate the economy in the short run." This is something that the government has done whenever the economy is lurching towards a slowdown. Over the years, this fallback option has led to real estate getting more and more important in the Chinese economy. It has also pushed up prices, especially in the tier-1 cities. All this has come at a cost. Real estate developers have become overleveraged over the years. As Orik writes: “Total debt for real estate developers came in at about 48.9 trillion yuan at the end of 2016, up from 10.5 trillion in 2008." Other than overborrowing, the Chinese real estate developers have also overbuilt. At the same time, household debt to GDP ratio jumped from 18% in 2008 to 62% in 2020. Outstanding home loans make up for over 70% of this. Other than increasing the financial risk in the system, the rise in home prices has also increased the gap between the haves and the have-nots, something that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been concerned about. At a key Communist Party of China Congress in October 2017, Xi said that “houses are for people to live in, not for speculation". The Chinese government, over the last few years, has been trying to control and put a lid on speculation in the real estate sector. Red lines As a part of this overall strategy, in August 2020, the government imposed a guidance policy based on three red lines. The red lines refer to three financial ratios. As a January 2021 UBS report points out: “If the developers fail to meet one, two, or all of the ‘three red lines’, regulators will then place limits on the extent to which they can grow debt." A developer who met all the three red lines was allowed to increase the company’s debt by 15% per year. The idea behind this is to control the rise of home prices and land prices and to bring down the amount of loans that are given to the real estate sector, given how systematically important the sector had become. Evergrande failed the three red lines test earlier this year, thus limiting the ability of the company to continue raising debt. A Reuters report points out that the company hopes to meet the requirement by the end of next year. This has gone against the company’s high debt and high leverage strategy and created a liquidity problem for it, where it is finding it difficult to pay off its debt and other liabilities. It’s running short on cash. The Chinese real estate market, much like the Indian one, runs on pre-sales. This involves the prospective buyer paying the full price of the house, which involves making a down payment and securing a home loan, before the unit is built. An estimate made by Capital Economics suggests that Evergrande owes $195 billion to buyers. The money is for 1.4 million individual homes that the company has promised to build. The question is where did this money go? On this, only speculations can be made. A part of it could have gone into buying land. In its 2020 annual report, the company said that it has land reserves amounting to a total gross floor area of 231 million square metres, with an original value of $73.5 billion. The company has also diversified into many other businesses. Over and above this, the company has raised money by selling wealth management products to around 70,000 investors, including its employees and suppliers. In fact, in the filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier this month, the company admitted to two subsidiaries failing to repay wealth management products issued by third parties for an amount of $140 million. As per the ratings agency Fitch, the company also owes around $100 billion as trade payables. What’s the endgame? According to Bloomberg estimates, the company has interest payments amounting to $669 million till the end of this year, a bulk of which is interest to be paid on dollar bonds issued by the firm. In March and April next year, around $3.45 billion of its dollar bonds need to be repaid. These bonds are currently trading at 30 cents to a dollar, suggesting that the investors do not expect the company to repay a bulk of the money it had borrowed through these bonds. There is bound to be a haircut. While the company can afford to default on its external liabilities, a similar situation cannot be allowed to play out domestically. As Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note in July: “China’s leadership is presumably reluctant to offer a bailout to Evergrande, given the desire to punish reckless behaviour by private entrepreneurs and discourage speculative property investment… But given the firm’s sheer size and systemic role, officials would step in to try to ensure an orderly restructuring in the event of a default." One idea that is already being suggested is to use Evergrande’s massive land bank to settle liabilities. As the Capital Economics note points out: “The most likely endgame is now a managed restructuring in which other developers take over Evergrande’s uncompleted projects in exchange for a share of its land bank." The company is also looking to pay the investors in its wealth management projects by allowing them to bid for its property assets at steep discounts. Hence, the aim is to ensure that the domestic liabilities are settled in an organized way. Also, while Evergrande is the second biggest Chinese real estate developer, the overall market continues to remain highly fragmented and as the ratings agency Fitch points out, the developer on its own had only 4% of the market share in 2020. Hence, “the risk of significant pressure on house prices in the event of a default would be low, unless the restructuring or liquidation of its assets become disorderly." Further, while the Communist Party of China has been trying to control home prices, it also needs to make sure that prices don’t fall rapidly. In fact, Guo Shuqing, head of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, had warned in March that if home prices fall, people might suffer losses, leading them to default on their home loans and this would create economic chaos. As a result of these domestic compulsions, all the talk about financial contagion spreading into other Asian financial markets seems unlikely as of now. To conclude, the real estate-led growth model in China needs to unwind. Other than overbuilding, the demand for homes in the years to come is likely to shrink. As Rogoff and Chang write: “The age group of 20-50 (years), who comprise the majority of homebuyers, keeps shrinking. The abolition of one-child policy effective from January 2016 is unlikely to reverse the downward demographic trend." Also, “urbanization has reached the point where home ownership is (now) over 90% among the 276 million urban households." If economists writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research understand this, so do the leaders of the Communist Party of China. It’s just that unravelling this and ensuring a smooth landing is going to be very difficult and take a lot of time. Having said that, the Communist Party of China needs to ensure that the gray rhino does not become a black swan that could potentially affect the financial stability of other Asian nations, including India. The writer is the author of Bad Money.
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Financial Crisis
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Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901 crash
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Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901, also known as SAS Flight 901, was a scheduled international flight operated by the Scandinavian Airlines System, that overran the runway at its destination at John F. Kennedy International Airport on February 28, 1984. The flight, operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, originated at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Sweden, before a stopover at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, Norway. All 177 passengers and crew members on board survived, although 12 were injured. The cause was a runway overshoot due to the crew's failure to monitor their airspeed and overreliance on the aircraft's autothrottle. [1][2]
Flight 901 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, registered as LN-RKB, named the Haakon Viking, and first flown in testing in 1975. Its McDonnell Douglas construction number was 46871/219. [3] The aircraft was equipped with three General Electric CF6-50C engines. It entered into commercial flight service with Scandinavian Airlines in January 1976. [4]
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident. Investigators first thought a probable cause of the crash could be hydroplaning since there was bad weather on arrival, but this was later ruled out when investigators inspected the runway and found that the grooves on the runway were in good condition and there were no recent reports of hydroplaning on that runway. The NTSB discovered from eyewitnesses that the airport's control tower could not see the flight arriving due to low visibility. However, they and passengers on the flight reported that the aircraft traveled an unusually long distance before landing. According to the flight's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, the aircraft was at an unusually high speed of 205 knots before landing. [5] It was also noticed that the captain only monitored his airspeed, not the shown ground speed. To avoid striking the approach lighting system, they veered the DC-10 off Runway 04R using the aircraft's rudder. The aircraft came to a rest in shallow water 650 ft (200 m) from Runway 04R. [5][6]
Investigators discovered that the captain was relying on the aircraft's autothrottle, believing that it would automatically decrease turbine power. [7] NTSB investigators also found that the autothrottle control system had malfunctioned during previous flights. They believe that during the approach, the DC-10's autothrottle had a software malfunction, leading to increased airspeed before touching down. In the NTSB's final report, the probable cause of SAS Flight 901 states that "The flightcrew’s (a) disregard for prescribed procedures for monitoring and controlling of airspeed during the final stages of the approach and (b) decision to continue the landing rather than to execute a missed approach, and (c) overreliance on the autothrottle speed control system which had a history of recent malfunctions". [6][8]
The NTSB had issued two safety recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration on November 16, 1984, one day after releasing the final report. [1]
A-84-123: Apply the findings of behavioral research programs and accident/incident investigations regarding degradation of pilot performance as a result of automation to modify pilot training programs and flight procedures so as to take full advantage of the safety benefits of automation technology. [9]
A-84-124: Direct air carrier principal operations inspectors to review the airspeed callout procedures of assigned air carriers and, where necessary, to require that these procedures specify the actual speed deviations (in appropriate increments, i.e., +10, +20, -10, -20, etc.) from computed reference speeds. [10]
After the accident, mechanics found that LN-RKB suffered substantial damage, but was later repaired and returned to service, until it was bought by Federal Express in 1985, reregistered as N311FE, and converted into a freighter. It was withdrawn from use and stored in 2012; in 2013 it was returned to service. [11] As of June 2021, the aircraft is currently in cargo service with FedEx Express. [12]
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Air crash
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It’s Official: McAfee To Go Private In $14B Deal
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‘This transaction is a testament to McAfee’s market-leading online protection solutions, our talented employees, and outstanding customers and partners,’ says McAfee President and CEO Peter Leav. In one of the largest cybersecurity acquisitions in IT history, McAfee is set to be purchased by a group of private equity and investment firms for $14 billion next year with plans to take the security star private. “This transaction is a testament to McAfee’s market-leading online protection solutions, our talented employees, and outstanding customers and partners,” said McAfee President and CEO Peter Leav in a statement. “We are thrilled to be partnering with premier firms who truly understand the cybersecurity landscape and have a proven track record of success.”
The investor group will acquire all outstanding shares of McAfee common stock for $26 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $12 billion on an equity value basis, and over $14 billion on an enterprise value basis after giving effect to repayment of McAfee debt, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based company.
When completed, the investor group will “take ownership of McAfee” and McAfee’s common stock will no longer be listed on any public securities exchange, according to the company. The deal represents one of the biggest cybersecurity acquisition of all-time, including larger than Thoma Bravo’s $12.3 billion purchase of Proofpoint as well as Broadcom’s $10.7 buy of Symantec’s enterprise business.
[Related: 6 Big Dell Stock And VMware Share Numbers To Know Post Spin-Off]
The acquisition is expected to close sometime in the second half of 2022. McAfee has officially entered into a definitive agreement to be bought by an investor group led by Advent International Corporation and Permira Advisers LLC, Crosspoint Capital Partners, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC Private Limited, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The investor group said it will provide McAfee with both financial and operational resources to enhance its consumer offering and capture the rapid growth in consumer demand for digital protection services.
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Sign Agreement
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Sigizmund Levanevsky crash
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Sigizmund Aleksandrovich Levanevsky (Russian: Сигизмунд Александрович Леваневский, Polish: Zygmunt Lewoniewski; 15 May [O.S. 2 May] 1902 – 13 August 1937) was a Soviet pioneer of long-range flight who was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 for his role in the SS Chelyuskin rescue. Sigizmund Levanevsky was born to a Polish family in St. Petersburg on 15 May [O.S. 2 May] 1902. His brother Józef Lewoniewski (1899-1933) was a Polish military and sports pilot. Sigizmund took part in the October Revolution on the Bolshevik side and later participated in the Russian Civil War, serving in the Red Army since 1918. In 1925 he graduated from the Sevastopol Naval Aviation School and became a military pilot. In 1930 he was withdrawn to reserve. From 1932 to 1933 he was head of flight and training unit of All-Ukraine Pilot School. In 1933 Levanevsky became a pilot for the Glavsevmorput' (Main Northern Maritime Route's Administration) - providing ice reconnaissance for shipping convoys in the eastern part of the northeast passage. At July 20, 1933 he achieved his first international fame, evacuating from Anadyr to Nome the American pilot James Mattern who had crash landed to the west of Anadyr during his attempt to break the record for a solo flight around the world. The following year Levanevsky and fellow-pilot Mavriky Slepnyov traveled to Alaska to obtain a pair of Consolidated Fleetster 17AF transport planes for use in the aerial rescue efforts for the passengers of the crushed steamship Cheliuskin. [1] During the March 24th flight from Nome, Levanevsky's plane was forced down at Kolyuchin Bay on the north Chukotka coast and during landing its skis were ripped off. Slepnyov evacuated him to the operations base at Vankarem but without a plane Levanevsky did not participate in the rescue efforts. However, he would later shuttle a doctor from Uelen to Saint Lawrence Bay at Chukotka for emergency attention for Bobrov, deputy head of the expedition, who suffered from appendicitis[2] - for which he was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1934 he became member of the Communist Party. On 3 August 1935 Levanevsky and a two-man crew (co-pilot Georgy Baidukov and navigator Victor Levchenko) attempted a transpolar flight from Moscow to San Francisco in a prototype single engine Tupolev ANT-25 long-range bomber. A thousand miles into the flight (just north of the Kola Peninsula) the oil tank developed an oil-leak, being overfilled, and Levanevsky chose to abort the mission. The following year Levanevsky and navigator Levchenko sought to prove the possibility of an air route between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. via the Bering Strait, and completed an 11,800+ mile multistage flight from Los Angeles (5 August 1936) to Moscow (13 September 1936) in a Vultee V-1A floatplane. For this flight Levanevsky was awarded with Order of Red Banner of Labour. On 12 August 1937 a type Bolkhovitinov DB-A (no. N-209, a Dalniy Bombardirovshik-Academy, i.e. Long-range Bomber) aircraft with 6-men crew under captaincy of Levanevsky started its long distance flight from Moscow to the United States (to Fairbanks) via the North Pole. The radio communications with the crew broke off the next day, on the 13th of August, at 17:58 Moscow time after the North Pole, when the aircraft encountered adverse weather conditions and suffered failure of its end right engine. The Soviet Government financed two aerial searches for the missing aircraft using purchased US aircraft under the command of Canadian bush and Antarctic pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon in 1937 and 1938. Jimmie Mattern flew a Lockheed 12, "The Texan" from California to assist in the search for his former rescuer in the initial search. [3] After the unsuccessful search attempts all the members of the crew were presumed dead. In March 1999, Dennis Thurston of the Minerals Management Service in Anchorage located what appeared to be wreckage in the shallows of Camden Bay, between Prudhoe Bay and Kaktovik. There was conjecture in the media that it was Levanevsky's aircraft, but a subsequent attempt to locate the object again proved unsuccessful.
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Air crash
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Ariana Grande’s New Husband Dalton Gomez Is Apparently “Perfect for Her” and “Unfazed by the Scope of Her Celebrity”
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Ariana Grande’s New Husband Dalton Gomez Is Apparently “Perfect for Her” and “Unfazed by the Scope of Her Celebrity” The pair first started dating in January 2020 and got married over the weekend. Ariana Grande got married to her boyfriend Dalton Gomez this weekend after a little over a year of dating and, according to her friends, the pop star couldn’t have made a better choice. “They’re a great fit together,” a friend of the couple enthused to People . “Dalton’s entirely unfazed by the scope of her celebrity and is very grounding for her. He’s young but mature and knows what he wants out of life.” A second source added that Gomez, who is a luxury real estate agent, “is very hardworking and focused. He is low-key and doesn’t like attention. He isn’t impressed by celebrities. He is perfect for her.” The insider added, “Their life together is pretty special.” Grande and Gomez have only been dating a short while, first getting together in January 2020, but the couple has had plenty of time to get to know each other as the singer moved back to LA from New York in March in order to quarantine with Gomez throughout the pandemic. He proposed in December with an asymmetrical ring custom designed by Jack Solow featuring a large oval diamond side-by-side with a pearl, which is Grande’s birthstone. Initially, the couple was planning on having a big wedding, but ultimately opted for an intimate ceremony now rather than something more lavish later. A source close to Grande told E! News , “They decided to have the wedding this past weekend because their schedules are picking up and neither wanted to wait. They both agreed there was no point in waiting,” adding that the whole affair “was beautiful but not over the top. Ari wanted it to be simplistic and tasteful. All they cared about was having family there and to be able to enjoy the special moment together.” A representative for the pop star confirmed the happy news exclusively to People on Monday in a statement that read, “They got married. It was tiny and intimate—less than 20 people. The room was so happy and full of love. The couple and both families couldn’t be happier.”
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Famous Person - Marriage
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Deadly ‘invisible shipwrecks’ plague migrants bound for Canary Islands
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A sharp increase in the deaths and disappearances of migrants at sea heading to Spain’s Canary Islands, along the West African coast, is a cause for “extreme concern” the UN’s migration agency, IOM, said on Friday. By the end of last month, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project recorded 785 people, including 177 women and 50 children, who had died or disappeared this year. Frank Laczko, Director of IOM's Global Migration Data Analysis Centre noted that the actual numbers are likely much higher. ‼️ At least 785 people have died or disappeared en route to the Canary Islands this year. IOM is deeply concerned over this alarming increase in deaths and disappearances at sea of migrants trying to reach the islands along the West African coast: https://t.co/WSiXC5C1sp pic.twitter.com/FbJvEtVy5N “Invisible shipwrecks, in which there are no survivors, are believed to be frequent occurrences on this route but are nearly impossible to verify”, he said. August was the deadliest month in terms of documented fatalities – with 379 lives lost – accounting for nearly half of the total number of deaths recorded this year, according to IOM. These figures reveal a two-fold increase compared to the recorded deaths during the same period last year, when about 320 people lost their lives on the Western Africa-Atlantic Route. In all of 2020, 850 migrant deaths were recorded on this route – the highest documented number of lives lost in a single year since 2014, when IOM first began collecting data. Even when boats are reported in distress, it is difficult to determine the number of lives lost. In the first eight months of this year, 9,386 people had arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, a 140 per cent increase over the same period in 2020 (3,933). Survivor testimonies have indicated that these journeys are becoming ever riskier. One of seven survivors from a vessel carrying 54 passengers that drifted for two weeks - before capsizing close to the Mauritanian coast in mid-August - told IOM that after three days at sea, their engine was lost, and they ran out of food and water. “People were already starting to die”, the survivor said, describing bodies “thrown into the sea” to lighten the load of the boat, to prevent everyone from dying. “There were people who looked like they had gone mad, sometimes they bit each other, they shouted, and they threw themselves into the sea”, she added. There were people who looked like they had gone mad, sometimes they bit each other, they shouted, and they threw themselves into the sea -- Survivor Reports of remains washing ashore along the Atlantic coast or frequently being caught up in the trawl nets of fishing vessels, are further indications of “invisible shipwrecks.” “The lack of concerted efforts to recover migrant remains on this and all routes means that hundreds of families are left bereaved”, said Mr. Laczko. In the first six months of 2021, the Spanish civil society organization Caminando Fronteras, estimated that 36 boats heading to the Canary Islands disappeared without a trace. Conflict and poverty – exacerbated by measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with limited regular migration channels – continue to compel people to undertake extremely perilous journeys at sea. “Ending this senseless loss of life on all maritime migration routes to Europe requires a comprehensive response, enhanced State-led search and rescue capacities and pathways for safe, orderly and regular migration”, the IOM official stated. Deaths of migrants travelling by dangerous sea routes to Europe have soared in the first six months of the year. At least 1,146 people died attempting to reach Europe by boat from January to June, the UN migration agency, IOM said on Wednesday. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday urged Libya’s unity government and European Union (EU) countries to act to protect migrants making the dangerous crossing in the central Mediterranean Sea.
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Shipwreck
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Knowsley Heights fire
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The Knowsley Heights fire occurred in 1991 at the 11-story Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside. No-one was injured in the fire. The fire was deliberately started when rubbish was set alight outside the 11-story Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside. [1] The flames began at the bottom of the building, and spread through a 90 millimetres (3.5 in) gap between the wall and the newly installed rainscreen cladding. [1][2] The fire spread to all floors of the 11-storey building, causing extensive damage to the walls and windows of the building. The interior of the building did not suffer damage, as the fire did not enter the inside of the building. [1][2][3][4][5] No-one was injured in the fire. [3]
The Building Research Establishment (BRE) determined that the cladding around Knowsley Heights was a low risk of combustibility. They also highlighted that the building lacked firebreaks. [3] The cladding used in Knowsley Heights was declared legal. [6] The incident was mentioned by BRE for subsequent changes in building regulations. [2]
The Knowsley Heights fire featured in the BBC Two documentary The Fires that Foretold Grenfell, which was first broadcast in October 2018. [6]
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Fire
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2013 ITU World Triathlon Series
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The 2013 ITU World Triathlon Series was a series of eight World Championship Triathlon events that led up to a Grand Final held in London in September 2013. The Series was organised under the auspices of the world governing body of triathlon, the International Triathlon Union (ITU). The World Triathlon Series (WTS) visited Auckland, San Diego, Madrid, Yokohama, Kitzbühel, Hamburg, Stockholm, and London. The series included two sprint distance races and six Olympic distance races. The series stop in Hamburg also served as the location for the 2013 ITU Team Triathlon World Championships. The Grand Final in London included the World Championships for Under 23, Junior and Paratriathlon division, which were decided over a single race. Elite level competitors were crowned champions based on the final WTS point standings. The 2013 series visited eight cities around the world. Overall rankings after all 8 events
[17]
[18]
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Sports Competition
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Maharashtra COVID restrictions: Shops, markets, malls to remain closed; groceries, chemists open
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IST (Updated) Except for shops that provide essential services, all shops, markets, and malls in Maharashtra will remain closed throughout the day under the latest restrictions imposed by the Maharashtra government. Essential services include hospitals, diagnostic centers, clinics, medical insurance offices, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, other medical and health services. Also included are groceries, vegetable shops, dairies, bakeries, confectionaries, and food shops. Essential services shops have been permitted to operate, but are required to ensure social distancing between customers in the shop premises. Under the guidelines, extra customers have to be kept waiting with adequate social distancing with markings wherever possible. Essential shop owners and people working at all shops are required to get vaccinated at the earliest, as per the criteria of the central government. All shops have been advised to follow safety measures like interaction with customers through transparent glass or other material shields, electronic payment, etc.
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Organization Closed
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U.S. withdrawal from U.N. Human Rights Council is “America alone”
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There should be little debate that promoting respect for human rights around the world is in the vital national security interests of the United States. Its greatest threats emanate from places where human rights and democratic governance are weak to nonexistent. Think North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, and Afghanistan. But there are credible arguments and debates over how the United States, for now the world’s most powerful nation, should protect human rights. The best answer is that the United States should address the glaring gaps in respect for human rights in two ways: by living up to its own principles at home, and by using its considerable leverage—with its democratic allies—to cajole other governments to abide by the universal norms they all have adopted since the end of World War II. The Trump administration has demonstrated since its start a failure to do either. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley’s scathing, though predictable, critique of the United Nations’ main body for promoting and defending human rights is yet further evidence that this administration has no real interest in doing the hard labor required to be a leader on human rights. Instead, it prefers to retreat from global leadership on this and a host of other key issues in order to resurrect a narrow and ultimately self-defeating definition of national sovereignty. “[W]hen organizations undermine our national interests and our allies, we will not be complicit,” Secretary Pompeo declared when he announced the decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council. “When they seek to infringe on our national sovereignty, we will not be silent.” This telling remark illustrates that this administration’s North Star is toward a nostalgic past in which states had greater independence from international laws and multilateral diplomacy. Its calculation is that the United States is better able to protect itself from the world’s challenges by acting unilaterally first, and with others only if it must. This turns on its head the longstanding consensus that Washington should work with others to secure peace, and alone if it must. The U.N. Human Rights Council is a good example of how these dynamics play out amid the realities of the post-Cold War international liberal order. Born of a recognition that the U.N. needed to move beyond the East-West divide that had hampered effective progress on human rights, states agreed in 2006 both to widen and deepen the agenda for cooperation. The new council would continue to examine critical country-specific situations while establishing a new process for scrutinizing the human rights records of every state, including the United States. In practice, this has meant strong action investigating and condemning human rights abuses by some of the worst violators of human rights—Syria, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Cambodia, Belarus, Burundi, and Eritrea, to name a few. On the downside, this also meant that Israel and its harsh treatment of Palestinians would get exaggerated attention on the agenda, a result of the U.S. withdrawal from the Council’s early days when then-Ambassador John Bolton railed against the body’s imperfections and left Israel out to dry. It has also led to greater criticism of this administration’s obvious human rights transgressions, including most recently the High Commissioner’s shaming of its policies of separating families on the border. The Council, despite its checkered membership, also decided to expand the breadth of human rights issues on its agenda, encompassing such pressing matters as freedom of association and of the internet, protecting LGBTI persons from violence and discrimination, and condemning violence based on one’s religious beliefs. It did so through active U.S. leadership, including dispatching top diplomatic experts and working closely with civil society to build the coalitions necessary to get things done in multilateral bodies. This administration has neither the strategic vision nor the political will to build on this record of achievement. Instead it has devoted its energies to complaining about what it considers the fatal flaws of what is an inherent feature of virtually every component of today’s international system. This includes the fact that the Human Rights Council membership looks like the rest of the U.N.—about one-third of its members are authoritarian states bent on undermining the international human rights system, one-third are liberal democratic states committed to strengthening international norms and practices, and one-third are persuadable swing states that have joined the United States repeatedly to hold states to account for their imperfect human rights performance. Taking the administration’s argument about membership to its logical conclusion, the United States should withdraw from the U.N. Security Council when its members—like Russia—oppose the United States on matters like chemical weapons in Syria, or on Israel’s disproportionate attacks against civilians in Gaza. It probably won’t do that, in part because it has veto rights. But don’t be surprised if we see a return to the harsher anti-U.N. arguments of the Bush era—led by now-National Security Advisor Bolton—that the United Nations is more trouble than it’s worth because it restrains unabashed U.S. power. In any event, the U.S. withdrawal from the Human Rights Council is the latest demonstration that human rights, in this administration’s view, are not important enough to wage the fight needed to confront the real enemies of human rights around the world. Such states—including China, Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt, and Russia—are no doubt enjoying a rousing toast as they watch Washington back out of yet another international effort to hold them accountable. Such a result, however, is precisely this administration’s goal: Weaken institutions not to its liking, abandon them if they do not comply with its demands, pick fights with democratic allies while cutting deals with autocrats, and go it alone with little regard of the costs to U.S. interests. It also has the added benefit, in administration officials’ minds, of absolving the administration from pretending to lead by its own example on human rights.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Glasgow International Match
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The Sainsbury's International Match, formerly known as the Aviva International Match, was an annual indoor track and field athletics meeting which takes place in late January in Glasgow, Scotland. The televised competition is the first major indoor event in the United Kingdom's athletics calendar. It was held at the Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena from 1988 to 2012. It moved to the Commonwealth Sports Arena from 2013 onwards. The International Match was an international team competition, with representatives typically competing for five different squads: Great Britain, a "World" or Commonwealth select team, and three other countries. In each athletic event, athletes score points for their team depending on performance and the team with the greatest number of points at the end of all competitions is declared the winner. [1]
The inaugural edition (primarily a contest between French and British athletes) was held in 1988 as the Dairy Crest International and it attracted participants such as Linford Christie and Butch Reynolds. [2] The event was broadcast on ITV and was well received with around 2.75 million viewers in total. [3] The Kelvin Hall became a prominent indoor venue, hosting the 1990 European Athletics Indoor Championships, and the 1990 Dairy Crest Games pitted a British team against a select team from East Germany. [4] After a change of sponsor, the Pearl International Games featured a Great Britain vs Russia competition, as well as high calibre guest athletes including world champions Michael Johnson and Mike Powell. [5] France returned as the rival team to the hosts in the 1995 and 1996 competitions. [6][7]
The competition was sponsored by Norwich Union from 2000 to 2009. During this time, the international competition developed from a two-team to a multi-team contest: Swedish, Russian and German athletes competed against British athletes in 2002,[8] and by 2004 it had become a five-way team contest (with athletes representing Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, Italy and a World select team). The indoor International Match became a testing ground for young and upcoming British athletes as the country's established international athletes often trained abroad or avoided indoor competition in favour of more prestigious outdoor competitions. [9][10]
In spite of this, the event continued to attract many of Britain's prominent athletes as well as significant foreign competition; in 2003 the 60 metres featured the then-world record holder Tim Montgomery and Dwain Chambers, with world long jump champion Dwight Phillips and Olympic medallist Bernard Williams also on the programme. [11]
Following the renaming of Norwich Union, the competition became known as the Aviva International Match in 2010. [12] Great Britain won the 2010 competition, highlighted by Jessica Ennis' win in British record-time against reigning 60 metres hurdles world champion Lolo Jones. [13] The 2011 competition saw a five-team competition between Germany, Great Britain, the United States, Sweden and a Commonwealth Select team, which was won by the German team. Helen Clitheroe produced a stadium record in the 3000 m, embarking on a solo run to victory. [14] In the 2013 competition, the United States and Russia tied with 58 points each. [15]
The last edition was in 2015. In 2016 the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix moved to the Emirates Arena in Glasgow for the very first time, as part of the inaugural IAAF World Indoor Tour. [16]
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Sports Competition
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1984 Eccles rail crash
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The 1984 Eccles rail crash occurred on 4 December 1984 at Eccles, Greater Manchester, when an express passenger train collided at speed with the rear of a freight train of oil tankers. The driver of the express and two passengers were killed, and 68 people were injured. The cause of the accident was determined to be that the driver of the express train had passed a signal at danger. [1]
The passenger train involved was 1E79, the 10:05 service from Liverpool to Scarborough, formed of a Class 45 diesel locomotive No.45147, seven passenger coaches and a parcels van. The freight train was 6E85, the 09:00 service from Stanlow Oil Refinery, Ellesmere Port to Leeds, composed of a Class 47 locomotive No.47310 and fifteen tanker wagons containing fuel oil. The freight train had just passed Eccles station and was starting to accelerate away when the passenger train, having passed both the Eccles distant signal at caution and home signal at danger, collided heavily with its rear. It was estimated that the freight train was travelling at about 10 mph, whilst the passenger train's speed was between 45 and 50 mph. The force of the collision threw the rearmost tanker to the side, but the next two wagons were thrown into the air, with one falling back onto the passenger locomotive. The wagons were badly damaged and escaping fuel oil was ignited by the hot exhaust gases of the locomotive, setting fire to it and the leading two coaches. Fortunately, the leading coach was empty of passengers or the death toll would probably have been much higher. However, the express driver and one passenger were killed instantly, whilst another passenger succumbed to injuries a month later. A number of people received impact injuries and burns and many were also treated for smoke inhalation. Rescue efforts were assisted by the location of the accident, which was adjacent to the M602 motorway, enabling easy access for emergency services. The inquiry into the accident was inconclusive. There had been problems with the signalling in the area, and track circuits had been affected by a maintenance gang working on the track nearby, but the inspector was satisfied that the signals which had been passed at danger were working properly and showing the correct aspects. They were, however, not fitted with the AWS warning system to alert the driver to his error. In the absence of any conflicting medical evidence, the inquiry was forced to conclude that the driver had simply allowed his attention to wander and had missed the Eccles signals – it was testified by staff that it was rare for these signals to be at danger. The report recommended that these signals be fitted with AWS, work which was quickly completed. The home signal was also fitted with a white backplate, in order to make it more visible against the road bridge that stands behind it. [2]
Coordinates: 53°29′05″N 2°19′15″W / 53.4847°N 2.3209°W / 53.4847; -2.3209
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Train collisions
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Loyalton Fire
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The Loyalton Fire was a wildfire burning in Lassen, Plumas and Sierra County, California, and Washoe County, Nevada. The fire burned about 47,029 acres (19,032 ha) in the Tahoe National Forest and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest before being fully contained on September 14, 2020. The fire was started by lightning strikes northeast of Loyalton along the eastern edge of the Sierra Valley, near Mount Ina Coolbrith on the Tahoe National Forest. Smoke was first reported from the Smith Peak lookout in Plumas National Forest at 4:30 pm on Friday, August 14. The fire was burning in a mix of timber, sagebrush and tall grass. By the morning of August 15, it had grown to 2,300 acres (930 ha) and was spreading extremely quickly with no containment. Around 2:35 PM PDT, high winds and thunderstorm activity spawned a "fire tornado" at a strength of EF-1 or EF-2, with winds gusting to at least 110 miles per hour (180 km/h). The National Weather Service issued its first-ever fire tornado warning, for southeastern Lassen County, in response to the incident. [2][3]
By the morning of August 16, the fire had expanded to 20,000 acres (8,100 ha). Evacuation orders were issued for areas in Lassen County south of SR 70 and west of U.S. Highway 395. SR 70 was closed between SR 49 and US 395 as fire crews worked to prevent the fire from spreading north of Beckwourth Pass. The fire briefly jumped north of SR 70 and east of US 395 but was quickly stopped in those directions. [4] By the evening of August 16, helped by strong winds, the fire had burned 29,828 acres (12,071 ha). Evacuation orders were expanded to Balls Canyon Road, Long Valley Road, Bordertown, Copperfield, and Cold Springs as the fire spread east into Nevada and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. About 580 firefighters, 42 engines and 6 aircraft were on the scene. [5]
Crews had made progress on the southeast flank of the fire on August 17, and mandatory evacuations were lifted for Cold Springs. Highway 70 was reopened. [6] The Dog Valley and Long Valley areas of the Carson Ranger District on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest were closed to recreational access. [7] By evening, advisory evacuation orders were in place for Loyalton, Chilcoot, Vinton, and Sierra Brooks. Lightning strikes started several new fires to the south around 7:30 pm, but rain after midnight helped slow fire activity. [8] As of August 17, five homes and six other structures had been destroyed. [9]
On August 18, the fire had been largely contained on the north and east, and mandatory evacuations were lifted in Lassen County. However, it continued spreading rapidly to the south and west, largely due to the lightning strikes there the previous day. [10][11] The fire grew to 43,444 acres (17,581 ha) and was 10 percent contained. [12]
High winds continued throughout August 19, but crews had managed to slow the fire spread considerably. Evacuation advisories were lifted for Cold Springs and Bordertown. [13] By the evening, evacuation advisories were also lifted for Chilcoot, Vinton and Loyalton, although evacuation orders remained in place for Balls Canyon Road, Long Valley Road, and Copperfield, and evacuation advisory for Sierra Brooks. [14]
On the morning of August 20, evacuation advisories were lifted for Sierra Brooks and Copperfield. [15] As of 5:44 pm on August 20, the fire had burned 46,582 acres (18,851 ha) and was 60 percent contained. Air quality continued to be extremely poor in Sierra Valley and Reno, with visibility highly impaired by smoke. On the morning of August 21, evacuation orders remained in place for Balls Canyon Road and Long Valley Road. [16] The fire had burned 46,872 acres (18,968 ha) and remained at 60 percent containment. [17]
At 6:30 am on August 22, the fire was at 47,029 acres (19,032 ha) and was 75 percent contained. Wind activity decreased significantly over the weekend helping fire crews to expand containment. A total of six homes and 29 other structures were reported destroyed. All evacuation orders were lifted as of this time, though the Dog Valley area of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest remained closed. [18]
On September 14, the fire became 100% contained. It burned 47,029 acres (19,032 ha) and destroyed at least 35 structures.
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Fire
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Pan Am Flight 292 crash
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Pan Am Flight 292 was operated by a Boeing 707-120B that flew into Chances Peak on the island of Montserrat on 17 September 1965 while on a flight from Fort-de-France - Le Lamentin Airport in Martinique to Coolidge International Airport in Antigua and Barbuda. The aircraft was destroyed, there were no survivors among the 30 passengers and crew on board. The aircraft, bearing the registration N708PA and named Clipper Constitution by its owner Pan American World Airways (Pan Am),[1] was the first Boeing 707 built that had made the first flight of the type on 20 December 1957. It had been used by Boeing on test flights prior to delivery to Pan Am in November the following year. [2][3]
The aircraft departed Fort-de-France's Le Lamentin Airport on a scheduled flight to New York City via St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda and San Juan, Puerto Rico. [4] There were 21 passengers and a crew of nine on board. While on approach to Coolidge International Airport in stormy weather, at an altitude of 2,760 ft (841 m), the aircraft hit the 3,002 ft (915 m)-high Chances Peak and caught fire. [1] The cause was determined to be pilot error: the crew made a navigational error and descended below the safe minimum altitude while unsure of their position. [5]
Coordinates: 16°42′40″N 62°10′38″W / 16.711111°N 62.177222°W / 16.711111; -62.177222(approximate location)
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Air crash
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Flattening the insolvency curve
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There is some evidence of such mismatches in Singapore: A report released last month by the Ministry of Finance revealed that while nearly 76,000 workers found placements under the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package introduced last May, there were still nearly 130,000 vacancies available at the end of last year. The BIS study also points out that bankruptcies and unemployment historically lag behind gross domestic product (GDP) growth. They tend to peak around one year after the initial GDP shock and remain elevated for at least another two years. This suggests that bankruptcies and unemployment will not necessarily fall during an economic recovery that follows an unbalanced recession. The study predicts that bankruptcies in advanced economies could rise by around 20 per cent this year, compared with 2019. Flattening the insolvency curve So what can governments do? Experts recommend that during the recovery after the pandemic-induced recession, one of the priorities should be to "flatten the insolvency curve". According to the IMF, this requires strengthening private debt resolution frameworks and allowing for large-scale corporate debt restructuring. There should be greater reliance on out-of-court settlements for smaller cases, while strengthening formal, in-court debt resolution frameworks for larger cases. Mr Garcia Mora suggests simplifying methods for smaller firms to declare bankruptcy. He says out-of-court settlements will be especially important in countries where court procedures are cumbersome and lengthy, as is the case in much of South-east Asia. He also recommends that countries encourage private capital to come in to either buy up troubled companies or create new ventures. The IMF proposes that banks - which provide most of the credit for Asian companies - should be encouraged to increase lending by maintaining high levels of capital; they might even need to raise some more capital, which will enable them to take more risks. They should also limit dividend payments, which would free up resources for lending. In addition, governments should encourage equity financing for troubled but viable companies by allowing new forms of funding such as non-voting shares, and selectively injecting public funds into companies, which would also incentivise private capital to come in. The Singapore Government's initiative, announced in Budget 2021, to co-invest $500 million with Temasek in a Local Enterprises Funding Platform to help large local enterprises expand makes sense, but a similar arrangement for small and medium-sized enterprises should also be considered. Both the IMF and BIS recommend that other forms of assistance, such as loan guarantees or subsidies, should be confined to viable firms with temporary liquidity problems, as well as firms with good growth prospects. Those with unviable business models that are headed for insolvency should be allowed to exit. It is not always easy to determine which firms are illiquid and which are insolvent - this is a judgment call - and some companies that are deserving of support might not get it. But that is part of the crisis aftershock that the corporate sector will have to face. Other aftershocks There will be other aftershocks too. As insolvencies gather pace and growth companies expand, workers will have to make massive adjustments in moving to new roles and jobs. Recruitment patterns might also change because of changes in the way work is done. For example, the trend of working from home, which became the norm for many professionals during Covid-19, may to a large extent continue post-pandemic. In Singapore, it turns out that 49 per cent of employed residents worked from home owing to Covid-19, according to the 2020 Labour Force Survey. This proportion was high by world standards and especially high in the information and communications, financial services, education and professional services, which have a high concentration of professionals, managers, executives and technicians. If these jobs can be done remotely - that is, from anywhere - they could be vulnerable because at least some of them could be done at lower cost by qualified remote workers on online job platforms based elsewhere. The number of such workers has soared during the pandemic. The persistence of the work-from-home trend post-pandemic could also hurt the land transport and office real estate sectors, which may need to downsize. Ditto for segments of offline retail that have been affected by e-commerce, which is also likely to persist to the extent that consumer purchasing habits have permanently changed. There could also be global aftershocks. If inflation picks up over the next couple of years in the face of massive monetary and fiscal expansions - and United States bond markets are already flashing warning signs - interest rates in advanced economies could be forced upwards, resulting in a W-shaped recovery, in which a short-term bounceback from the trough of Covid-19 is followed by another leg down. How exactly things will play out is of course uncertain - every crisis is different, and so is every recovery. But we should heed the lesson from history that emerging from a deep recession is never smooth sailing.
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Financial Crisis
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Former All Black Carl Hayman diagnosed with early onset dementia
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Updated 1009 GMT (1809 HKT) November 3, 2021
Former All Black Carl Hayman has been diagnosed with early onset dementia.
(Reuters)
Former New Zealand prop Carl Hayman has been diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 41, shining the spotlight on concussion-related illness in former rugby players.
Hayman, who played the last of his 45 tests at the 2007 World Cup, revealed to New Zealand sport website 'The Bounce' he had also been diagnosed with probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
"I spent several years thinking I was going crazy. At one stage, that's genuinely what I thought," Hayman said.
"It was the constant headaches and all these things going on that I couldn't understand."
Hayman, whose playing career ended six years ago with French club Toulon, struggled with alcohol abuse in recent years and was given a suspended prison sentence in France in 2019 after admitting to charges of domestic violence.
Read More
Hayman, pictured during his time as a Pau assistant coach, has joined a class-action lawsuit against rugby federations alleging they failed to protect players from the risks of concussion.
He has joined a class-action lawsuit being prepared by former players alleging rugby federations, including global governing body World Rugby, of failing to protect them from the risks of concussion.
Many former rugby players have been diagnosed with permanent brain damage, early onset dementia, depression or symptoms and signs of CTE, which can only be diagnosed after death.
World Rugby has introduced stricter concussion protocols in recent years and in July said it would partner with independent healthcare experts, unions and player associations to offer brain health care to former players as part of a new welfare plan.
Hayman said he had hesitated before accepting offers to have his brain tested for damage.
"I um'd and ah'd for about 12 months about whether I'd do anything about it and find out if something was wrong with me, or whether I would just get on with life and hope for the best," he said.
"It would be pretty selfish of me to not speak up and talk about my experience when I could help a guy in New Zealand perhaps who doesn't understand what's happening to him and has no support network to lean on."
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Famous Person - Sick
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Locusts invade flood-hit fields in Sudan
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September 6, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Desert locusts have invaded flood-hit regions of Sudan, bringing fresh misery to farmers already struggling with downpours and a rise in water-borne disease, officials said on Thursday.
locusts
An officer from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said she had unconfirmed reports that insects had started destroying crops in one remote region near the Eritrean border.
A Sudanese agriculture official said Khartoum was sending fast-response teams to four regions — one just 90 km (56 miles) northwest of the capital Khartoum — where locusts have been seen laying eggs or hatching.
Wegdan Abdel Rahman, from the FAO’s office in north-eastern Kassala region, said farmers had been bringing in reports of devastated crops.
“The farmers said the locusts had eaten everything, pasture and sorghum,” she said.
“Of course this is very worrying,” said Rabie Khalil, director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s Locust Control and Research Centre.
The locusts have appeared in areas heavily hit by floods and the spread of disease. The worst floods in Sudan in living memory have already killed 122 people, destroyed over 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of agricultural land and killed some 36,000 heads of livestock.
On Wednesday, a World Health Organisation official said acute watery diarrhoea spread by flood waters in Kassala and other parts of eastern Sudan has killed 58 people and left nearly 1,000 others ill.
The FAO’s global Locust Watch team on Monday warned that immature swarms of desert locusts, already active in Yemen, could move across the Red Sea into Eritrea and Sudan.
Khalil, of Sudan’s Locust Centre, said he would not know the full extent of the Sudanese situation until his teams reported back over the weekend.
“We have had good early warning. The government is standing by with funds,” he said, adding that without proper spraying, the locusts could turn into full blown swarms by October.
Large numbers of locusts have been spotted in northwest of Khartoum in the North Kordofan region, the northern River Nile region, close to the Eritrean border in Kassala and the Tokar Delta leading into the Red Sea.
(Reuters)
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Insect Disaster
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What’s Trending in Aerospace – June 27, 2021
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Jet It and JetClub, two sister companies that operate unique new fractional ownership models in North America and Europe, have become the launch customers for Bye Aerospace’s all-electric twin-turboprop, the eFlyer 800. First unveiled by the Colorado-based electric aircraft maker in April , the eFlyer 800 is being developed to feature a 500 nm range with an operational ceiling of 35,000 feet and 320-knot cruise speed. It will use two wing-mounted electric motors with dual redundant motor windings and quad-redundant battery packs. Jet It, the North Carolina-based private aviation operator, and JetClub, their sister company serving Europe and Asia Pacific destinations, have signed a purchase agreement for a fleet of eFlyer 800 and four eFlyer 4 aircraft. Launched in 2018 by Glenn Gonzales, with expansions to Canada, Europe, and Asia through the partnership with JetClub, Jet It uses days rather than hours to sell shares of HondaJet Elite aircraft, allowing owners to only pay for the direct operating costs of the aircraft. Aircraft Electronics Association Hosts Successful Avionics Convention in Texas The Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) hosted its 64th annual international convention and trade show last week in Dallas, Texas. According to a June 22 press release , nearly 1,500 avionics manufacturers, repair stations, installers and others converged on the at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. Space Virgin Galactic Receives Approval From FAA for Full Commercial Launch License Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity 2 completed its third successful spaceflight on May 22, 2021. (Virgin Galactic) Virgin Galactic received an update to their existing commercial space transportation operator license that will allow "the spaceline to fly customers to space," according to a June 25 press release. The adjustment to Virgin Galactic’s operator’s license, which the Company has held since 2016, marks the first time the FAA has licensed a spaceline to fly customers. It is further validation of the Company’s methodical testing program, which has met the verification and validation criteria required by the FAA. “We’re incredibly pleased with the results of our most recent test flight, which achieved our stated flight test objectives. The flight performed flawlessly, and the results demonstrate the safety and elegance of our flight system," Michael Colglazier, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Galactic, said in the release. "Today’s approval by the FAA of our full commercial launch license, in conjunction with the success of our May 22 test flight, give us confidence as we proceed toward our first fully crewed test flight this summer.” SpaceX to Launch Falcon 9 to Transport First SDA Experimental Satellites on June 25 On June 25, SpaceX is to launch a Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) first satellite missions–Mandrake II, the Laser Interconnect Networking Communications System (LINCS), and Prototype On-orbit Experimental Testbed (POET). The SDA missions involve two Astro Orbital-built Mandrake II cube satellites with an SA Photonics payload, two General Atomics LINCS microsatellites to demonstrate space-to-air communications with an MQ-9 Reaper drone, and a Loft Orbital satellite carrying the POET payload, which is to demonstrate a low-latency “battle management capability” in space. “The more processing that we can move into space, the better off we’re going to be,” an SDA official said on June 22. “POET is going to give us the first opportunity to actually do that… so we’re really looking forward to getting some data out of this.” The Astro Digital satellites have been part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Blackjack program, started in 2018 to show how the military could benefit from low Earth orbit satellites and mesh satellite networks. SpaceX’s Transporter 2 mission launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. will carry dozens of rideshare satellites in what the company says is its second dedicated rideshare mission. SDA said that its missions will “gather data on optical communication terminal (OCT) performance and processing in low-Earth orbit (LEO), proving out a core capability required for SDA’s future development efforts.” “Optical links between space, air, and ground assets offer significantly higher data rates and lower latency when compared to conventional radio frequency links, and demonstrate a pathway of getting real-time data to warfighter,” the agency said.
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New achievements in aerospace
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2015 Senegal mid-air collision crash
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On 5 September 2015, CEIBA Intercontinental Flight 71, a Boeing 737 passenger jet en route from Dakar, Senegal, to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, collided mid-air with a Hawker Siddeley HS-125 air ambulance jet operated by Senegalair. The 737 was slightly damaged and managed to land safely at Malabo, but the HS-125, after remaining airborne for almost an hour with the crew unresponsive, eventually crashed into the ocean, killing all seven people on board. The two aircraft collided at 18:13 approximately 130 km (80 mi) east of Tambacounda, Senegal, while cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet (11,000 m) along the same airway in opposite directions, in an area with no radar coverage. [1] The impact sheared off the top 1-metre section of the Boeing's right winglet and was registered on the on-board flight data recorder as a brief oscillation and an uncommanded yaw promptly corrected by the autopilot. [2]
It is believed that air ambulance 6V-AIM was struck on the fuselage, resulting in the loss of cabin pressure and the incapacitation of the crew. The HS-125 continued flying for a further 55 minutes without the crew responding to any of the several attempts made to contact them. It flew past Dakar, its intended destination, before presumably running out of fuel and crashing into the Atlantic Ocean around 110 km (70 mi) west of Dakar. The wreckage was not recovered. [3]
The crew of the CEIBA 737 in the meantime had assessed that their aircraft was operating normally, and decided to skip the scheduled stopover at Cotonou, Benin, and instead continue directly to Malabo (the airline's operating base), where it landed without further incident. [4][5]
The CEIBA aircraft was a Boeing 737-8FB with Equatorial Guinean registration 3C-LLY, which had been in service since February 2014. The air ambulance was a Hawker Siddeley HS-125-700A, Senegalese registration 6V-AIM, that had been in service since 1979. [3][6]
Of the deceased victims, three were Senegalese, two were Algerian, and one each were from the Democratic Republic of Congo and France. [7]
In August 2017, the Senegalese Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA Sénégal) released a final report stating that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the HS-125 crew to maintain the assigned flight level, which the crew had correctly acknowledged and read back to the air traffic control. [8]
The report also noted that there had been previous incidents involving 6V-AIM in which a significant discrepancy was registered between the altitude indicated by the plane's altimeters and transponder, suggesting a possible fault in the aircraft's pitot-static system that may also have contributed to the accident. The report also lists as a possible contributing factor a failure by Senegalair's crew and maintenance staff to comply with established procedures, mentioning several previous detected instances. [9][4]
Both aircraft were equipped with TCAS collision avoidance system, and the CEIBA 737's unit was subsequently analysed and found to be working correctly. Despite this, the CEIBA crew received no TCAS warnings prior to the collision, a circumstance that according to the report could have been the result of the HS-125's instrument failure and resulting discrepancy between the altitude information shown on the altimeter and the one fed to the transponder and TCAS systems. [10]
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Air crash
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Man in induced coma, woman rushed to hospital after gas explosion at Mudgee home
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A man has been put into an induced coma following a horror explosion at his home in central western NSW.
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A man has been placed into an induced coma after a gas explosion at his home in central western NSW.
A rescue helicopter flew to Mudgee about 10pm on Wednesday night following reports of a gas explosion within a residential property. When responders arrived at the scene, they discovered two people inside the home with serious burns.
A man and woman were taken to Mudgee Hospital, Northern NSW Helicopter Rescue Service said.
From there the 45-year-old man was placed into an induced coma and assisted with a life support machine before being flown to the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.
He remains in a critical condition with burns to his feet, chest and abdominal area.
The woman was treated at Mudgee Hospital for minor burns.
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Certain international travellers will no longer need to quarantine in NSW under new conditions introduced by the government.
Detectives have charged a third man with murder following investigations into a fatal shooting in Salt Ash this year.
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Gas explosion
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Rylan Clark-Neal breaks silence revealing real reason for breakdown of marriage
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Rylan Clark-Neal has revealed the reason for his marriage breakdown, sharing that he had "made a number of mistakes". The news broke on Sunday that they had split after six years of marriage, with Rylan admitting that he has "taken time away from work as I am not in a good place." "I have made a number of mistakes which I deeply regret and have inevitably led to the breakdown of our marriage," Rylan told The Sun. He said: “I have taken time away from work as I am not in a good place at the moment and am seeking help. READ: Rylan Clark-Neal's monochrome mansion house goals - photos WATCH: Rylan gets a surprise call “I am trying to take each day at a time and would like to thank you to everyone for their support and for respecting our privacy at this time.” Fans have been concerned for the popular TV personality for some time after a seven-week absence from his Radio 2 show, silence on social media, and the decision not to host Eurovision. Rylan and Dan have been married six years Rylan and Dan, a police officer, started dating in 2013. Dan was a contestant on Big Brother, and he met the star through spin-off show Bit On The Side. The couple got engaged the following year whilst on a trip to Paris and have been married since November 2015. The duo tied the knot in a small, private ceremony surrounded by close friends and family. Rylan's wedding guest list included many famous faces such as Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford, Katie Price, Amy Childs, Claire Richards, as well as Matt and Emma Willis.
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Famous Person - Marriage
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2015 Bronx Legionnaires' disease outbreaks
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In 2015, there were two outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in the Bronx, New York City, United States. Between January and August 2015, one hundred and thirty people in New York City were infected with Legionnaires', but the majority of them were in the Bronx. [2]
Legionnaires Disease is an acute type of pneumonia that is caused by the inhalation of aerosolized water containing the Legionella bacteria. [3] Forty-two Legionella species have been classified to date, and these bacteria can grow in areas where there is warm water, such as cooling towers. [4][5]
In January 2015, Legionnaires' disease sickened 8 people near Co-op City's cooling towers in the northeast Bronx. Twelve people were diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease between December 2014 and the end of the outbreak in January 2015. [6]
In an unrelated July and August 2015 outbreak, the disease affected at least 120 people and caused at least twelve deaths in the South Bronx area. [7] The cause of the outbreak was traced back to the Opera House Hotel on July 10, 2015 and was declared as over as of August 20. Following the Morrisania outbreak, city officials stated that they would be pursuing new regulations for cooling towers. [2][8][9][10] Affected buildings were also ordered to be decontaminated within 14 days, under the threat of misdemeanor charges. [7]
On September 21, 2015, 13 more cases of Legionnaires Disease were identified and were said to be unrelated to the outbreaks from previous months. 35 cooling towers were inspected and 15 of these tested positive for the Legionella bacteria. After the cases surfaced, city officials put legislative programs into effect that require building owners to perform quarterly inspections and to verify that the cooling towers have been tested and are free of the Legionnella bacteria. [11]
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Disease Outbreaks
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Regional Airlines Flight 9288 crash
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On 16 March 2005, Regional Airlines Flight 9288 crashed on approach to Varandey Airport in Russia's Nenetskiy Avtonomnyy Okrug, killing 28 of the 52 people on board. [1]
Regional Airlines Flight 9288 was an Antonov An-24RV (NATO reporting name "Coke") making a non-scheduled Russian domestic passenger flight on 16 March 2005 from Usinsk Airport in Komi to Varandey Airport in Nenetskiy Avtonomnyy Okrug with seven crew members and 45 passengers aboard. On approach to Varandey Airport, the crew allowed the An-24RV's speed to drop and its nose to rise until in stalled. At 13:53, the aircraft struck a hill, crashed about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the airport, and burned, killing 28 people (two crew members and 26 passengers). [1]
The aircraft's airspeed and angle-of-attack indicators may have malfunctioned, making it difficult for the crew to monitor flight parameters accurately. [1]
The aircraft was a twin-engine Antonov An-24RV, manufacturer's serial number 27308107. It had first flown in 1972 and was registered as RA-46489. Regional Airlines had leased it from Kuzbassaviafrakht (Kuzbass Aero Freight). [1]
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Air crash
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26-year-old man killed in East Tennessee mine incident
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Published: Feb. 24, 2021 at 1:01 PM EST|Updated: Feb. 24, 2021 at 3:03 PM EST
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -A death has been confirmed at an East Tennessee mine Tuesday.
According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, a person has died at Nyrstar Tennessee Mines in Strawberry Plains. The Henson and Rich Funeral Home identified the victim as 26-year-old Cody Scott Maggard of Kentucky. He was raised in Harlan and graduated from Harlan County High School in 2013.
Maggard was described as an avid sports fan who loved the Kentucky Wildcats and NASCAR. He was survived in death by Ashley Maggard; his parents Roxie and Jason Butler; his in-laws Rhonda Asher; his grandmother Carol Broughton; his brothers and sisters, Tyler, Rhianna and Madison, Haydon Butler, Scotty Williams and Zachary Jackson.
MSHA said the incident has been classified as a powered haulage working with Zinc material.
According to the Tennessee Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development, Nyrstar managers notified the state’s Mine Safety Unit director Tuesday morning of the incident.
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Mine Collapses
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US to withdraw from UNESCO
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he US has announced it will withdraw from the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), accusing the body of “anti-Israel bias”. Heather Nauert, US State Department spokesperson, said on Thursday the US would establish an “observer mission” to replace its representation at the Paris-based agency, Al Jazeera reported. In a statement announcing its withdrawal, Israel called the US administration’s decision “courageous and moral”, and accused UNESCO of becoming a “theatre of the absurd”. “The prime minister instructed the foreign ministry to prepare Israel’s withdrawal from the organization alongside the United States,” Benjamin Netayanu’s office said in a statement. Irina Bokova, the outgoing UNESCO head, called the US withdrawal a “loss to multilateralism”, saying she is convinced that “UNESCO has never been so important for the US, or the US for UNESCO”. At a time when “conflicts continue to tear apart societies across the world, it is deeply regrettable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture under attack,” she said. Thursday’s development demonstrates the US administration’s “complete and total bias” towards Israel, says Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party comprising mostly secular intellectuals. “Sooner or later they will see Palestine in every UN agency. Will the US respond to that by withdrawing from the WHO or the World Intellectual Property Organization? They will be hurting only themselves.” The US was angered in 2011 when UNESCO members granted Palestine full membership of the body, despite opposition from its ally Israel. That year the US stopped paying its dues to the 195-member organization but did not officially withdraw. The US opposes any move by UN bodies to recognize the Palestinians as a state, insisting that this must await a negotiated Middle East peace deal. In July, the UN body declared the Old City of Al-Khalil in the occupied West Bank an endangered World Heritage site. Netanyahu announced a $1m cut in funding to the UN, saying the UNESCO vote ignored Jewish ties to the site. A UNESCO resolution on Beit-ul Moghaddass in May strongly criticized Israel’s occupation of the eastern part of the city.
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Ålesund fire
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The Ålesund fire happened on 23 January 1904 in the Norwegian city of Ålesund. It destroyed almost the whole city centre, built mostly of wood, like the majority of Norwegian towns at the time. The town has since been rebuilt and it is now the administrative centre of Ålesund Municipality. The fire started around 2 AM on the island of Aspøya, in the Aalesund Preserving Co.’s factory, which was located where Lower Strand Street 39 (Nedre Strandgate 39) is located today. It is actually stated that the fire started because a cow kicked a torch. In spite of valiant роforts at suppression, the wind-driven fire destroyed much of the town. The fire burned to a point just west of what today is called Brusdalshagen, going at least as far as Borgundvegen 39. The last and easternmost house which burned stood where Borgundvegen 37 stands today. In total, the fire destroyed nearly 850 houses, leaving approximately 230 houses remaining within the town borders. There was only one fatality from the fire. At 2:15 AM on Saturday, 23 January 1904, the initial alarm was received from a manual pull station. Shortly afterwards the fire watchtower observed an open fire in the lower part of the road Strandgate. Almost simultaneously another manual pull station signal alarm was received from the Kråsbys area. Two fire crews were dispatched immediately. Although fire crews responded immediately the sky brightened rapidly in the direction of the Aalesund Preserving Co.’s factory. The weather was unfavorable; a strong gale blew out of the southwest. When the fire engines proceeded through the lower part of the Strandgate to the fire, they encountered heavy smoke and a rain of sparks, such that the horses panicked and had to be blindfolded and led to the fire. When the fire engines arrived on the scene, they found the Aalesund Preserving Co. engulfed in flames and the nearest neighbouring buildings also burning. The two nearest buildings were in flames and before the crew could begin fighting these fires, two more were burning as well. The storm blew so strongly that people had difficulty standing. The draft caused buildings to burn vehemently generating both radiant heat and windblown sparks which spread the fire. Soon a house on the north side of Stradgate was ignited; a ladder was erected and fire hoses were directed at the fire, but the firefighters were ineffective in slowing the rapidly spreading fire. At virtually the same time, sparks spread the fire to other houses on the north side of Strandgate. Another fire engine had arrived but the water demand was high and the pressure was so low that the stream could not reach the top of the houses. More houses in the lower part of the street and eastwards to Aspøgate began to burn. A steam driven fireboat was brought in service in the harbour near the end of Aspøgate. [1] The fire now raged over the entire Strandgate and the area had to be evacuated. Attempts were made to build a Prestegate fire break by tearing down buildings. Almost immediately thereafter the alarm was raised because the fire had spread to Rasmussen’s place in the Kirkegate, which lay two blocks further into the city, as well as at the Latin school. Fire fighting on the lower Strandgate could no longer be sustained; the steam driven fireboat had to fall back to a new line on the Langeberggate. There it came into action and was able to power four strong fire suppression steams. Meanwhile, fires had broken out on Tellesbøegård in the Langeberggate. The blocks around the Prestegate were given up as lost. The fire chief chose to concentrate his forces on holding the line at Murgård. With the combined efforts of the fire engines and fireboat, the fires in the Tellesbøegård, the Latin school and Rasmussen’s place were extinguished (at least temporarily). But the wind continued strong, lofting sparks and embers, so that the fire line was jumped and houses along the Prestegate began to burn. The heat grew so oppressive that the firemen were forced to retreat or risk their lives. Shortly thereafter Rønneberg & Sønners pakhus in the Notenesgate, which lay about 500 metres (1,600 ft) away on the other side of the Brosund (open water), was reported to be burning. Fire also recommenced at the Tellesbøegård, at the Latin school and in a house in Øvregate as well as on the roof at Murgård. The fire line on Prestegate had to be abandoned and the fire boat again relocated. Almost immediately, fire was reported at H.W. Friis’s sjøpakhus in Verpingsvik which lies about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) away. Although the fire fighters were reinforced by additional help, as the fire spread, manpower was lost since those who arrived first to fight the fire feared for their families safety. Some left the lines to assure their relatives were safely evacuated. The fire lines grew longer and longer, with manpower spread more and more thinly. An attempt was made to fall back and create a new fire line to halt the fire at Hellegate street. The fire boat was directed to Apotekerbrygg and the fire forces were concentrated there. But before they could begin activity establishing the fire line there, the roofs of houses on the east side of Hellegate caught fire. Further, the crews dispatched to Rønneberg’s warehouse were unsuccessful in extinguishing that fire. It became clear the outer town was lost.
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Fire
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2009 Jaipur fire
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The Jaipur oil depot fire broke out on 29 October 2009 at 7:30 PM (IST) at the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) oil depot's giant tank holding 8,000 kilolitres (280,000 cu ft) of petrol, in Sitapura Industrial Area on the outskirts of Jaipur, Rajasthan, killing 12 people and injuring over 300. The blaze continued to rage out of control for over a week after it started and during the period half a million people were evacuated from the area. [1][2][3] The oil depot is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) south of the city of Jaipur[4][5]
The incident occurred when petrol was being transferred from the Indian Oil Corporation's oil depot to a pipeline. There were at least 40 IOC employees at the terminal (situated close to the Jaipur International Airport) when it caught fire with an explosion. The Met department recorded a tremor measuring 2.3 on the Richter scale around the time the first explosion at 7:36 pm which resulted in shattering of glass windows nearly 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from the accident site. [6][7][8]
The fire was a major disaster in terms of deaths, injury, loss of business, property and man-days, displacement of people, environmental impact in Jaipur, the capital city of the Indian state of Rajasthan and a popular tourist destination. As per eyewitnesses having factories and hotels around Indian Oil's Sitapura (Jaipur) Oil Terminal they felt presence of petrol vapour in the atmosphere around 4:00 p.m. on 29 October 2009. Within the next few hours the concentration of petrol vapour intensified making it difficult to breathe. [2][3] The Ayush Hotel in the vicinity of the terminal asked all its guests to vacate the hotel to avert any tragedy. Adjacent to the terminal wall was the workshop of Morani Motors (P) Limited where as per eyewitnesses cars parked on the roof top were thrown up into the air to about 10 feet and 35 new Hyundai brand cars were completely destroyed. The police, civil administration and fire emergency services were oblivious to the situation developing in the Indian Oil Terminal. Around half past six the staff in the terminal who had contained the leak and flow of petrol panicked and reported the matter to nearby Sanganer Sadar Police Station. Within the next 30 minutes the local police chief and District Collector were on the spot along with the terminal's general manager, but with no plan to deal with the situation. The nearby industries, which were running second shifts, were cautioned to vacate the area. At 7:35 p.m. a huge ball of fire with loud explosion broke out engulfing the leaking petrol tank and other nearby petrol tanks with continuous fire with flames rising 30–35 m (98–115 ft) and visible from a 30 km (19 mi) radius. The traffic on adjacent National Highway No.12 was stopped leading to a 20 km (12 mi) long traffic jam. The Jaipur International Airport is just 5 km (3.1 mi) away from the accident site. Both the army and experts from Mumbai[9] were employed on 30 October 2009 to contain the fire in the Sitapura Industrial Area. The district administration disconnected electricity and evacuated nearby areas to limit the damage. [9]
The fire still raged on 31 October. [10] By then, the accident had already claimed eleven lives and seriously injured more than 150 people. [10] The District Administration and Indian Oil Corporation had no disaster management plan to deal with this kind of calamity. The local fire officers were ill-equipped to deal with fire accidents of this magnitude. They remained onlookers and no efforts were made to breach the terminal wall to get closer to kerosene and diesel tanks to cool them with water jets. The fire was blamed on non-observance of normal safety procedures. The depot fire raged for 11 days, killed 11 people in all and resulted in losses worth Rs 2.80 billion. A major fire broke out at a petrol storage tank of state—owned Indian Oil Corp's (IOC) Hazira terminal in Gujarat. [11] No casualties were reported immediately. Local authorities and the company rushed fire tenders to douse the fire. Officials said the fire was reported in the afternoon at one of IOC's five petrol storage tanks at the Hazira depot. The tank had held almost 5,000 kilolitre of petrol, half of its capacity, when it caught fire. Senior IOC officials rushed to Hazira to supervise operations and an inquiry was ordered to ascertain its causes. The depot was a so-called 'white-oil terminal', housing a tank farm to store petrol and five diesel tanks. Fire brigade personnel from Surat and nearby cities. IOC sent fire tenders from its Koyali refinery to help douse the fire. "The fire has been isolated", a company official said. "A high-level team has been constituted to investigate the cause of the fire but our first priority is to put out the fire...efforts are on at war footing". This was the second major fire at an IOC storage depots in three years. The following products were stored in eleven tanks inside the terminal:
About 12 people lost their lives due to burns and asphyxia and more than 300 suffered injuries. Many of the dead were the employees of Indian Oil Corporation. THE DISASTER MANAGEMENT ACT, 2005 envisages that each revenue District must have a Disaster Management Plan. While 31 revenue Districts of Rajasthan had placed the Disaster Management Plan on Rajasthan Government website Jaipur District did not have any Disaster Management Plan. A Disaster Management Plan for Jaipur District has been put on Internet on 17 November 2009 i.e. 20 days after the accident took place on 29 October 2009. In the meanwhile Jaipur suffered two more disasters when Swine Flu infected a number of school children prompting Government to order closure of schools, and derailment of a Train Mandore Express killing six persons and injuring more than 50 persons. A Legal Notice has been issued to Indian Oil Corporation for violating The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Air pollution across Jaipur was way above maximum permitted limits when the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) depot on the edge of the city was caught fire. It significant effect on the air in Delhi or Agra, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) reported. Almost 60,000 kilolitres (2,100,000 cu ft) of oil in 11 storage tanks went up in flames on the evening of 29 Oct and the blaze raged till 6 Nov.[12]
The Petroleum Minister of India Murli Deora had appointed a 5-member committee to investigate the causes of Fire and submit its report within 60 days. The Industries & Education Institutions in Sitapura Industrial Area have filed about 150 complaints with Sanganer Sadar police station about deaths, injury and loss of property due to negligence of Indian Oil Corporation Limited.
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Fire
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WFP warns 3 million more people now “on the brink of famine” – Global issues
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Home - World News - WFP warns 3 million more people now “on the brink of famine” – Global issues That number rose from 42 million at the start of the year to 27 million in 2019, the agency said in a press release. The increase is based on those living desperately in the official hunger classification of IPC4 and above, in Afghanistan, alongside other increases in Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Angola, Kenya and in Burundi. “Tens of millions of people are looking into an abyss. We have conflict, climate change and COVID-19 that are increasing the number of people suffering from acute hunger, and the latest data shows that there are now more than 45 million people walking on the brink of famine ” , said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. He was speaking following a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, where WFP is stepping up support to help nearly 23 million people in need. “Fuel costs are rising, food prices are skyrocketing, fertilizers are more expensive, and all of this is fueling new crises like the one currently unfolding in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and the United Kingdom. Syria, “he added. WFP said that together with humanitarian partners in hunger hotspots around the world, they are doing all they can to increase assistance to the millions of people at risk of starving to death. However, available resources are unable to keep pace with demand, at a time when traditional funding flows are under enormous pressure. WFP estimates that the cost of preventing famine worldwide is now $ 7 billion, up from $ 6.6 billion at the start of the year. “As the cost of humanitarian aid increases exponentially, we need more funds to reach families around the world who have already exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger,” added the WFP chief. . The agency said families facing acute food insecurity are forced to make “devastating choices to cope with growing hunger.” A vulnerability analysis in the 43 countries studied shows that families are forced to eat less or skip meals altogether. Sometimes children are fed, while parents sacrifice meals and are forced to go hungry. In Madagascar, where pockets of famine are already a reality, some are forced to eat locusts, wild leaves or cacti to survive.
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Famine
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2020–2021 Slovenian protests
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OPS - Aware people of Slovenia organization
2+ OPS protestors
The 2020 Slovenian protests are ongoing mostly peaceful protests against Janez Janša's government. Protests are held every Friday in the capital city of Ljubljana, they started during lockdown with people displaying banners and flags on their windows and balconies. At the end of April protests moved to the streets with most people being on bicycles. [1] At the end of October Friday protestors cancelled further street protest due to spread of COVID-19, but they continued to protest from their homes. In November two new groups who are not associated with Friday protestors staged street protests and caused violence. Police used tear gas and water cannons in intervention against those protestors. [2]
Janez Janša has been accused of eroding freedom of media since assuming office. According to a report by International Press Institute Slovenia has experienced a swift downturn in media and press freedom. IPI accused Janša of creating a hostile environment for journalists by his tweets, which IPI described as "vitriolic attacks". [1][3] He has also been accused of usurping power and corruption. He is often compared to Viktor Orbán because of his authoritarianism. [4][5]
After formation of 14th government of Slovenia people started displaying flags and banners on the balconies and windows. Street protests were not organized in March because of COVID-19 pandemic. On 27 April, first street protests occurred in Ljubljana, Maribor, and few smaller cities. Protests were organized by facebook group "Resistance to government of Slovenia". [6]
On 1 May, around 3,500 cyclist held a peaceful protest in Ljubljana. On 8 May, around 7,000 people, mostly on bicycles protested in front of National Assembly Building. Former prime minister Marjan Šarec showed sympathies towards protestors, he also said that protests were organized by activists and not by politicians. [7]
On the night of 14 May, police placed a fence in front of national assembly. Next day protestors jumped over the fence and wrote "our property" inside the fenced area. Youth for Climate Justice environmental group joined today's protests. One person was arrested. [8]
On 22 May, protest was held in front of National Assembly Building, environmental groups joined the protests. [9]
On 29 May, protestors turned their back to National Assembly and stood in silence for 2 minutes. Few protestors were fined for writing with chalk on sidewalk, including theater director Jaša Jenull. Police estimated that around 5,000 people gathered on the protest while some estimated number of 10,000. [10]
On 5 June, many protestors started writing with chalk on sidewalk like few last Friday, police decided to not fine protestors anymore. [11]
On 12 June, protestors built paper airplanes and threw them at the police officers who were guarding fenced area in front of National Assembly. On paper planes was a writing, reading "Death to Janšism, freedom to everyone" (a play on words on popular anti-Axis resistance slogan), this slogan was also shouted by some of the protestors. Around 8 PM local time, police clashed with protestors who tried to remove fence which was place in front of National Assembly, some protestors jumped over the fence but they didn't manage reach the National Assembly. Seven people were detained, they were taken to the police station and fined. Among those who jumped over the fence was artist Jaša Mrevlje Pollak, he was arrested and held in police van, he was released after 30 minutes with no criminal charges. [12][13][14]
On 19 June, peaceful protests were held in Ljubljana, Maribor and Celje. Protestors called police to join them. [15]
On 25 June, Statehood day of Slovenia 2 hours before national celebration, protestors organized "alternative celebration". Protestors were met by around 30 anti-protestors in yellow vests, police created corridor between two groups to prevent their confrontation. These anti-protestors called themselves "yellow vests" [16] Eight of anti-protestors were later identified to be members Slovenian neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour. On 26 June, on peaceful protests in Ljubljana protestors put chains on hands of France Prešeren statue, symbolizing decreasing civil liberty in Slovenia. [17]
During whole July no incidents occurred on the protests. On 3 July, pro government anti-protestors yellow vests again showed up in counter of peaceful protest in Ljubljana, almost 100 organizations and initiatives have strongly condemned yellow vests' rally. Yellow vests told the media that they want "to prevent coup". From this day onward yellow vests were present as anti-protestors on every protest. [18]
On 10 July, after a long time National Assembly wasn't fenced for the protest but there was large police presence. [19]
On 17 July, protestors created "protest Protest people's assembly" in order to establish clearer demands. [20]
On 24 July, some protestors gathered earlier to protest for women's rights and express support for MeToo movement. Protest people's assembly continued to form demands and made expectations for future of Slovenia. [21]
On 31 July, protestors made a giant puppet of Janez Janša to mock him. Protest people's assembly made 245 proposals, ideas and demands about change in education, health, changes in electoral legislation, workers' rights and environmental protection. [22]
There were no incidents on protests during August. On 7 August, protests started in coastal town of Izola after a report that town paid two hotel rooms for Agriculture Minister Aleksandra Pivec.
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Protest_Online Condemnation
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Bank robbery suspect arrested after crashing car in Ann Arbor neighborhood
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ANN ARBOR, MI – A bank robbery suspect was arrested Monday afternoon after crashing his getaway vehicle in an Ann Arbor neighborhood and trying to runaway on foot, police say. Police were called at 1:24 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14, to a Key Bank branch, 2225 Washtenaw Ave., in Ypsilanti Township for a reported robbery at gunpoint, according to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office. Arriving officers spotted the suspect’s vehicle fleeing the scene and pursued it west towards Ann Arbor, police said. The suspect crashed near Turnberry Lane and fled on foot in the neighborhood near Scarlett Middle School, close to the crash, but was quickly located and arrested without further incident, police said. The suspect was taken to the Washtenaw County Jail to await charges while police remained at the bank and crash scene to investigate and collect remaining evidence, police said. The Ann Arbor Police Department, Ypsilanti Police Department, Pittsfield Township Department of Public Safety assisted at the scene. More from The Ann Arbor News: Ann Arbor council rehashes drama before choosing Tom Crawford as next city administrator Glazier Way, Green Road closing in Ann Arbor for resurfacing Liberty Street to close in downtown Ann Arbor for DDA project
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Bank Robbery
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Hollister riot
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The Hollister riot, also known as the Hollister Invasion,[4] was an event that occurred at the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA)-sanctioned Gypsy Tour motorcycle rally in Hollister, California from July 3 to 6, 1947. Many more motorcyclists than expected flooded the small town to watch the annual rallies, as well as to socialize and drink. A few of the motorcyclists caused a commotion in the town. The incident, known afterwards as the Hollister riot, was sensationalized by the press with reports of bikers "taking over the town" and "pandemonium" in Hollister. [5] The strongest dramatization of the event was a photo of a drunken man sitting on a motorcycle, possibly staged by the photographer by surrounding the scene with discarded beer bottles. It was published in Life magazine and it brought national attention and negative opinion to the event. The Hollister riot helped to give rise to the outlaw biker image. After World War II, countless veterans came back to America and many of them had a difficult time readjusting to civilian life. They searched for the adventure and adrenaline rush associated with life at war that had now left them. Civilian life felt too monotonous for some men who also craved feelings of excitement and danger. [Others sought the close bonds and camaraderie found between men in the army. Furthermore, certain men wanted to combat their horrifying war memories and experiences that haunted them, many in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder.Thus, motorcycling emerged stronger than ever as a substitute for wartime experiences such as adventure, excitement, danger and camaraderie. Men who had been a part of the motorcycling world before the war were now joined by thousands of new members. The popularity of motorcycling grew dramatically after World War II because of the effects of the war on veterans. Throughout the 1930s, Hollister, California hosted an annual Fourth of July gypsy tour event. Gypsy tours were American Motorcyclist Association-sanctioned racing events that took place all over America and were considered to be the best place for motorcyclists to converge. [8] The annual event consisted of motorcycle races, social activities, and much partying.In Hollister, the event and the motorcyclists were very welcome. Especially because Hollister was a very small town, with only about 4,500 people, the rally became a major event in its yearly life as well as an important part of the town's economy. Due to World War II, the rally was canceled, but the event organized for 1947 was the revival of the Gypsy Tour in Hollister.
On July 3, 1947, festivities in Hollister began. But as previously mentioned, the popularity of motorcycles had grown dramatically and this rise in popularity caused one of the main problems of this event: massive attendance. Around 4,000 motorcyclists flooded Hollister, almost doubling the population of the small town. They came from all over California and the United States, even from as far away as Connecticut and Florida. Motorcycle groups in attendance included the 13 Rebels, Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington, the Boozefighters, the Market Street Commandos, the Top Hatters Motorcycle Club, and the Galloping Goose Motorcycle Club. Approximately ten percent of attendees were women.The town was completely unprepared for the number of people that arrived, since not nearly as many people had participated in the pre-war years. Initially the motorcyclists were welcomed into the Hollister bars, as the influx of people meant a boom in business. But soon, drunken motorcyclists were riding their bikes through the small streets of Hollister and consuming huge amounts of alcohol. They were fighting, damaging bars,throwing beer bottles out of windows, racing in the streets, and other drunken actions. There was also a severe housing problem. The bikers had to sleep on sidewalks, in parksin haystacks and on people's lawns. By the evening of July 4, "they were virtually out of control".
The small, seven-man police force of Hollister was overwhelmed by the events. The police tried to stop the motorcyclists' activities by threatening to use tear gas and by arresting as many drunken men as they could. The bars tried in vain to stop the men from drinking by refusing to sell beer and voluntarily closing two hours ahead of time.
Eyewitnesses were quoted as saying, "It's just one hell of a mess",but that "[the motorcyclists] weren't doing anything bad, just riding up and down whooping and hollering; not really doing any harm at all. "
The ruckus continued through July 5 and slowly died out at the end of the weekend as the rallies ended and the motorcyclists left town. At the end of the Fourth of July weekend and the informal riot, Hollister was littered with thousands of beer bottles and other debris and there was some minor storefront damage. About 50 people were arrested, most with misdemeanors such as public intoxication, reckless driving, and disturbing the peace. There were around 60 reported injuries,of which three were serious, including a broken leg and skull fracture. Other than having to witness the chaos of the weekend, no Hollister residents suffered any physical harm. A City Council member stated, "Luckily, there appears to be no serious damage. These trick riders did more harm to themselves than the town. "
The small riot came to national prominence through media coverage of the event. However, the articles that were written about the riot may have greatly exaggerated and sensationalized the actual events.
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Riot
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2011 NBA Lockout
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The 2011 NBA lockout was the fourth and most recent lockout in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Team owners began the work stoppage upon expiration of the 2005 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The 161-day lockout began on July 1, 2011 and ended on December 8, 2011. It delayed the start of the 2011–12 regular season from November to December, and it reduced the regular season from 82 to 66 games. The previous lockout in 1998–99 had shortened the season to 50 games. During the lockout, teams could not trade, sign or contact players. Also, players could not access NBA team facilities, trainers, or staff. Negotiations between the owners, led by league commissioner David Stern, and the players, headed by director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher of the labor union National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), began in early 2011 and continued through November. The main issues dividing both sides were the division of revenue, the structure of the salary cap and luxury tax. Owners proposed to reduce the players' share of basketball related income (BRI) from 57% to 47%, but the players countered with 53% of BRI. Owners wanted to implement a hard salary cap and a harsher luxury tax, hoping to increase competition among teams, whereas players wanted to keep the current soft salary cap structure intact. As both sides failed to reach an agreement, the NBA canceled the preseason and all games through December. On November 14, the players dissolved the union, allowing them to file antitrust lawsuits against the league. On November 26, both sides reached a tentative agreement to end the lockout. The new CBA calls for a revenue split of 49-to-51.2% and a flexible salary cap structure with harsher luxury tax. After the tentative deal was reached, owners allowed players to have voluntary workouts at team sites starting December 1. After the deal was ratified on December 8, training camps, trades and free agency began the next day. During the lockout, some players signed contracts to play in other countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, with most of them having the option to return upon the lockout's conclusion. The lockout also affected the economy due largely to NBA cities losing revenue generated by games as well as television networks losing ratings and advertisement revenue. After the previous lockout, which shortened the 1998–99 season from 82 to 50 games, a six-year deal between the owners, led by commissioner David Stern, and the players, led by director Billy Hunter and president Patrick Ewing of the labor union National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), was reached. As the CBA was set to expire on June 30, 2005, the two sides began to negotiate in early 2005. There were several issues obstructing the new agreement, which included adding an age limit for rookies, toughening the existing drug-testing program and limiting the length of long-term contracts. However, negotiations went smoothly and the two sides were able to reach a deal in June 2005, avoiding the lockout. [11][12] That deal guaranteed players 57 percent of basketball-related income (BRI) and lasted for six years, until June 30, 2011. [13] A year after signing the deal, eight owners signed a petition requesting Stern address the disparity between small-market and large-market teams. They wrote that "the hard truth is that our current economic system works only for larger-market teams and a few teams that have extraordinary success ...The rest of us are looking at significant and unacceptable annual financial losses. "[14]
Derek Fisher succeeded Ewing as NBPA president in 2006. [15] In early 2011, negotiations on a new CBA began. The league claimed that it was losing $300 million a year (22 out of 30 teams were losing money last season) and proposed to reduce 40% of players' salary (about $800 million) and institute a hard salary cap (at $45 million per team) as opposed to a soft cap (at $58 million) currently in use. The union disputed those figures and steadfastly opposed those changes. Hunter said that he was advising players to prepare for a lockout. [16] In May 2011, the NBPA filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), accusing the league of negotiating in bad faith by failing to provide critical financial data to the union and repeatedly threatening to lock out players. The NBA quickly rejected the complaint, saying that the league complies fully with federal labor laws. The union also considered the option of decertification, which allows players to file an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA. [17]
With time winding down, negotiations continued in May and June. On the salary cap, the owners, in their newest proposal, call for a system called the "flex cap" that limits payroll at $62 million but penalizes teams if the teams payroll exceeds the league's average payroll of that season. [18] The union argued that it is still a hard cap because the ceiling would kick in eventually. [19] On salary reduction, players offered to cut $500 million over the next five years (their share of BRI would be reduced from 57 to 54.3 percent). The owners instead proposed to cut $2 billion over the next 10 years. [20]
As a last-ditch effort to avert a lockout, owners and players met again on June 30, 2011, to negotiate, but both sides failed to reach a resolution on key issues like salary cap and BRI splits. Both Stern and Hunter said that the two sides remained far apart. The owners demanded a larger share, claiming that they were losing money. The players, on the other hand, were willing to make concessions, but they refused to completely cave in to owners' demands. Negotiations broke off, and the CBA expired at midnight. [21]
The lockout was officially started by the owners on July 1, 2011, during which, teams could not trade, sign or contact players, and players could not access NBA team facilities, trainers or staffs. Negotiations resumed at an August 1 bargaining session, but it fell apart after three hours. [1] On August 2, 2011, the NBA filed two unfair labor practice claims against the NBPA, one at the NLRB and another at a federal district court in New York. The league accused the players of being uncooperative in negotiations by threatening to dissolve their union and file antitrust lawsuits. Hunter, in a statement released by the union, called the lawsuits "without merit" and that the union would seek to dismiss it in court. [22] On August 4, Hunter said that he thought the entire 2011–12 season would likely be canceled.
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Strike
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Vondelstraat riots
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The Vondelstraat riots (Dutch: Vondelstraatrellen) were violent disturbances on Vondelstraat in Amsterdam, the Netherlands between squatters and the state in March 1980. It also involved the deployment of military tanks on the streets for the first time since World War II, and was one of the most serious disturbances involving squatters in the country. During the 1970s, squatting became increasingly prevalent in Amsterdam due to the lack of housing and the high number of decayed buildings in the city centre. Many of the squatters occupying land were youngsters from the baby boom generation, having trouble finding homes to live in. A previous riot in Amsterdam happened in 1966. Authorities did little to stop them before the events of 1980. Many riots occurred between the squatters and the authorities (overall referred to as Krakersrellen), the biggest being the Nieuwmarkt Riots in 1975. By the late 1970s the mood changed as politicians and real estate owners called for action against squatters. The mayor of Amsterdam at the time, Wim Polak, decided to start cracking down on squatters.
Vondelstraat is a major street in the centre of Amsterdam and was the location of a large squatting squad that occupied property. On 29 February, the state evicted squatters from a building on the corner of Vondelstraat and Eerste Constantijn Huygensstraat. Amid violent protests from hundreds of squatters, who reoccupied the building and built huge barricades, over a thousand police officers and soldiers were deployed to stop their actions.
The rioters threw objects and petrol bombs, and police responded with tear gas. Street fights continued until 3 March. A tank that was deployed, driven by Major Tom van Erk, managed to demolish the barricades. Calm returned that day.
Fifty police officers were hurt during the events.
Another huge squatting protest happened on 30 April 1980 during the coronation of Queen Beatrix. Other riots, albeit smaller, also happened in August, September and December, as well as in 1981 and 1982. In the late 1980s the squatting movement became less prevalent, particularly after the increase of house building in the city. In 2010, the Dutch parliament voted to ban squatting entirely.
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Riot
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1995 Dinar earthquake
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The 1995 Dinar earthquake occurred on 1 October in Dinar (District), Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. It had an Mw magnitude of 6.2[3] with an epicenter close to the Dinar-Çivril fault. [3]
The earthquake occurred at a time of political instability in Turkey, with large strikes by public sector workers taking place just 11 days earlier. [2] The disaster was preceded by a number of smaller earthquakes of up to 5.1 magnitude, the last of which had occurred on 26 September 1995. [2] This resulted in a number of residents deciding to sleep outside their homes and possibly resulted in less deaths and injuries in the 1 October quake. [2] When the quake occurred, 90 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the disaster. [2]
In total, 2,473 homes suffered major damage, 1,218 moderate damage and 2,076 slight damage. [4] The Turkish government responded by constructing 5,000 new homes for those affected by the disaster. [4]
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Earthquakes
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Earthquakes in 1995 details the major earthquakes that occurred around the world in the year 1995.
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Earthquakes in 1995 details the major earthquakes that occurred around the world in the year 1995. The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995 at 05:46 JST (January 16 at 20:46 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale (USGS),[1] and Mj7.3 (adjusted from 7.2) on the JMA magnitude scale. [2] The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 16 km beneath its epicenter,[2] on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe. Approximately 6,434 people lost their lives (final estimate as of December 22, 2005). [3] Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. Damage cost approximately ten trillion yen ($100 billion), around 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time. The 5.7 Mw earthquake occurred in Marathon, Texas on April 14, 1995. [4]
The a 6.6 Mw earthquake occurred in Knidi, Grevena, Greece on May 13, 1995. [5]
The Neftegorsk earthquake was a 7.1 Mw (7.3 MS) earthquake that devastated the town of Neftegorsk in northern Sakhalin Island, Russia on May 27, 1995 at 23:03 Russian time (13:03 UTC). [6]
Neftegorsk was nearly destroyed completely by the earthquake. Approximately 2,000 of the 3,176 residents in the town were killed. [7]
The Antofagasta earthquake was an earthquake with a strength of 8.0 Mw[8] registered on July 30, 1995 at 05:11 UTC (01:11 local time). Its epicenter was located near off the coast in the Chilean Sea near Antofagasta, affecting coastal areas of Antofagasta Region. The Guerrero earthquake occurred on September 14, 1995 at 14:04 UTC (08:04 local time). This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 Mw, with the epicenter being located in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. Three people were reported dead. In the rural part of southeast Guerrero, many houses with adobe of poor quality suffered heavier damage. [9] The intensity in Copala reached MM VII. [10] The earthquake could be felt strongly along the coast from Michoacán to Chiapas. [11]
The 1995 Colima-Jalisco earthquake was an 8.0 Mw earthquake which occurred on October 9, 1995 at 15:36 UTC, off the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, with least 49 people dead and 100 more injured. The earthquake triggered a tsunami, which affected a 200 km coast. [12] The Cihuatlan-Manzanillo area, Colima, was more severely affected than other areas. The earthquake was felt in Mexico City and in high-rise buildings in Dallas and Houston. [13]
The 1995 Chiapas earthquake occurred on October 20, 1995 at 20:38 local time (October 21, 1995 at 02:38 UTC). The epicenter was located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, near Tuxtla Gutiérrez. [14] It had a magnitude of Mw 7.1,[11] or ML 6.5. [15] Building damage was reported. Around 70 people were reported injured. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, telephone and electricity services were momentarily interrupted. [16]
The Wuding earthquake occurred on October 23, 1995 at 22:46 UTC (October 24, 1995 at 06:46 local time). The epicenter was located near Fenduo Village (芬多村), Fawo Township (发窝乡) of the Wuding County, Yunnan, China. The magnitude of the earthquake was put at Mw 6.2, or Ms 6.5. 53 people were reported dead and 13,903 people injured. [17] Many houses and public buildings were damaged, including the Fawo Middle School (发窝中学) and the Fawo Township Office. [18]
The Gulf of Aqaba earthquake was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred on November 22, 1995 at 04:15 local time, in the eastern part of Egypt. At least 8 people were killed and 30 were injured in the epicentral region. Damage occurred in many parts of northeastern Egypt as far as Cairo. One person was killed and two slightly injured at Al Bad, Saudi Arabia. Some damage occurred at Jerusalem, Israel and Aqaba, Jordan. [19]
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Earthquakes
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1855 Catalan general strike
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In 1855, Catalonian workers went on strike following the dubious trial and execution of labor leader Josep Barceló Cassadó [ca]. It was the first general strike in Spanish history. A factory director was killed in Sants during the strike. As labor unions expanded in the next century, strikes became commonplace in Barcelona. [1]
The strike took place during the Baldomero Espartero government of the Bienio progresista during the reign of Isabella II which began with the revolution of 1854 which included the proclamation of June 28 and the coup lead by Leopoldo O'Donnell, with the support of France and Britain. [2][3]
Workers initially mobilized against mechanization, specifically in relation to the spinning of yarn. This was called the Conflicto de las selfactinas [es]. [4]
Due to new freedoms acquired after the Revolution of 1854 and the tolerance of the Espartero government, workers' associations were developed, with thirty associations forming a central council. But the newly appointed captain general of Catalonia, General Zapatero, put an end to tolerance and began a policy of repression of the labor movement. [5]
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Strike
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More than 100 dead in Myanmar jade mine landslide
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The bodies of at least 50 jade miners were pulled from the mud on Jul 2, 2020 after a landslide in northern Myanmar. (Photo: Facebook/Myanmar Fire Services Department) YANGON: The bodies of at least 100 jade miners were pulled from the mud after a landslide in northern Myanmar on Thursday (Jul 2), in one of the worst ever accidents to hit the perilous industry. Scores die each year while working in the country's lucrative but poorly regulated jade industry, which uses low-paid migrant workers to scrape out a gem highly coveted in China. The disaster struck after an early bout of heavy rainfall close to the Chinese border in Kachin state, the Myanmar Fire Services Department said in a Facebook post. "The miners were smothered by a wave of mud," the statement said. "A total of 113 bodies have been found so far." They had apparently defied a warning not to work the treacherous open mines during the rains, local police told AFP. Rescuers worked all morning to retrieve the bodies from a mud lake, pulling them to the surface and using tyres as makeshift rafts. Police told AFP that 99 bodies were found by noon, with another 20 injured. They said search and rescue efforts had been suspended because of more heavy rains. The workers were scavenging for the gemstones on the sharp mountainous terrain in Hpakant township, where furrows from earlier digs had already loosened the earth. Photos posted on the fire service Facebook page showed a search and rescue team wading through a valley flooded by the mudslide. Rescuers carried bodies wrapped in tarpaulins out of the mud lake as a deluge poured down from above. Unverified footage of the scene showed a torrent of sludge crashing through the terrain as workers scrambled up the sharp escarpments. CHINESE DEMAND Police said the death toll could have been even higher if authorities had not warned people to stay away from the mining pits the day before. "It could have been hundreds of people dead - more than this, but the notice might have saved some," superintendent Than Win Aung told AFP. Open jade mines have pockmarked Hpakant's remote terrain and given it the appearance of a vast moonscape. Landslides in the area are common, especially when rainfall hammers the muddy terrain during Myanmar's notoriously severe monsoon season. The workers combing through the earth are often from impoverished ethnic communities who are looking for scraps left behind by big firms. A major collapse in November 2015 left more than 100 dead. A mudslide buried more than 50 workers last year, when a days long recovery effort saw police digging through a "mud lake" to retrieve bodies from the sludge. Myanmar is one of the world's main sources of jadeite and the industry is largely driven by insatiable demand for the green gem from neighbouring China. The mines are mired in secrecy, though Global Witness claims their operators are linked to former military figures, the military elite and their cronies. The watchdog estimated that the industry was worth some US$31 billion in 2014, although very little reaches state coffers. Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources - including jade, timber, gold and amber - help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military. The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.
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Mine Collapses
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Advocates Urge NY to Boost $2B Fund for Undocumented Workers
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Natividad Aguilar, a 31-year-old mother of three daughters in Manhattan, is among those waiting for her application to be processed. She works a string of jobs, including cleaning homes, and said some in her community were skeptical or worried about the fund initially. But she said such concerns are dwindling as tens of thousands have received financial assistance in recent weeks. “I'm so excited for the help and so grateful that New York is providing this help,” she said. “So, so many people need it.” The Department of Labor told advocates Wednesday that it will alert potential applicants as soon as Friday that assistance won't be guaranteed even if they're eligible. “They told us that applications that have been submitted can be considered safe, that there might be a waitlist and that applications would be prioritized by the date of initial submission," Fund Excluded Workers Coalition campaign coordinator Bianca Guerrero said. Undocumented immigrants and DACA recipients are not eligible to vote in U.S. elections. But in Chicago, young immigrants like Esmeralda Montesinos and Giselle Rodriguez are joining citizens in efforts to ensure Latino immigrants who are now citizens show up at the polls. The Department of Labor didn’t answer questions Thursday about whether the fund was likely to run out of money, or whether assistance might not be guaranteed if that happened. It's unclear when or if the Democratic-led Legislature would consider a funding boost. Minority Republicans balked at Democrats' passage of the fund this spring. Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx who chairs the Senate health committee, said he supports increased funding. To be eligible, applicants must have made less than $26,208 in 2020, prove they are New York residents and show they have suffered loss of earnings because of the pandemic. They must also have worked at least six weeks during the six months before they lost earnings because of the pandemic. Eligibility documentation might include recent tax returns with a valid taxpayer identification number, pay stubs or employer letters. Immigrants who can only prove identity and residency can receive $3,200 in payments if they don’t have required work documents. Even as the program has begun to run out of money, worker advocates have urged the state to loosen application rules. Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director at the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, said it's tough for workers who aren't listed on an apartment lease or utility bill to prove residency. Municipal ID programs in New York City and elsewhere allow roommates to write affidavits to help prove residency, she said. The state allows self-employed workers to write letters that attest to their income. Workers paid in cash can receive similar letters from employers. But Kaufman-Gutierrez and other advocates interviewed by The Associated Press say the state needs to let applicants know that workers paid in cash, like babysitters or domestic workers, can also provide their own letters in scenarios where employers refuse to do so. “There are still these very significant barriers for those who are still not able to apply,” she said. “These are the most vulnerable workers who need funds the most and deserve them.” Advocates are also urging New York to make its helpline and follow-up notifications available in other languages besides English. Department of Labor spokesperson Deanna Cohen said the state is working to expedite the application process. Meanwhile, some lawyers and notaries are charging applicants hundreds of dollars to help workers fill out the application. Advocates are reporting incidents to the attorney general and labor department. Rosanna Aran, co-executive director of the Manhattan-based Laundry Workers Center, which represents over 2,100 workers, urged workers to ignore such “scams.” “We are hearing people are paying $300 just to fill out the application, sometimes $150, $500," she said.
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Financial Aid
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We won’t eradicate covid. The pandemic will still end.
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The discipline of infectious diseases has strict definitions for the level of containment for a communicable disease. “Control” means that a disease has been brought down to low levels of circulation with the help of public health interventions such as vaccines. “Elimination” means the incidence of disease has been reduced in a certain geographical region to zero. “Eradication” means the incidence of the disease worldwide has been reduced to zero. And “extinction” means even remaining stocks of the pathogen kept in secure laboratories have been destroyed. Smallpox was successfully eradicated worldwide in 1979, not only because of the vaccine but because of some unique characteristics of the virus. It lacked an animal reservoir. It had clear pathogenic features that made it easy to quickly recognize the disease in sufferers. It had a short period of infectiousness. And getting infected conferred natural immunity for life. Measles is an example of a disease that can never be eradicated; this highly transmissible respiratory virus came under control after a vaccine was developed in 1963 and, in highly vaccinated regions such as the United States, it has technically been eliminated, although occasional outbreaks still occur. I treat pediatric covid patients. What I’m seeing in our hospital scares me. The endgame for covid-19 won’t look like smallpox or measles. It has features that make it unlikely to be eradicated, including its high level of transmissibility, the ease with which its symptoms can be mistaken for other common respiratory infections, and the ability of the virus to be transmitted during asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic periods. Multiple safe and effective vaccines are helping to turn the tide, bringing the virus under control as more people take it. Eventually, the virus will become endemic, which means it will circulate at persistent, but low, rates through a region at manageable levels. Endemic viruses, such as influenza or the rhinovirus that causes the common cold, can spark outbreaks and have a seasonal pattern, but they do not usually rise to epidemic levels. Since the vaccines are remarkably effective in preventing severe covid-19, they will be our primary conduit to reaching the point of control. Antibodies generated by the vaccines naturally wane, but the vaccines generate memory B cells, which produce high levels of neutralizing antibodies if they see the virus or its variants again. Memory B cells, once generated, are long-lasting. A 2008 Nature study found that survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic were able to produce antibodies from memory B cells when their blood samples were exposed to the same influenza strain nine decades later. T cells generated by the vaccines also protect us from severe disease and are unfazed by the variants. As the virus continues to circulate, those who are older or immunocompromised will need a booster shot, but most people will be protected due to the fact that the pathogen will be more rarely confronted. So, what will endemic covid-19 look like? If we can tamp down viral circulation globally and largely strip the virus of its ability to cause severe disease through vaccination, the world can resume a version of the normalcy we so desperately crave. Outbreaks of severe disease will occur among populations unwilling to be vaccinated, as we see with measles, but vaccine mandates can help increase vaccination uptake. Because of this and naturally acquired immunity, covid-19 will go the way of other respiratory viruses over which we have control. We will test those who show up to the hospital with a severe respiratory illness for a variety of communicable diseases including covid-19. And we will provide treatments, including antivirals, steroids and other anti-inflammatory medications. Moderate respiratory symptoms of covid-19 in the outpatient setting may be treated with monoclonal antibodies or soon-to-be-available antivirals, and mild respiratory symptoms will not require special treatment at all, like other common colds. In a matter of months, viral circulation in the United States could dwindle to levels so low we will no longer need to require masks, distancing, ventilation, asymptomatic testing or contact tracing. This has already happened in Denmark, Ireland, Chile and Britain. These countries have higher vaccination rates than the United States, but we will be helped along by vaccination mandates, immunizations for young children that are on the horizon and by a high level of natural immunity caused by the rapidly spreading delta variant. Like those other countries, we will learn to accept the circulation of a virus that is no longer causing a high number of hospitalizations and treat its symptoms as they arise, like we do so many other communicable diseases that can’t be eradicated. Natural immunity to covid is powerful. Policymakers seem afraid to say so. And although the covid-19 pandemic to date has confounded a lot of our expectations, it remains true that a virus can never really continue to evolve to higher and higher pathogenicity without incurring costs to its fitness. We learned this from HIV, where mutations have rendered the virus less able to replicate. Indeed, all past pandemics have eventually ebbed, vaccine or not. Defanging the coronavirus and stripping it of its ability to cause severe disease through immunity will relegate it to the fate of other circulating cold-causing coronaviruses, an inconvenience but not a world stopper. The key to hastening this normalcy is vaccination, like the other countries that are now reopening with few restrictions We can get there, too.
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Disease Outbreaks
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Edmonton air crash
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The Edmonton air crash occurred on 4 September 1938. A Hawker Audax (serial number K7381) of No. 1 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Royal Air Force, based at Hatfield, crashed into a residential area in the Edmonton region of London (then in Middlesex). The aircraft was being flown by a 19-year-old pilot, Sgt Stanley Robert Morris RAFVR. [1][2] The pilot and 12 people on the ground were killed, including four children. It is thought that Morris was attempting to land the aeroplane at Pymmes Park when it hit the roof of one house, fell into the roadway, and ended up on the roof of two houses on Dunholme Road, Edmonton, setting fire to the properties and killing the pilot and six of the occupants of the two houses. [3] The 29 injured were taken to the North Middlesex Hospital, mostly with burns; 13 were detained in hospital, where five of them subsequently died. [3][4][5]
An inquest was held at North Middlesex Hospital on 7 September 1938, where evidence showed that the pilot was disobeying orders in flying over the area. An instructor at the Flying Training School said that Morris had been told to fly local circuits at Hatfield and should have stayed within three miles of the aerodrome. Edmonton was around 12 miles from Hatfield. The inquest heard that the aircraft had been fit to fly and had been flown by other pilots that day. Morris had also been seen on the same day low-flying contrary to his orders. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death to all the victims. [6]
The Air Ministry released a report on the accident stating that Morris was operating contrary to orders; not only had he flown further than three miles from the aerodrome, he was also manoeuvring at low level over a built-up area. He appears to have dived from 1,000 ft (300 m), flattened out his dive and continued to fly at low level when he lost further height and struck the roof of a house. The investigation could find no evidence of a defect in the engine or aircraft. [7]
Edward and James Letch, brothers who tried to rescue the pilot from the aircraft, died in hospital from burns. They were posthumously awarded the Order of the British Empire. [4][8][9]
In 2008 a memorial stone was laid at Dunholme Road Air Disaster Memorial in Church Street Cemetery on the seventieth anniversary of the crash. [8]
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Air crash
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1980 African Cup of Nations Final
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The 1980 African Cup of Nations was the 12th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the soccer championship of Africa (CAF). It was hosted by Nigeria. Just like in 1978, the field of eight teams was split into two groups of four. Nigeria won its first championship, beating Algeria in the final 3−0. The 8 qualified teams are:
The competition was played in two venues in Lagos and Ibadan. Best Ogedegbe
Mustapha Kouici
Mohamed Salah El-Din
Moussa Camara
Christian Chukwu
Lakhdar Belloumi
Ali Fergani
Mahmoud El Khatib
Shawky Gharieb
Salah Assad
Segun Odegbami
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Sports Competition
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2010 Aéro-Service C-212 crash
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On 19 June 2010, a CASA C-212 Aviocar transport aircraft crashed on a flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon, to Yangadou, Republic of the Congo, killing all eleven people on board. Among the victims were the entire board of Australian mining conglomerate Sundance Resources, including mining executive Ken Talbot. On 19 June 2010, Cam Iron – Sundance's Cameroon subsidiary – chartered a CASA C-212 Aviocar form Aéro-Service to fly their board members from Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, to the remote mining town of Yangadou, Republic of the Congo. [1] The Aviocar was chartered because the company's private jet was too large to operate into the destination airfield. [2]
The aircraft departed from Yaoundé Airport at 09:13[a] and contact was last made with the aircraft at 09:51. The aircraft was scheduled to arrive at Yangadou at 10:20. [3]
A search for the aircraft was carried out by the French Military, and the Cameroon Government, using a Transall C-160 and a Eurocopter AS 532 Cougar helicopter. The search was hampered by local fog. The wreckage of the aircraft was found on 22 June at Dima, 30 kilometres (19 mi) short of its destination and near the regional capital Djoum, Cameroon. There were no survivors among the eleven people on board. [4][5]
The aircraft involved was CASA C-212 Aviocar registered TN-AFA. [6] It was operated by Aéro-Service an airline that is banned from operating in the European Union due to safety concerns. [7]
The victims were of various nationalities, and included mining magnate Ken Talbot. [3][4][8]
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Air crash
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Loma Fire
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The Loma Fire was a wildfire that broke out on September 26, 2016, in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California. By the time the fire was contained on October 12, the fire had burned 4,474 acres (18 km2) of land and had destroyed 12 residences and 16 outbuildings. [1]
With the containment of the fire, and rainstorms due in the area, concerns turned to the potential for mudslides in the area. [4] With vegetation that previously held together the soil on the mountain having burned in the fire, the erosion effects of the upcoming rains are heightened. [5] Erosion repair efforts are being coordinated by the Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services. [5]
According to CalFire officials, the fire was caused by sparks from a portable generator used in marijuana cultivation operations off of Loma Chiquita Road. [3]
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Fire
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Kansas' outdated unemployment system has history of broken contracts and millions wasted. Here's what happened.
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In the early 2000s, the bursting dot-com bubble prompted a recession that plunged scores of Kansans into unemployment. The backbone of the state's unemployment insurance programs struggled to keep up after Congress created new programs for out-of-work residents. "The antiquated system prevented KDOL from improving its operation to meet the needs of customers," a legislative presentation later said on the 2002-03 recession. In 2010, it was deja vu. Kansas was emerging from the Great Recession and the state's unemployment system had been pushed to the max. A historic rush of Kansans filing for unemployment met that same out-of-date system, which was again being asked to adapt to a new benefits program started at the behest of the federal government. "We have never seen such a high level of demand for UI benefits since the program was created more than 70 years ago," then-Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Jim Garner wrote at the time. "The crisis certainly confirmed the very real need for the UIM project and new system to support the UI program." Sound familiar? That same message could have been written in 2021, with little discernible progress on updating the state's antiquated unemployment backend. Interviews with more than a dozen employees at KDOL and private contractors, as well as a review of state records, tell the story of a project that floundered throughout much of the 2000s. More: About 7,000 Kansans haven't completed requirements, 400 refuse jobs months into new unemployment restrictions Work was then halted by the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback and couldn't be restarted in time to prevent a fresh round of headaches during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the agency is restarting the project — even though millions of dollars of labor was previously completed. Much of the work was discarded, lost to time and unusable. In the meantime, the subject has become a political hot potato, with Republicans pointing the finger at Gov. Laura Kelly's administration. Kelly and top KDOL officials, meanwhile, have argued fault lies with previous administrations, particularly Brownback. Legislators, business leaders — even everyday Kansans — are now intimately familiar with a system that few had likely given much consideration to before the pandemic. And all are watching closely to see how the state moves forward. "We wanted to make sure, while we had everybody's attention, the governor made clear we need to move forward with the modernization," said Ryan Wright, who served as an interim KDOL secretary in 2020. "Because as soon as we get out of this headspace, we may lose this opportunity and we may never end up modernizing." 1970s-era computer system frustrates Kansas officials The core of the state's unemployment backend is a mainframe originally rolled out in 1977, when Hall and Oates and ABBA populated the Billboard charts, Jimmy Carter was president and many current top KDOL officials weren't even born. The system requires understanding a suite of complex codes, which show potential problems in a claimant's file, outline the employment history and how many claims have been filed and whether they were paid out. Making changes to a claimant's file can take a considerable amount of time, requiring IT staff to specifically hunt down any issues and address them. Waldo Jaquith, a fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University, noted mainframe systems aren't necessarily bad. He equated them to effectively "a bunch of computers stuffed into a box" that can process data efficiently. "When they say mainframe, don't picture something from like a science fiction movie from the 1960s with a couple of spinning tape wheels," Jaquith said. "These things would look like refrigerators. These mainframes are awesome. These are modern." But when the federal government rolled out a slate of new, expanded unemployment benefits designed to boost those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it meant weeks of programming to add those programs to the mainframe system. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which allows the self-employed and freelance workers to apply for benefits, is built out entirely outside the mainframe. And each time the federal government extended the programs, it required a fresh round of work to ensure the system could cope. "I mean, they've added little bells and whistles to it along the way," said Wright, the former interim secretary. "But, you know, I was born in the '70s. Right? It seems a little bit insane to think that we're still using that technology." The KDOL mainframe is complemented by a corresponding system powered by the COBOL programming language, which was en vogue throughout much of the latter half of the 20th century and was used primarily to support financial and governmental systems. More: Pandemic unemployment fraud estimates higher than initially thought. The number could reach $700 million. It began to fall out of favor in the private sector after the turn of the millennium but is still relied upon by many state and federal agencies, including KDOL. This has posed problems, as there is a dearth of programmers who know the language, meaning the state is having an increasingly difficult taking updating and maintaining its platform. At least 10 states, including Kansas, still rely on COBOL — despite warnings from the federal government to update. "As they age, legacy systems can be more costly to maintain, more exposed to cybersecurity risks, and less effective in meeting their intended purpose," a report from the federal Government Accounting Office said in 2019. But Jaquith noted that even states which updated their systems a decade ago, as Kansas considered doing, found this process wasn't a panacea during the pandemic. Mississippi, a state considered a model for Kansas in the 2010s, had roughly the same success in paying out claims on time last year. "They sucked, too," Jaquith said. Modernization gets off to a rocky start in 2000s Observers agree modernization, which began under the administration of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, had a chaotic beginning. More than $20 million in funding was approved in 2004 to conduct a feasibility study and start work on the project Bering Point was brought in as the initial vendor to handle the product and handed a contract worth almost $4 million. Its deal was terminated in early 2005 with relatively little work completed and KDOL staff frustrated at the firm's output. A subsequent firm, IBM, was brought on board later that year to stabilize the project and conduct an overhaul of the process and its personnel. The company subsequently won a $24 million contract in 2006 to handle the next phase of the modernization project, with a suite of subcontractors brought on board to provide support and oversight. But this relationship also soured. The state and IBM ended the contract in 2008 amid complaints about cost overruns. Leadership of the project was shared by KDOL and the subcontractors, most notably the Tulsa-based Persimmon Group. It was at this point, project members say, things began moving in a more promising direction. Then everything changed. Project abruptly halted under Brownback administration The Brownback administration opted in 2011 to bring in a new contractor, IT21, amid concerns from top KDOL officials that the project still wasn't on the right track. The no-bid deal with IT21 was signed in early March, with a goal of saving almost $850,000 by the end of May — less than two months away. The move was justified, the agency's chief council Karl Hansen wrote in a memo, due to "numerous critical process and programming errors," as he argued the project was still "floundering." "The debacle created by these two projects has negatively impacted Kansas workers as workers have been delayed in filing claims and receiving benefits — a situation that if left unchecked, could jeopardize the federal funding upon which the program relies, as well as invoking legal issues that may bring forth both federal and private actions against the state," Hansen wrote to the state's director of procurement, Chris Howe. "Therefore, the situation must be addressed and resolved immediately." But a regular summary of state information technology projects published in February gave the project good marks, noting major updates were due to go live in a matter of months. It also didn't raise any concerns that the project was over budget, a common complaint cited by the Brownback administration. In fact, documents show it was ahead of expectations when it came to spending. More: Topeka restaurants are struggling to staff shifts. The reason isn't as simple as extended unemployment benefits. Lee Biard, a project manager at KDOL at the time, agreed with the more positive assessment. While he was focused on bringing the system's software up-to-date, he noted the agency and its respective contractors had only been hiring individuals for the UI work who were certified by the Project Management Institute, a nonprofit that sets industry standards worldwide for project management. "It was a very energetic and well-run show," he said. "It really was. And it was moving forward. And we were working within the constraints that were being set up by the state." The Brownback administration publicly professed to want to continue the project. KDOL Secretary Karin Brownlee told a legislative committee that IT21 will "assess where the project is currently and determine how to achieve 24/7 service and transition off the mainframe ASAP." Brownlee and Jim Garner, her predecessor under Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, didn't return calls seeking interviews. ‘That was a dark time for Labor’ But modernization operations were effectively shut down overnight with virtually no notice given to personnel and contractors, many of whom had hotel reservations and other plans locked in. At the time work was halted, about $12.7 million of the $18 million allocated had been spent. One area KDOL and IT21 did appear to move forward on was a significant reduction in staff, both in agency employees and contractors. Michael Blatchford, an IT enterprise architect on the project, said the department's subsequent reduction of its information technology staff wasn't predicated on job performance but rather a targeting of those perceived as loyal to the previous administration. "That was a dark time for (the Kansas Department of) Labor," Blatchford said. About half of the department's IT workforce was axed — a move that had long-term ramifications on its operations. More: Lawmakers are weighing a decision about the future of Docking State Office Building. Here's what to know. "I feel bad for the people who have a hard time getting their unemployment and still haven't been paid," said Jessica Farrell, chief information officer at KDOL under Brownback. "But I also feel bad for the ones working at KDOL — there were some of the most skilled individuals I know working in that department. And it was terrible that skill was not allowed to be used and the whole entire project just became politicized." IT21 insisted the moves were necessary, insisting a new culture was necessary in the agency. But while some elements of the broader project did appear to initially continue, the upgrades to the benefits system was put on hold indefinitely. Staff said a major update to the system employers use to pay payroll taxes — something Kansas also hasn't been able to modernize — was halted in its tracks weeks before going live, with thousands of hours of work eventually deleted. IT21 instead complained of hundreds of bugs they said were in the system — something Blatchford says was accurate but missed the point. "These big projects are a big heavy lift and they're not fast, and they're not easy," he said. "And so oftentimes, when you're trying to modernize a system like this, you've got to be extremely strategic about it. And you almost cannot do it without building some temporary bridges." Unemployment improvements largely sit untouched At that point, modernization work sat largely dormant, though the remaining staff continued some of their efforts quietly. The original plan was to move elements off the mainframe computer piecemeal, with the goal of avoiding major service disruptions unless absolutely necessary. In the mid-2010s, some of that work continued, with the web portal allowing claimants and employers to check the status of their UI claims that had been moved off the mainframe. By 2015, however, much of had ended as staff continued to exit the agency. Staff working at KDOL at the time say there was no effort to put the undertaking back out for bid. More: Four finalists are competing to modernize Kansas’ unemployment system. Each has struggled in other states. Simultaneously, Oracle was pitching the agency on upgrading its current system to counteract fraud. Those efforts were rejected by the agency at the time, as KDOL leaders insisted much of the work could be handled in-house, albeit with a bare-bones staff. It isn't known whether Oracle's plan could have helped stem the tide of fraudulent unemployment claims filed during the pandemic, with the Legislature's nonpartisan auditing arm estimating upward of $700 million in bogus claims were paid out. Other states, like Michigan, implemented an automated fraud detection system at the time but still were slammed with their own rash of fraudulent claims. Officials quickly blamed the success of fraudsters in bilking the state on a lack of fraud controls in the antiquated systems. Meanwhile, scores of Kansans had fraudulent unemployment claims filed in their name — including Blatchford, who felt that taking Oracle up on its offer would have minimized the damage and amount of money lost to fraudsters. "I tried to help them so much and invested so much of my time," Blatchford said. "But now I'm the victim of fraud myself. That was really rough." COVID-19 pandemic halts fledgling modernization efforts When Kelly took office, Wright, who led the transition team for KDOL, and then-Labor Secretary Delia Garcia made the recommendation that modernization resume. The governor agreed and indicated the project should be "fast tracked." But Republicans have argued the agency didn't move as quickly as it should have in restarting the modernization process. “You have heard the term 'analysis paralysis.' Well, it seems to me that we might be there because you guys have been looking at this for over two years,” Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said at a committee hearing last year. “And this has become one of the major, if not the major, issues for the state of Kansas.” More: What rights do tenants have — and what action can Kansas renters take — if landlords don't live up to the lease? In 2020, a group of state officials were in the midst of touring other states that had modernized their systems in a bid to glean insight on potential contractors.
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Financial Crisis
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First look at the 2024 total solar eclipse
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On August 21, 2017, millions who live in or traveled to the United States witnessed a spectacular event — the first total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. in 38 years. The narrow path of totality on American soil started in Oregon and ended in South Carolina, captivating all of those fortunate enough to witness it. But after the excitement of the Great American Eclipse died down, every viewer was left with just one question: “When is the next one?” The answer, happily, is April 8, 2024. That’s when the next total solar eclipse will cross the United States. And although six years and seven months (plus 19 days) sounds like a long time since August 21, 2017, it’s much shorter than the average time between two eclipses appearing at a given location on Earth (330 years in the Northern Hemisphere and 550 years south of the equator). The length of totality varies from one total solar eclipse to the next. That’s due to the fact that Earth is not always at the same distance from the Sun, and the Moon is not always the same distance from Earth. The Earth-Sun distance varies by 3 percent and the Moon-Earth distance by as much as 12 percent. The result is that maximum duration of totality for any eclipse between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 3000 is 7 minutes 29 seconds. (However, that extra-long eclipse doesn’t occur until July 16, 2186, so don’t get too excited for it.) While the maximum length of totality during the April 8, 2024, eclipse won’t be that long, it’s still a worthy chunk of time: 4 minutes, 28 seconds. And as with the Great American Eclipse in 2017, everyone in the contiguous U.S. will at least be treated to a partial eclipse. In fact, as long as you have clear skies on eclipse day, the Moon will cover no less than 16.15 percent of the Sun’s brilliant surface — and that minimum coverage comes at Tatoosh Island, a tiny speck of land west of Neah Bay, Washington. But keep in mind, although our satellite covering any part of the Sun’s disk sounds cool, you’ll want to set your sights higher. Likening a partial eclipse to a total eclipse is like comparing almost dying to dying. If you are outside during a solar eclipse with 16 percent coverage, you won’t even notice the Sun getting darker. And it doesn’t matter whether the partial eclipse above your location is 16, 56, or 96 percent; only totality reveals the true celestial spectacles: two diamond rings, the Sun’s glorious corona, 360° of sunset, and stars revealing themselves in the daytime. To see any of this, you must be in the path of totality. That said, your next goal is to be as close to the center line as possible. The fact that the Moon’s shadow is round means that the longest eclipse occurs at its center line, because that’s where you’ll experience the lunar shadow’s full width. The Moon’s shadow first touches Earth just north of Penrhyn Island, one of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. That location will experience a 98-percent partial eclipse. Seventy-three minutes later, totality first strikes land at Socorro Island, a possession of Mexico. If you choose that location to view the eclipse, be sure to position yourself at the island’s far southeastern tip — you’ll enjoy an extra 34 seconds of totality there. (The span is 3 minutes 36 seconds.) The shadow’s path covers a few more tiny islands before it encounters North America just southeast of Mazatlán, Mexico. Viewers at that location will enjoy an impressive 4 minutes 27 seconds of totality. And if you wish to stay in Mazatlán itself, you’ll lose only 10 seconds off that span. The greatest duration of totality — 4 minutes 28.1 seconds — occurs when the shadow reaches San Martín, north of Torreón and roughly half the distance from the coast to the Mexican border with Texas. Fortunately, the duration of totality along the center line is never more than 1 second less than this maximum during the shadow’s more than 550-mile (885 kilometers) voyage through Mexico. Totality first reaches the United States when the Moon’s shadow crosses the Rio Grande River at the wonderfully named Radar Base, Texas, which lies in Maverick County. There, totality lasts 4 minutes 27 seconds. As the eclipse progresses through the Lone Star State, a huge number of people won’t have to travel anywhere to see it. That said, venturing just a few miles to the center line can increase their duration of totality. San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Dallas, and Fort Worth all lie under the shadow, although none is on the center line. Still, that’s more than 11 million people who can experience the eclipse with little to no effort. And we’re not even out of Texas yet. The center line then passes through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Vermont, and Maine. Those wishing to observe the eclipse from the same location the center line crossed during the August 21, 2017, eclipse should head to a location near Makanda, Illinois, which lies just south of Carbondale. A word of warning, if I may: The weather in Illinois in April — and I’m specifically talking about cloud cover here — is a far cry from what it is in August. Your chances of actually seeing the 2024 eclipse increase dramatically as you move toward the southwest. Not to mention that you’ll pick up an extra 15 seconds of totality from center-line locations near San Antonio. Other major cities in the 2024 eclipse path include Little Rock, Arkansas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio (with northwestern parts of Cincinnati and Columbus under the shadow); Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, New York; and about half of Montréal, Québec, Canada. For those wanting to view another total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States after the 2024 event, it’ll be a 20-year wait until August 23, 2044, for the next one. Plus, that eclipse is visible only in north-eastern Montana and a tiny segment of North Dakota. Its greatest duration of totality, 2 minutes 4 seconds, happens over Canada’s Northwest Territories. At the intersection of the center line of the 2044 eclipse and the United States-Canada border, totality is 20 seconds shorter: 1 minute 44 seconds. The small towns near that point, namely Hogeland and Turner, Montana, experience totalities only a few tenths of a second less than that. And the Montana cities of Chinook, Zurich, Harlem, Dodson, and Malta lose only another second. After 2044, three more total solar eclipses track through the contiguous United States in the 21st century. So, if 2044’s eclipse disappoints you, you’ll be thrilled to know that another happens less than one year later. The event on August 12, 2045, is a truly spectacular cross-country eclipse — with totalities lasting 4 minutes 23 seconds on the Northern California coast to an amazing maximum of 6 minutes 6 seconds at Port St. Lucie, Florida. Next, the center line of the total solar eclipse on March 30, 2052, lands only on Florida and Georgia, but totality in that small path will only last between 3 minutes 30 seconds in Savannah, Georgia, and 3 minutes 44 seconds near Laguna Beach, Florida. The final total solar eclipse whose path intersects the contiguous United States in the 21st century occurs May 11, 2078. Like the eclipse in 2052, this one also tracks through the southeastern United States. Totality will last 5 minutes 17 seconds in Nags Head, North Carolina. For those of you who stood beneath the Moon’s shadow in 2017, no convincing will be necessary to get you to seek out darkness in 2024. If you can catch it, an eclipse is a sight you’ll never rate as anything other than awesome. Just be sure to check the weather first!
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New wonders in nature
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1969 World Snooker Championship
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The 1969 World Snooker Championship (also known as the Player's No.6 World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional snooker tournament. It was the first World Snooker Championship in a knock-out format since 1957, following a series of challenge matches from 1964 to 1968. John Spencer won the title, defeating Gary Owen by achieving a winning margin at 37 frames to 24 in the final. Spencer had earlier eliminated defending champion John Pulman from the competition, in the quarter-finals. There were eight players entered who the championship, including four competition debutants. The quarter-finals and semi-finals were staged at several venues in England from 18 November 1968 until 22 February 1969, and the final was held at the Victoria Halls in London from 17 to 22 March 1969. As champion, Spencer received £1,300 from the total prize fund of £3,500. The 1969 championship is regarded as the first of the modern snooker era. The World Snooker Championship is a professional tournament and the official world championship of the game of snooker. [1] The sport was developed in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India. [2] Professional English billiards player and billiard hall manager Joe Davis noticed the increasing popularity of snooker compared to billiards in the 1920s, and with Birmingham-based billiards equipment manager Bill Camkin, persuaded the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC) to recognise an official professional snooker championship in the 1926–27 season. [3] In 1927, the final of the first professional snooker championship was held at Camkin's Hall; Davis won the tournament by beating Tom Dennis in the final. [4] The annual competition was not titled the World Championship until 1935,[5] but the 1927 tournament is now referred to as the first World Snooker Championship. [6][7] Davis also won the title each year until 1940, when the contest was cancelled during World War II, and again when the championship resumed in 1946, accumulating a total of 15 titles before retiring from the event. [8]
In 1952, the, following a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the BACC about the distribution of income from the world championship, the PBPA members established an alternative competition known as the World Professional Match-play Championship, the editions of which are now recognised as world championships, whilst only Horace Lindrum and Clark McConachy entered for the BACC's 1952 World Snooker Championship. [9][10] The World Professional Match-play Championship continued until 1957, after which there were no world championship matches until professional Rex Williams gained agreement from the BACC that the world championship would be staged on a challenge basis, with defending champion Pulman featuring in the first match. [10][11][12] Pulman retained the title in several challenges from 1964 to 1968. [10] Pulman had been touring snooker clubs as promotional work for the tobacco brand John Player, and the company had sponsored his 1968 match against Eddie Charlton. The good attendances for the championship match led to John Player deciding to sponsor the 1969 World Snooker Championship as a knock-out format tournament,[13] using their "Players No. 6" brand. [14] The total prize fund was £3,500, equivalent to £58,030 in 2019, including £1,300 for the champion. [15] The 1969 championship is regarded as the first of the modern snooker era. [16]
The closing date for players to enter the championship was 30 June 1968. [17] There were eight entrants: four of whom had played professionally in the 1950s and four championship debutants. The new players were John Spencer, Ray Reardon, Gary Owen, and Bernard Bennett. [18] Defending champion Pulman was drawn to meet Spencer, who had recently defeated him 14–17 in a non-title challenge match. [19]
The first match, played from 18 to 22 November 1968 at the Wryton Stadium in Bolton, saw the end of Pulman's reign as champion, when he was defeated by Spencer. [20][21] Spencer took a 4–0 lead, and ended the first session 4–2 ahead. [22] Spencer compiled a 110 break in the 18th frame, on his way to establishing a 13–5 lead at the end of the second day. [23] Spencer led 24–18 after the final afternoon session and clinched the match by winning the first frame in the evening with what was reported in The Times as a "magnificent 97 break". [21][24]
Owen faced Jackie Rea at the Hippodrome, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 25 to 28 November 1968. [20] The players each won three frames in the first afternoon session. Rea took the first in the evening, before Owen claimed five consecutive frames to end the first day 8–4 ahead. [25] On the second afternoon, the players again won three frames apiece, with Owen compiling a 68 break that turned out to be the highest break of the match. Rea took the first three frames of the evening session, to move to 10–11, then Owen won two of the next three for a 13–11 overnight lead. [26] Owen increased his lead by winning four of the six frames on the third afternoon, and maintained it by adding three of the six evening frames, leading 20–16 going into the last day. [27]
The match between Williams and Bennett was played from 25 to 28 November 1968 at the Marland Hall in Southampton. [20] Williams took all six frames in the first session,[25] and achieved a winning margin at 25–4. [28] Williams compiled a 107 break in the third frame of the fourth session, and, after dead frames were played, finished 38–11 ahead. [29]
The fourth quarter-final, between Fred Davis and Reardon, was not played until January 1969 because Reardon was touring South Africa. [30][31] The match was played at the Tunstall British Legion, Stoke-on-Trent, from 20 to 24 January. [32][33] The match featured lengthy tactical exchanges between the players, resulting in some of the longest sessions ever to take place in world championship history to that point. No player was ahead by more than two frames until Reardon took the 27th frame to lead 15–12, after which Davis won six successive frames to leave Reardon three frames behind at 15–18. Later, having been three frames down with six to play, Davis levelled the match at 24–24. Davis won in the deciding frame after a break of 52 and some smaller scoring visits, with Reardon conceding the frame at 64 points behind with one red ball remaining. The highest break of the match was 89, scored by Reardon. [32][34]
The two youngest players to have entered the tournament, Spencer, aged 33, and Williams, aged 35,[35] contested the first semi-final, held at the Co-op Hall, Bolton, from 10 to 15 February. [36] Spencer took a 9–0 lead, and was 11–1 ahead after the first day. Williams won the first two frames of the third day, and, after Spencer had taken the 15th frame, Williams added the 16th frame on a re-spotted black. The second day finished with Spencer leading 19–5, and the score was 29–7 after he won ten of the twelve frames on day three.
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Sports Competition
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Rylan Clark-Neal: 'Divorce is the only option'
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He took some time off from work earlier this year to “save his marriage” – but four months later, Rylan Clark-Neal is reportedly set to divorce his husband Dan Neal.
According to insiders, “Things were looking so good, like they were back together. They hoped they could avoid divorce, but it’s now looking like the only way forward.” Speculation over the split first began in May, when the TV presenter took time out from his Radio 2 show and social media, and also missed his gig hosting the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals. Singer Miley Cyrus split from actor Liam Hemsworth in August 2019, despite only getting married in December 2018. Liam released a statement on Instagram, reading, ''Hi all. Just a quick note to say that Miley and I have recently separated and I wish her nothing but health and happiness going forward.
'This is a private matter and I have not made, nor will I be making, any comments to any journalists or media outlets. Any reported quotes attributed to me are false. Peace and Love.'
After meeting on the set of Step Up in 2006, Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan announced their marriage was over in April 2018. Revealing they are still great friends, the couple decided it was time to go their separate ways after almost nine years of marriage.
After meeting on Love Island 2017, things seemed to be going very well for Gabby Allen and former Blazin' Squad member Marcel Somerville. But in May 2018 allegations that Marcel had cheated on Gabby whilst they were on holiday together surfaced, leading Gabby to reportedly "dump" Marcel.
Dancing On Ice winner Jake Quickenden and Danielle Fogarty split in April 2018, despite being engaged. Speaking in early May, Jake appeared on Lorraine and said the couple are having time apart to focus on their busy work schedules. However, Jake did add, "There's not a bad word. I was with her on Monday, we still talk and I still love her to bits, but sometimes you've got to go away to come back."
After two years of marriage, Friends actress Jennifer Aniston and her husband Justin Theroux announced their split in February 2018. Jen said, "We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple but look forward to continuing our cherished friendship."
Hollywood actors Anna Faris and Chris Pratt announced their split in August 2017. The pair shocked the world as they always seemed so loved up at events since marrying in 2004.
When Brangelina announced they were getting a divorce in 2016, fans were left in shock. The pair had been dating since 2004 and married in 2014. They have six children together.
Fergie and Josh Duhamel's split rocked fans in September 2017. The couple said, "With absolute love and respect we decided to separate." The pair were married for eight years.
Former One Direction star Zayn Malik popped the question to Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards, but just a few months later Zayn dumped his fiancé by text.
Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris seemed very loved up with each other, until they split in 2016 and ended things on very bad terms. Calvin even ended up having a Twitter rant about his ex.
Hearts broke all over the world when Ellie Goulding and Dougie Poynter announced their split. After rekindling their romance for a few months, they finally called it quits in 2016. Ellie is now engaged to Caspar Jopling.
Another massive shock in the world of celeb relationships! Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split in 2012 after six years of marriage. The pair share their daughter Suri together.
After 10 years of marriage, actress Gwyneth Paltrow announced her split from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. The split became famous because the former couple bizarrely entitled it "conscious uncoupling."
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner split in 2010 but have since remained great friends and co-parent their children.
Despite popping the question to Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson, Rixton frontman Jake Roche couldn't make his relationship work with Jesy, causing the pair to split in 2016.
Pop superstar Lady Gaga shocked her fans in 2016 when she revealed herself and her partner Taylor Kinney were 'taking a break' after a five-year relationship.
They were one of Hollywood's hottest couples, so it was a major shock to fans when Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom announced their split in 2013. The pair had been married for just three years.
Professor Green split with former Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh in 2016, just three years after they married. Millie is now dating her ex-boyfriend Hugo Taylor.
Singers Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale ended their marriage in 2016. The couple have three children together, Zuma, Apollo and Kingston.
They went through a number of ups and downs but Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom's relationship ended after four years of marriage, with Khloe filling for divorce from the basketball player.
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler separated back in 2012 after nine years of marriage, but it took until 2016 for the couple's divorce to be finalised.
Ariana Grande and Mac Miller announced they had split up in May 2018. The couple had been together for two year and even recorded some duets together. They reportedly chose to end their relationship due to their busy work schedules.
After a two year romance and a baby boy, Cheryl Tweedy and Liam Payne announced they'd decided to go their separate ways on Sunday 1st July 2018. Releasing a joint tweet, the statement read, "We are sad to announce that we are going our separate ways. It's been a tough decision for us to make. We still have so much love for each other as a family. Bear is our world and we ask that you respect his privacy as we navigate our way through this together."
Despite welcoming their daughter India into the world in 2017, Made In Chelsea stars Binky and JP announced their shock split in September 2018. The couple, who vowed to remain friends with their daughter being their number one priority, released a statement on Instagram.
Singer Adele confirmed she'd split from her husband Simon Konecki after three years of marriage. The couple share a son together.
After four years of dating, rapper Stormzy and TV presenter Maya Jama split up to focus on their careers.
In June, he addressed the rumours, saying that he and Dan were “spending time apart”, before adding, “I feel I have to speak out, as the way it is being reported is unfair. “I have made a number of mistakes, which I deeply regret and have inevitably led to the breakdown of our marriage.” Why Abbey Clancy has kicked Peter Crouch out of bed
Katie Price's shame: 'I took drugs, I should not be driving'
Molly-Mae Hague's 'agony' over Tommy Fury
Last month, fans were hopeful that the couple – who got married in 2015 – had settled their differences, as former Big Brother star Dan was spotted returning to their marital home in Essex. But now, sources say that, despite trying to salvage the relationship, both Rylan, 32, and Dan, 41, have come to the end of the road. And while Rylan has been putting on a brave face as he’s returned to work, everyone behind the scenes is deeply saddened by the news. “Many around them were desperately hoping they could win the battle to save their relationship,” said an insider last week. “It’s very sad.” Read more in the latest issue of heat magazine – OUT NOW.
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Famous Person - Divorce
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Wapping dispute
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The Wapping dispute was a lengthy failed strike by print workers in London in 1986. Print unions tried to block distribution of The Sunday Times, along with other newspapers in Rupert Murdoch's News International group, after production was shifted to a new plant in Wapping in January 1986. At the new facility, modern computer facilities allowed journalists to input copy directly, rather than involving print union workers who used older "hot-metal" Linotype printing methods. All of the workers were dismissed. The failure of the strike was devastating for the print union workers, and it led both to a general decline in trade union influence in the UK, and to a widespread adoption of modern newspaper publishing practices. Along with the miners' strike of 1984–85, the Wapping dispute was a significant defeat in the history of the British trade union movement. The 51-week miners' strike of 1984–85 was followed a year later by the 54-week "Wapping dispute" launched by newspaper printers in London. [1] It resulted in a second major defeat for unions and another victory for Margaret Thatcher's union policies, especially her assurance that the police would defend the plants against pickets trying to shut them down. [2] The target was Britain's largest privately owned newspaper empire, News International (parent of The Times and News of the World and others, all owned by Rupert Murdoch). He wanted to introduce technological innovations that would put 90% of the old-fashioned typesetters out of work. The company offered redundancy payments of £2,000 to £30,000 to each printer to quit their old jobs. The union rejected the offer and on 24 January 1986 its 6,000 members at Murdoch's papers went on strike. Meanwhile News International had built and clandestinely equipped a new printing plant in the London district of Wapping. The principal print unions – the National Graphical Association (NGA), the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT 82) and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) – ran closed shops: only union members could be hired at the old Fleet Street plants; most were sons of members. However the new plant in Wapping did not have a closed shop contract. The company activated its new plant with the assistance of another union the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU). Most members of the National Union of Journalists moved to Wapping and NUJ Chapels continued to operate. However the NUJ urged its members journalists not to work there. Many NUJ members, known as "refuseniks", refused to go to Wapping. Enough printers were employed – 670 in all – to produce the same number of papers that it took 6,800 employees to print at the old shop. The efficiency was obvious and frightened the union into holding out an entire year. Thousands of union pickets tried to block shipments out of the plant; they injured 574 policemen. There were 1,500 arrests. The pickets failed. The union tried an illegal secondary boycott and was fined in court, losing all its assets which had been used for pensions. [citation needed] In the next two years Britain's national newspapers opened new plants and abandoned Fleet Street, adopting the new technology with far fewer employees. This is thought to have led to greater support for Thatcher among the press. [3][4][5]
For years Fleet Street had been living with poor industrial relations and the so-called "Spanish practices" imposed by shop stewards as well as their trade union officials had put limits on the owners that they considered intolerable. On the other hand, the company management team, led by Bill O'Neill,[6] was seeking to have the union accept terms that it considered unacceptable: flexible working, a no-strike clause, the adoption of new technology and the end of the closed shop. Despite the widespread use of the offset litho printing process elsewhere, the Murdoch papers, in common with the rest of Fleet Street, continued to be produced by the labour-intensive hot-metal Linotype method, rather than being composed electronically. Eddie Shah's Messenger Group, in a long-running and bitter dispute at Warrington, also benefited from the Thatcher government's trade union legislation which allowed employers to de-recognise unions, enabling the Messenger Group to use an alternative workforce and new technology in newspaper production. Journalists could input copy directly, which reduced the need for labour in the print halls, cut costs and shortened production time dramatically. [7]
Although individual journalists (many of whom were members of the National Union of Journalists) worked "behind the wire" for News International at Wapping, the NUJ opposed the move to Wapping and urged its members not to do so without proper negotiations. NUJ members who refused to work at Wapping became known during the dispute as "refuseniks". The NUJ was represented alongside the print unions in the negotiations with News International which eventually led to a monetary settlement. [clarification needed]
Immediately after the strike was announced on 24 January 1986, dismissal notices were served on all those taking part in the industrial action, effectively sacking 6,000 employees. As part of a plan that had been developed over many months, the company replaced the workforce with members of the EETPU and transferred its four main titles (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World) to the Wapping plant. [8]
Murdoch had led the print unions to think that the Wapping plant was to be used for a new evening newspaper, the London Post. [9] This began what became known as the Wapping dispute. In support of sacked members, the print unions organized regular demonstrations outside the company's premises in Pennington Street, with six pickets posted on Virginia Street and marches of large numbers of people usually converging nearby on The Highway in Wapping. The unions and leading members of the Labour Party also called for a boycott of the four newspapers involved. The demonstrations outside the Wapping plant were not peaceful,[10] although the trade unions maintained that they were committed to pursuing peaceful means to resolve the dispute. Like the miners' strike, large demonstrations were mounted to dissuade workers – in this case, journalists and operators of the new printing process as well as TNT’s drivers – from entering the premises, and a large police operation used force to ensure they were not able to physically stop the movement of TNT’s lorries distributing newspapers from the plant. [10]
More than 400 police officers, some TNT drivers and many members of the public were injured, and more than 1,200 arrests made during the dispute. [10] A large-scale police operation was mounted throughout London to ensure the Wapping plant could operate effectively, and the movement of local residents was heavily restricted. To ensure their safety, workers at the plant were often taken to and from work in buses modified to withstand the attacks they came under. [10]
The print unions had encouraged a national boycott of Murdoch's papers, and had been relying on the rail unions to ensure that they were not distributed, a problem Murdoch circumvented by distributing his papers via TNT instead of British Rail’s trains. Despite some public sympathy for the plight of the pickets, the boycott of Wapping's news titles was not successful,[11] and not a single day of production was lost throughout the year of the dispute's duration. [citation needed]
News International's strategy in Wapping had strong government support, and enjoyed almost full production and distribution capabilities and a complement of leading journalists. The company was therefore content to allow the dispute to run its course.
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Strike
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United Airlines Flight 93 crash
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United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on board, as part of the September 11 attacks. It crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, during an attempt by the passengers and crew to regain control of the plane. All 44 people on board were killed, including the four hijackers. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 757-222, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California. The hijackers stormed the aircraft's cockpit 46 minutes after takeoff. The captain and first officer struggled with the hijackers, which was transmitted to Air Traffic Control. Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the east coast, in the direction of Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, considered principal instigators of the attacks, have claimed that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol Building. [1]
After the hijackers took control of the plane, the pilots may have taken measures such as de-activating the autopilot in order to hinder the hijackers. Several passengers and flight attendants learned from phone calls that suicide attacks had already been made by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Rather than cede control of the plane, many of the passengers then attempted to retake the plane from the hijackers. During the struggle, the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, about 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Washington, D.C. A few people witnessed the impact from the ground, and news agencies began reporting the event within an hour. Of the four aircraft hijacked on September 11 – the others were American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and American Airlines Flight 77 – United Airlines Flight 93 was the only aircraft that did not reach its hijackers' intended target. A temporary memorial was built near the crash site soon after the attacks. [2] Construction of a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011,[3] and a concrete and glass visitor center (situated on a hill overlooking the site)[4] was opened exactly four years later. [5]
The hijacking of Flight 93 was led by Ziad Jarrah, a member of al-Qaeda. [6] Jarrah was born in Lebanon to a wealthy family and had a secular upbringing. [7] He intended to become a pilot and moved to Germany in 1996, enrolling at the University of Greifswald to study German. [8] A year later, he moved to Hamburg and began studying aeronautical engineering at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. [9] In Hamburg, Jarrah became a devout Muslim and associated with the radical Hamburg cell. [9][10]
In November 1999, Jarrah left Hamburg for Afghanistan, where he spent three months. [11] While there, he met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in January 2000. [12] Jarrah returned to Hamburg at the end of January and in February obtained a new passport containing no stamped records of his travels by reporting his passport as stolen. [13][14]
In May, Jarrah received a visa from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin,[15] arriving in Florida in June 2000. There, he began taking flying lessons and training in hand-to-hand combat. [16][17] Jarrah maintained contact with his girlfriend in Germany and with his family in Lebanon in the months preceding the attacks. [18] This close contact upset Mohamed Atta, the tactical leader of the plot, and al-Qaeda planners may have considered another operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, to replace him if he had backed out. [19]
Four "muscle" hijackers were trained to storm the cockpit and overpower the crew, and three accompanied Jarrah on Flight 93. The first, Ahmed al-Nami, arrived in Miami, Florida, on May 28, 2001, on a six-month tourist visa with United Airlines Flight 175 hijackers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri. The second Flight 93 hijacker, Ahmed al-Haznawi, arrived in Miami on June 8 with Flight 11 hijacker Wail al-Shehri. The third Flight 93 muscle hijacker, Saeed al-Ghamdi, arrived in Orlando, Florida, on June 27 with Flight 175 hijacker Fayez Banihammad. [16]
On August 3, 2001, an intended fifth hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, flew into Orlando from Dubai. He was questioned by officials, who were dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he intended to become an illegal immigrant as he was using a one-way ticket. He was sent back to Dubai, and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia. [20] Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al-Ghamdi's passports were recovered from the Flight 93 crash site. [21] Jarrah's family said he had been an "innocent passenger" on board the flight. [22]
The aircraft involved in the hijacking was a Boeing 757-222, registration N591UA,[23] delivered to United Airlines in June 1996. [24][25][26] The airplane had a capacity of 182 passengers; the September 11 flight carried 33 passengers, the four terrorists, and seven crew members, a load factor of 20 percent, considerably below the 52 percent average Tuesday load factor for Flight 93. [27] The seven crew members were Captain Jason Dahl (43), First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr. (36), and flight attendants Lorraine Bay, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, CeeCee Lyles, and Deborah Welsh. [28]
At 5:01 a.m. on the morning of September 11, Jarrah placed a cell phone call from Newark to Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, in Boston, which authorities believe was to confirm that the plan for the attacks was proceeding. [29] The four hijackers checked in for the flight between 07:03 and 07:39 Eastern Time. [30] At 07:03, Ghamdi checked in without any luggage while Nami checked in two bags. [27] At 07:24, Haznawi checked in one bag and at 07:39, Jarrah checked in without any luggage. Haznawi was the only hijacker selected for extra scrutiny by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). [30] His checked bag underwent extra screening for explosives, with no extra scrutiny required by CAPPS at the passenger-security checkpoint. [31] None of the security checkpoint personnel reported anything unusual about the hijackers. [27][32]
Haznawi and Ghamdi boarded the aircraft at 07:39 and sat in first class seats 6B and 3D respectively. Nami boarded one minute later and sat in first class seat 3C. Before boarding the plane, Jarrah made five telephone calls to Lebanon, one to France, and one to his girlfriend in Germany, to whom he'd sent a farewell letter the day before, to tell her he loved her. [33][34] He boarded at 07:48 and sat in seat 1B.
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Air crash
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Trump Said He Would Terminate the U.S. Relationship With the W.H.O. Here's What That Means
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The World Health Organization(WHO) has driven the charges leading to some of the 20th century’s greatest public health triumphs. And throughout WHO’s 72-year history, the U.S. has been the organization’s star player, coach, and biggest sponsor. During the WHO’s latest funding cycle, the U.S. contributed $893 million—15% of the entire budget and more than twice as much as any other country. That has been the norm for decades and put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most important public-health apparatus. Then came Donald Trump and COVID-19. On April 14, by which time it had become clear the viral disease had inextricably burrowed into the U.S. populace, the President alleged at a press conference that the coronavirus’ spread in the country was probably the WHO’s fault, not his Administration’s. “I am instructing my Administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” he said. “Everybody knows what’s going on there.” About a month later, on May 18, he expounded on that “what” in a letter to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom, making a number of allegations—many false or misleading —about the organization’s efforts in the early days of the pandemic. Trump concluded that if the WHO did not commit to “major substantive improvements within the next 30 days,” he would make the temporary freeze of U.S. funding to WHO permanent, and “reconsider” membership in the organization. Trump did not specify what improvements he wanted to see. In any case, on May 29, in a speech in the White House Rose Garden, the President said the U.S. would terminate its relationship with the WHO. A U.S. president cannot snap their fingers and sever this relation; under U.S. law the country must give the WHO a year’s notice, and must meet its financial obligations to the organization for the current year. So, at the least, nothing would really change until mid-2021—by which point Trump may no longer be President and his successor may revoke the decision—and until the U.S. pays off the $60 million it currently owes the WHO . However, Trump’s rhetoric has already had an impact on the WHO’s operation: negotiations for new funding are currently on hold, says Imre Hollo, director of planning, resource coordination and performance monitoring for the organization. And while the majority of WHO programs have been pre-funded through 2020, the organization anticipates feeling the funding gap “more completely in 2021,” says Hollo as many of its current financial agreements come to an end at some point this year. Despite that, he remains optimistic that the WHO will patch up its relationship with the U.S.; so is his boss, Dr. Tedros, who said on June 1, “The world has long benefited from the strong, collaborative engagement with the government and the people of the United States…. It is WHO’s wish for this collaboration to continue.” If it doesn’t, there would be some clear and specific impacts on the global effort to improve public health. In broad terms, the WHO’s funding can be broken down into two categories: “assessed” and “voluntary” contributions. Assessed contributions are the dues each country pays to be part of the WHO, and are determined, more or less, by each country’s gross national income, population and debt. For WHO’s 2018-2019 funding cycle, the U.S. got by far the world’s largest invoice, at about $237 million. But perhaps more important to the future of the WHO and global public health are the voluntary contributions. For 2018-2019, the U.S. voluntarily added some $656 million to the WHO’s coffers, nearly twice as much as any other country. Unlike the assessed dollars, which go into the general WHO pot and are spent at the organization’s discretion, voluntary contributions can be earmarked by the giver for specific uses. For example, the U.S. put some $166 million towards polio eradication during 2018-19 and has funded the effort with similar enthusiasm for years—one of the major reasons why the world is literally a few dozen cases away from total eradication. Other benefactors such as the U.K, The Gates Foundation and Rotary International also commit contributions specifically for WHO’s polio work, certainly, but were would the effort be should the U.S. disappear? Worse off still might be the programs geared towards preventative care. The U.S., for example, accounts for over 40% of the WHO’s budget to “increase access to essential health and nutrition services”—and all of the U.S. contributions to that program are voluntary. Programs that focus on tropical disease research, HIV and hepatitis, and tuberculosis are other likely victims if the U.S. does withdraw from WHO. “It’s always easy to fundraise for panic,” says Hollo. “It’s hard to fundraise for preparedness.” The impacts wouldn’t be felt just abroad. Were the U.S. to leave the WHO, scientists and public health officials in the states would suddenly find themselves cut off from some of the most important global health communication channels. You don’t need to look too far into the past to see how this might play out: In the early days of COVID-19, “not all of the data from China was public. It was shared among the WHO member states initially before it was put out in public bulletins,” says Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank, That information, in theory, should have enabled U.S. health infrastructure to rapidly spring into action, and take steps to mitigate the worst viral outcomes. It didn’t of course, but that failure can hardly be pinned on the WHO. “No one’s saying that the organization is perfect, but it works as well as it could,” says Glassman. Ultimately, the U.S. must cooperate with other nations to protect Americans against global health threats, she says. “We have to negotiate, to converse with them, to get into them, and to work together. The WHO is the way to do that.”
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Withdraw from an Organization
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Hundreds Of Russian Troops Take Part In Military Drills In Tajikistan
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Russia says about 500 of its troops are taking part in military drills in Tajikistan amid fears of instability across its Central Asian allies after the Taliban gained control of much of Afghanistan, including its northern areas. "Tactical maneuvers with weapons training exercises have started with the participation of motorized rifle troops from the Russian Federation's military base No. 201 located in Tajikistan," the Central Military District's press service said on August 30 in a statement, adding that the exercises were taking place in the mountainous Sambuli military training field. All of the servicemen involved in the exercise come from the Russian military base in Tajikistan, it added. The statement comes three days after spokesman of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said the alliance plans to hold military exercises in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan due to the ongoing situation in Afghanistan. CSTO members include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. Central Asians states bordering Afghanistan are concerned about security threats emanating from the war-torn country and the potential for tens of thousands of refugees to pour over the border. The group has said several thousand troops will be involved in another set of exercises, the Rubezh (Frontier) exercises, in Kyrgyzstan, which will be conducted on September 7-9. Three more sets of military maneuvers will be held close to the Tajik-Afghan border in October, with a fourth scheduled for November. On August 10, Russia completed joint military exercises with Tajik and Uzbek troops near the border with Afghanistan, which followed smaller Russian-Uzbek maneuvers along the Uzbek-Afghan border. The Taliban has sought to reassure neighboring countries and Russia that it poses no threat since gaining control over much of Afghanistan’s territory in recent weeks, including Kabul, the capital. Russia, which has military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, has vowed to defend Moscow's allies in Central Asia against any security threat from Afghanistan.
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Military Exercise
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Russia shuts down opposition leader Alexey Navalny's anti-corruption foundation
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Russia's government has ordered opposition leader Alexey Navalny's political organization to shut down, at least for now. The fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin just ended a three-week hunger strike in a Russian prison. CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that Navalny's supporters used his strike action as a springboard for new anti- government protests. Particularly among younger Russians, the movement spearheaded by Navalny has galvanized into a powerful groundswell of domestic opposition to Putin, and that's exactly what prosecutors hope to shut down with their latest move. Navalny himself was the victim of an assassination attempt last summer — poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. He accuses the Kremlin, and Putin himself, of ordering the attack. The U.S. and other Western nations agree. The Kremlin has steadfastly denied any role in the poisoning, but as soon as Navalny recovered from treatment in Germany and returned to Russia, he was sent to jail. Now a court wants to silence his anti-corruption foundation, too, by labeling it an extremist organization, on par with ISIS and al Qaeda. The court's ruling is pending, but the government has ordered the foundation to be shut down while the extremist designation is considered. Palmer asked Vladimir Ashurkov, the foundation's director, why he believes the Kremlin would take such a dramatic step to silence Navalny's organization. "I guess because over the years, Navalny and our organization emerged as the most important opponent to Vladimir Putin," he told CBS News. The foundation has consistently highlighted alleged corruption in Putin's close circles. Most recently, it released a video showing a vast country estate allegedly built for the Russian leader. The video showed, among other luxuries at the estate, gold-plated toilet brushes. It was viewed more than 115 million times. The toilet brushes went viral on social media. Since the video, anti-Putin protesters on the streets have carried gold-painted toilet brushes to mock the president. The Kremlin tries to ignore Navalny. President Putin won't even say his name. But the ruthless measures being taken to repress him and his movement may backfire, serving only to add to his fame, and his support. "Whatever comes next, Alexey has already won," Navalny's wife Yulia wrote in a letter to CBS' "60 Minutes."
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Organization Closed
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THE fireball engulfing the West Atlas drill rig has been extinguished
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THE fireball engulfing the West Atlas drill rig has been extinguished and the oil and gas leak fuelling the blaze finally stopped, more than 10 weeks after the environmental crisis in the Timor Sea began.
Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said a commission of inquiry and a commissioner would be announced before the end of the week. PTTEP Australasia, owner of the Montara well head, which sits below the rig, said it had pumped almost 3400 barrels of high-density mud into a damaged pipeline and "killed" the leaking well yesterday afternoon. Fires on the rig were expected to burn themselves out. Sweet light crude oil, condensate and gas have been pouring into the Timor Sea from the well since August 21. The well head caught fire on Sunday several hours after PTTEP successfully intercepted a damaged pipeline 2.6km below the seabed, on the fourth attempt. PTTEP said no more oil or gas was coming out of the well, but it would continue to pump a mixture of mud and brine into the damaged pipeline as a precaution. PTTEP Australasia director Jose Martins said he was relieved, but stressed the mud was a temporary measure and there was still a long way to go before the well could be fully secured. Once the platform has cooled down and is deemed safe, engineers will determine the best way to permanently plug the bore. As well as the federal commission of inquiry, an inquiry will be conducted by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority. Greens senator Rachel Siewert called for an independent judicial inquiry that could be conducted at arms length from both government and PTTEP. The Wilderness Society's Joshua Coates said a tighter regulatory approvals process for offshore oil and gas was needed. Speaking before the leak was stopped, West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said it should never have happened. "This is a world scale failing," he told ABC radio. "It will cast doubt about the operators of the drilling rig initially; it will also raise questions about the supervision and the regulatory framework around that, and in particular when the initial hole was drilled, was it properly plugged?"
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Environment Pollution
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Great Fire of 1873
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The Great Fire of 1873 was a major fire which swept through the downtown of Portland, Oregon on August 2, 1873, destroying twenty-two blocks on the west side of the Willamette River, including along Yamhill and Morrison Streets. A mix of mansions, tenements, and commercial property were destroyed. Many businesses were not insured, and many others were only partially insured. [1]
At 4:20 am on morning of August 2, 1873, a fire started on First Street near Taylor,[2] at the Hurgren & Shindler furniture store. Fueled by the oils and varnishes in the store, the fire burned hot and spread rapidly. [3] By 4:40 am, just twenty minutes after its start, the fire had spread a block and the nearby Metropolitan Hotel was a complete loss. The Portland volunteer fire department responded along with fire companies from Salem, Vancouver, and Oregon City. Salem's fire company came 52 miles by train within 57 minutes. [4] When the Salem department arrived seven blocks had been consumed but they were able to stop the northern progress of the fire. The wind, however, spread the fire in all other directions and soon twelve blocks were engulfed in flames and the city water supply was failing. As the other departments arrived there were only a total of 7 engines to contend with a fire half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. As fast as the fire could be suppressed in one direction, it would break it in another. The fire finally stopped on its own due to lack of material to burn. [2]
Among the losses were 2 Engine Houses, 2 Sash Factories, 3 Foundries, 4 Mills, 5 Hotels, 100 retail stores, and 250 dwellings. 150 families were homeless and encamped on the city park. [2] One estimate for the economic impact of the fire is that the fire caused $1.3 million in damage. [3] Mayor Henry Failing chaired a relief committee and put in $10,000 himself. The city "shunned" financial aid offered from San Francisco and the East Coast, and instead used local resources. Rebuilding was delayed by the Panic of 1873, then was in "full swing" by 1878. [4]
The downtown area shifted to the west after the fire. [5] The present-day Portland Yamhill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, includes the northern part of the 22-block area. One surviving building is the Northrup and Blossom-Fitch Building (1858) from before the fire. The district includes 17 Italianate-style buildings built between 1878 and 1887. [4]
In December 1872, 8 months prior, there had been another fire which started in a Chinese laundry facility on the waterfront along Front Street. This fire destroyed several blocks in the areas of Front and Morrison streets. The official cause of the 1873 fire is undetermined, however many people of the time believed it was started by anti-Chinese arsonists. The areas of the 1872 fire had yet to be rebuilt and acted as a buffer for the fire of 1873. [1]
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Fire
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United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday (June 23) warned Congress that the US risks a debt default and a new financial crisis as soon as August if lawmakers fail to act quickly to suspend or raise the federal borrowing limit
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WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday (June 23) warned Congress that the US risks a debt default and a new financial crisis as soon as August if lawmakers fail to act quickly to suspend or raise the federal borrowing limit. In testimony to a Senate appropriations sub-committee, Dr Yellen said defaulting on US debt obligations would be "unthinkable" and "would have absolutely catastrophic economic consequences". Dr Yellen said that to avoid uncertainty for financial markets, Congress should pass new debt limit legislation - allowing the Treasury to continue borrowing - before the latest suspension expires on July 31. A first-ever default on US government debt obligations "would precipitate a financial crisis, it would threaten the jobs and savings of Americans at a time when we're still recovering from the Covid pandemic", Dr Yellen said. "I would plead with Congress to simply protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to raise or suspend the debt limit as soon as possible." The Treasury in the past has been able to stave off potential default for several months by employing extraordinary cash flow management measures such as suspending contributions to government employee pension funds. Asked how long these measures could last, Dr Yellen said spending on Covid-19 relief programmes has added more uncertainty to government payment flows. The Treasury's extraordinary measures could be exhausted in August, when Congress takes its traditional summer recess, she said. At that point, the Treasury would only be able to rely on tax receipts to pay obligations, eventually making it impossible to make some debt repayments without new borrowing. Dr Yellen told the hearing on the Treasury's fiscal 2022 budget proposal that the Biden administration is hoping to get the Group of 20 (G-20) finance ministers' endorsement for "the core elements" of its international corporate tax proposals at a meeting next month in Venice, including a global minimum corporate tax. She said the Treasury was working towards an agreement at the G-20 meeting that is similar to the Group of Seven wealthy democracies' endorsement of the US proposal for a 15 per cent corporate minimum tax and a new method of local-market taxation for the largest and most profitable multinational corporations. Her comments on the G-20 meeting followed a Reuters report on Tuesday that a draft communique being circulated ahead of the July 9-10 gathering indicated the finance leaders would endorse a global minimum tax, although it made no reference to a specific rate. The Biden administration is seeking a global minimum tax of at least 15 per cent. Dr Yellen also sparred with Republican senators over inflation concerns, sticking to her line that recent spikes in inflation data reflect transitory phenomena, including "supply bottlenecks" in the economy. She added that most measures of inflation expectations remained well anchored, with those exceeding a year out are stable, at around the Federal Reserve's 2 per cent target.
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Financial Crisis
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Goodyear home explosion under investigation after sending 2 people to the hospital
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Firefighters were called to the home with reports of multiple explosions, a fire and two people trapped. One person is still in critical condition.
Author: Colleen Sikora
Published: 4:36 PM MST September 13, 2021
Updated: 5:07 PM MST September 13, 2021
Investigators are working to figure out what caused a house to explode in Goodyear Sunday night.
A spokesperson for Goodyear Fire Department said multiple explosions went off at a home on Hadley Street near Cotton Lane and Yuma Road.
Shook the neighborhood
“I just felt like a big shake and a booming noise,” Cheryl Durham, a neighbor said.
Durham lives a couple of doors down from the house that exploded and subsequently caught fire around 9 p.m.
Even a couple doors down, Durham said the large flames weren’t just easily seen from her backyard but felt too.
“You could feel the flames, it was really hot out there,” Durham said.
A street over, Tori Rocha’s security camera caught the explosion.
“The whole neighborhood heard this kind of really loud bang, it kind of shook our house,” Rocha said.
Watch the video below:
Guns, ammo and other items inside
Battalion Chief Nick Lyons from Goodyear Fire Department said crews were called out to the house for multiple explosions, a fire and two people trapped inside the home.
The fire ended up triggering a second alarm because of a man and woman who were burned inside the house. Lyons said the man is still in critical condition, while the woman has been released from the hospital.
Lyons said several explosions went off at the house, large ones at first, but others were still going off as crews got on the scene.
“There’s guns, ammunition and some other materials and gun powders and things like that,” Lyons said.
Crews were able to keep flames from spreading to homes next door, however, Lyons said one home did have some other damage.
Cause still under investigation
Goodyear Fire Department, Goodyear Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are trying to figure out what happened.
However, they have ruled out a gas leak.
“Not sure what the exact cause is and what started it,” Lyons said. “But the amount of fire and those explosions, obviously that’s directly related to some of the materials that are in the house.”
Investigators were on scene at the house until nearly 4 p.m. Monday going through their investigation after pulling out the guns, ammo and other items.
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Gas explosion
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'We will always be a Duke something': Meghana Sai Iragavarapu talks character, community in 2021 Commencement speech
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“This is not normal,” said senior Meghana Sai Iragavarapu as she began her speech at the 2021 Commencement ceremony.
Iragavarapu said that the last time things felt normal for her was in March 2020 when she was in Cameron Indoor Stadium screaming for Duke to beat the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after weeks of tenting in Krzyzewskiville.
“That feeling of being one part of the collective community is how I like to think we started off our journey,” she said, recalling a time during orientation week when the Class of 2021 stood on the East Campus quad, squeezed into a chalk outline of “2021” and took a photo.
It amazed Iragavarapu that in that moment, the Class of 2021 was “all so physically close but had no idea of the stories, personalities and friendships” to come over the next four years.
She said she had two main takeaways from her Duke experience during COVID-19: character and community.
“It is the higher standard of character we hold ourselves and each other to, creating this one-of-a-kind community that bleeds deep blue,” she said.
For character, Iragavarapu quoted Indian guru and philanthropist Sathya Sai Baba: “The end of wisdom is freedom. The end of culture is perfection. The end of knowledge is love. The end of education is character.”
Iragavarapu said that over the last four years, the Class of 2021 had to learn to take care of themselves, make sacrifices, establish boundaries, ask for help and care for one another, which she believes built their character. Looking back at her first-year self, she feels more resilient, joking that “maybe it’s the antibodies, or possibly the experience that Duke embodies.”
In terms of community, Iragavarapu noted how administrators sign even stern or disciplinary emails with “Go Duke!”
“Why? Because through the ups and downs, the good decisions and bad decisions, whether we’re shoulder to shoulder or not, we will always be a Duke something: a Duke student, Duke alum, a Duke community,” she said, adding that the Class of 2021 will be “bonded together over time no matter the distance.”
Iragavarapu concluded by saying that despite all the hardships, there is no one she would have rather gone through them with than her fellow seniors.
“Class of 2021, I would have never wanted to paint my face white and blue, make it through the 1 p.m. lunch rush in [the Brodhead Center] or stick white plastic Q-tips up my nose every week with anyone else but you.”
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Leah Boyd is a Pratt junior and editor-in-chief of The Chronicle's 117th volume.
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Famous Person - Give a speech
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2018 York University strike
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York University Administration
Supported by:
CUPE Local 3903
Supported by:
The 2018 York University strike was a strike by CUPE Local 3903, the union representing contract professors, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants at York University. [9][10] At 143 days long it is the longest strike in the post-secondary sector in Canadian history, surpassing the previous record of the 1976 Laval University 108-day strike. [11] It ended on July 25, when the Ontario Legislature passed the Urgent Priorities Act back-to-work legislation. On March 3, 2018, two days before the beginning of the strike, York University stated in a labour update that if all of CUPE 3903's 110 proposals were accepted, operating labour costs would increase by 57%, up from $70 million to $109 million over three years, out of a total spending of $715 million in labour costs annually. In this case, the $39 million difference between contracts (an additional $13 million per year) would not be possible given York University's annual surplus of only $36.4 million; otherwise, roughly 1/3rd of the annual surplus would be spent on CUPE 3903, which only represents 60% of teachers on campus, thus limiting York's ability to invest in capital projects. [12][13][2] For these reasons, York University stated that "after extensive discussion Friday evening and following careful review of CUPE 3903's lengthy and largely unchanged list of demands shared through the mediator, CUPE 3903's positions remain too far apart from the University's best offer to return to bargaining at this time." At this point, both parties understood that a strike was imminent. York declared that the university would "remain open" and that certain classes would continue running. [13]
On the Friday of March 2, the newly founded Students Against Strike organized a small walk-out demonstration and demanded that undergraduate students deserved their own platform in the conflict between York University Administration and CUPE 3903. [14][15]
The strike began on March 5, 2018 at 12:01 am EST. Despite the strike, the university remained open (with all major entrances blockaded via hard picket lines), and the few winter term courses that were able to continue, continued to run. Winter term ended on April 23 as originally scheduled. Students that refused to participate in academic activities during the labour disruption were promised reasonable accommodations. [10]
On March 12, 2018 the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development, Mitzie Hunter, contacted CUPE 3903 and the York University administration to encourage the two sides to bargain. CUPE 3903 re-affirmed its willingness to bargain. [16]
After little movement from either side, on March 18, 2018, York University announced that it would return to the bargaining table. [17] CUPE 3903 was optimistic that the disruption might be resolved but expressed disappointment when York, despite movement from CUPE 3903, issues an ultimatum to capitulate on all important issues, or York walks away from the table. [18][19]
On March 20, York University presented a revised offer and exercised their statutory power to force a one-time mandatory ratification vote. York made its request on March 27, but the law stipulates a two-week delay between request and vote. [20] The vote was held between April 6 and April 9. [21] The university's offer was rejected by 85% of those who voted, with 2,320 "no" votes cast. With the ratification vote defeated, the strike continued. [22] According to CUPE, the proposal under consideration was not meaningfully different from the offer that they rejected at the beginning of the strike. [23]
CUPE 3903 subsequently filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The complaint alleged that York publicly mischaracterized CUPE 3903 demands, incorrectly characterized the demands as illegal, and during a previous labour disruption appropriated the domain name CUPE3903.com to direct internet searches for information on CUPE to the university's own labour page. [24] York responded that the objections were without merit. [25]
CUPE 3903 would learn that "CUPE3903.com" was billed to York University by Michael Schiff, an employee in the office of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. [26]
During the strike, a coalition of socialist student groups, Students for CUPE 3903, staged an occupation of the University Senate chambers in support of the strike. The sit-in lasted three months. Participants protested potential expense account issues from Lenton's term as Vice President Academic and President, in addition to various other tuition-oriented concerns. [27][28] Simultaneously, a website publishing documents relating to Lenton's expenses, Yorked.me, was registered under a false identity. Yorked.me was taken down following a copyright complaint from the university, but resurfaced as Yorked.tk, using a free domain name. [29]
Early demands from Students for CUPE 3903 included the cancellation of classes that were not taught by CUPE 3903 members. The ultimate authority to make academic policy (of which disruption policy is a part), according to the York Act, rests with York's Senate. [30] According to YUFA, the union representing full-time faculty (full-time faculty are not represented by CUPE): "Senate Executive clearly asserted that course directors are the best judge of how to ensure the academic integrity of their courses and whether those courses can be continued on that basis. "[31] President Rhonda Lenton and the Board of Governors asserted that it was their right to decide whether classes should be suspended or not and decided that there was no reason to do so. Many classes taught by members of York's full-time faculty continued, though many of these classes experienced varying levels of disruption ranging from marking not being completed to classes being suspended entirely. Classes taught by contract faculty were already suspended owing to their instructors being on strike. Lenton and the Board of Governor's move to take control of academic policy from the Senate received the unanimous censure of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), an organization representing most all academic staff in Canada. According to CAUT, not only was this in contravention with past practice, but it was also in contravention of the York Act, the act of the Legislature of Ontario that created York University. Minor incidents of violence occurred as students were stopped at picket lines. A video was released by picketers showing a student dismantling barricades at the Northwest Gate picket line in an attempt to attend his Midterm exam. The student was placed in a chokehold by a picketer, upon breaking free the student kicked the picketer in retaliation. [32] A picketer was injured after a vehicle forced its way past a picket line. [33] Protesters demonstrated outside a university senate meeting and attempted to prevent senators from entering. During the melee, a teaching assistant senator was put in a headlock by security and prevented from entering. [34][35] CUPE 3903 protestors picketed at the house of York University President Rhonda Lenton. [36]
On April 13, 2018, Kevin Flynn, Minister of Labour, appointed labour relations lawyer William Kaplan as the sole member of an Industrial Inquiry Commission. [37] The purpose of such an inquiry is to create a report on the status of a labour dispute, for the minister, and in the process bring the two sides in a dispute together. [38]
CUPE revised their offer, with more concessions in favour of the employer.
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