It appears that the moment when Israel is going to strike Iran is getting closer. Ten US Air Force KC-135R tanker aircraft are heading towards the Middle East with at least 20 F-16 fighters escorting them. French all purpose landing ship L9013 Mistral arrived in Larnaca, Cyprus. US has transferred new combat aircraft to its base in Qatar. A curious event was noticed in the sky over Cambridge: three US tanker aircraft and a C-5M Super Galaxy military transport aircraft were spotted airborne. According to The New York Times, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic to prepare for a state of war with Israel. Khamenei instructed the army to present several plans of response to Israel's imminent attack on Iran, depending on the scale of the strike.

Eight Russian generals from various security agencies lost their posts in one day, a RIA Novosti source said. Some of the resignations have been officially announced. The list of the dismissed generals includes: head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Stavropol Territory, Major General of Justice Igor Ivanov (he held the position since May 2022), head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Buryatia Vyacheslav Sukhorukov, deputy director of the operational management department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, Major General Alexander Molchanov, head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Moscow Region, Lieutenant General Sergei Poletykin, head of the Rostov Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Filippov. General Sergei Poletykin was relieved of his post upon attaining the maximum service age of 60. According to TASS, he will be transferred to another job.

Designated Doctor Musculoskeletal Examination Workshop

Designated Doctor Case-Based Webinar Series: Module 6 - Non – Musculoskeletal Traumatic Brain Injury

Designated Doctor Case-Based Webinar Series: Module 5 - Non – Musculoskeletal MMI and IR

Agency closed for Presidents’ Day

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Agency closed for Thanksgiving

Agency closed in the afternoon

RetailTechnologyReview.com spoke with Adrian Lawson, managing director of independent software vendor (ISV) Waizu, about how the company’s solutions are geared to helping organisations avoid the costly loss or misplacement of their mobile devices, thereby keeping their assets active and accountable and their workers fully productive.

The losses that American, European and Japanese companies have suffered after they left the Russian market are evaluated at tens of billions of dollars, RIA Novosti reports. Since the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine to the present, foreign companies have lost a total of $70 billion. Companies of the fuel and energy complex have suffered the biggest losses. Many companies in this sector have deconsolidated and devalued Russian assets by ceasing to report the results of their activities in the country, they have not completely stopped working in Russia. For example, the UK-based BP, having made a number of statements about its decision to withdraw from Russian projects, was forced to retain shares in local assets. According to Putin's decree from August 5, shareholders from unfriendly countries will no longer be able to make transactions with shares in companies of strategic significane, fuel and energy companies and banks without the consent of the state. In its report for the first quarter of 2022, BP depreciated Russian assets in the amount of $25.5 billion, but it did not take practical steps to exit the projects.

Both Russian soldiers and Ukrainian military personnel believe that there is very little time left before the Russian forces take total control of Chasiv Yar, a city in the Bakhmut area of the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian military are thus forced to retreat to the strategic center of Donbass, the settlement of Konstantinovka. The Russian Armed Forces take Chasiv Yar's highest microdistrict The Russian Armed Forces have knocked out the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the Kanal microdistrict in Chasiv Yar, the easternmost and highest part of the city. Last night, paratroopers of the 98th Airborne Division took control of the last high-rise building. The Russian troops were pushing through for more than two months to crush AFU's defense in the area. Bogdan Khodakovsky, the commander of "Revenge" tactical group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram that "the Russians succeeded" "and the loss of Chasiv Yar was getting closer."

Professor Natalie M. Fletcher sees philosophy as a form of youth activism and a way for children to address issues that matter to them, like the environment.

[Politics] :
K-pop boy band SEVENTEEN has received a certificate of appreciation from Los Angeles for their contribution to music and youth empowerment.  Joshua, the LA-native of the 13-member group, accepted the honor on behalf of SEVENTEEN at the invitation of the LA City Council on Friday, local time. The ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
The 2024 Paris Paralympics came to a close on Sunday after a 12-day run.  The global sports festival wrapped up Sunday night with a glitzy closing ceremony at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris. About 44-hundred athletes with disabilities competed in 22 sporting events, representing 169 ...

[more...]

[International] :
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly said Thursday that “losses” have already been recorded among North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region in combat against Ukrainian forces.  According to Reuters and AFP on Thursday, Zelenskyy made the remarks in a press conference after the ...

[more...]

Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) plays important roles in cellular homeostasis and is a highly validated therapeutic target for multiple human ailments, including diabetes, obesity and breast cancer. However, much remains to be learned about how conformational changes may convey information through the structure of PTP1B to enable allosteric regulation by ligands or functional responses to mutations. High-resolution X-ray crystallography can offer unique windows into protein conformational ensembles, but comparison of even high-resolution structures is often complicated by differences between data sets, including non-isomorphism. Here, the highest resolution crystal structure of apo wild-type (WT) PTP1B to date is presented out of a total of ∼350 PTP1B structures in the PDB. This structure is in a crystal form that is rare for PTP1B, with two unique copies of the protein that exhibit distinct patterns of conformational heterogeneity, allowing a controlled comparison of local disorder across the two chains within the same asymmetric unit. The conformational differences between these chains are interrogated in the apo structure and between several recently reported high-resolution ligand-bound structures. Electron-density maps in a high-resolution structure of a recently reported activating double mutant are also examined, and unmodeled alternate conformations in the mutant structure are discovered that coincide with regions of enhanced conformational heterogeneity in the new WT structure. These results validate the notion that these mutations operate by enhancing local dynamics, and suggest a latent susceptibility to such changes in the WT enzyme. Together, these new data and analysis provide a detailed view of the conformational ensemble of PTP1B and highlight the utility of high-resolution crystallography for elucidating conformational heterogeneity with potential relevance for function.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis can reside and persist in deep tissues; latent tuberculosis can evade immune detection and has a unique mechanism to convert it into active disease through reactivation. M. tuberculosis Rv1421 (MtRv1421) is a hypothetical protein that has been proposed to be involved in nucleotide binding-related metabolism in cell-growth and cell-division processes. However, due to a lack of structural information, the detailed function of MtRv1421 remains unclear. In this study, a truncated N-terminal domain (NTD) of MtRv1421, which contains a Walker A/B-like motif, was purified and crystallized using PEG 400 as a precipitant. The crystal of MtRv1421-NTD diffracted to a resolution of 1.7 Å and was considered to belong to either the C-centered monoclinic space group C2 or the I-centered orthorhombic space group I222, with unit-cell parameters a = 124.01, b = 58.55, c = 84.87 Å, β = 133.12° or a = 58.53, b = 84.86, c = 90.52 Å, respectively. The asymmetric units of the C2 or I222 crystals contained two or one monomers, respectively. In terms of the binding ability of MtRv1421-NTD to various ligands, uridine diphosphate (UDP) and UDP-N-acetylglucosamine significantly increased the melting temperature of MtRv1421-NTD, which indicates structural stabilization through the binding of these ligands. Altogether, the results reveal that a UDP moiety may be required for the interaction of MtRv1421-NTD as a nucleotide-binding protein with its ligand.

A 6D structure model for face-centred icosahedral quasicrystals consisting of so-called pseudo-Mackay and mini-Bergman-type atomic clusters is proposed based on the structure model of the Al69.1Pd22Cr2.1Fe6.8 3/2 cubic approximant crystal (with space group Pa3, a = 40.5 Å) [Fujita et al. (2013). Acta Cryst. A69, 322–340]. The cluster centres form an icosahedral close sphere packing generated by the occupation domains similar to those in the model proposed by Katz & Gratias [J. Non-Cryst. Solids (1993), 153–154, 187–195], but their size is smaller by a factor τ2 [τ = (1 + (5)1/2)/2]. The clusters cover approximately 99.46% of the atomic structure, and the cluster arrangement exhibits 15 and 19 different local configurations, respectively, for the pseudo-Mackay and mini-Bergman-type clusters. The occupation domains that generate cluster shells are modelled and discussed in terms of structural disorder and local reorganization of the cluster arrangements (phason flip).

Improving the scalability of tissue imaging throughput with bright, coherent X-rays requires identifying and mitigating artifacts resulting from the interactions between X-rays and matter. At synchrotron sources, long-term imaging of soft tissues in solution can result in gas bubble formation or cavitation, which dramatically compromises image quality and integrity of the samples. By combining in-line phase-contrast imaging with gas chromatography in real time, we were able to track the onset and evolution of high-energy X-ray-induced gas bubbles in ethanol-embedded soft tissue samples for tens of minutes (two to three times the typical scan times). We demonstrate quantitatively that vacuum degassing of the sample during preparation can significantly delay bubble formation, offering up to a twofold improvement in dose tolerance, depending on the tissue type. However, once nucleated, bubble growth is faster in degassed than undegassed samples, indicating their distinct metastable states at bubble onset. Gas chromatography analysis shows increased solvent vaporization concurrent with bubble formation, yet the quantities of dissolved gasses remain unchanged. By coupling features extracted from the radiographs with computational analysis of bubble characteristics, we uncover dose-controlled kinetics and nucleation site-specific growth. These hallmark signatures provide quantitative constraints on the driving mechanisms of bubble formation and growth. Overall, the observations highlight bubble formation as a critical yet often overlooked hurdle in upscaling X-ray imaging for biological tissues and soft materials and we offer an empirical foundation for their understanding and imaging protocol optimization. More importantly, our approaches establish a top-down scheme to decipher the complex, multiscale radiation–matter interactions in these applications.

Structural biology experiments benefit significantly from state-of-the-art synchrotron data collection. One can acquire macromolecular crystallography (MX) diffraction data on large-area photon-counting pixel-array detectors at framing rates exceeding 1000 frames per second, using 200 Gbps network connectivity, or higher when available. In extreme cases this represents a raw data throughput of about 25 GB s−1, which is nearly impossible to deliver at reasonable cost without compression. Our field has used lossless compression for decades to make such data collection manageable. Many MX beamlines are now fitted with DECTRIS Eiger detectors, all of which are delivered with optimized compression algorithms by default, and they perform well with current framing rates and typical diffraction data. However, better lossless compression algorithms have been developed and are now available to the research community. Here one of the latest and most promising lossless compression algorithms is investigated on a variety of diffraction data like those routinely acquired at state-of-the-art MX beamlines.

X-ray and neutron scattering have long been used for structural characterization of cellulose in plants. Due to averaging over the illuminated sample volume, these measurements traditionally overlooked the compositional and morphological heterogeneity within the sample. Here, a scanning tomographic imaging method is described, using contrast derived from the X-ray scattering intensity, for virtually sectioning the sample to reveal its internal structure at a resolution of a few micrometres. This method provides a means for retrieving the local scattering signal that corresponds to any voxel within the virtual section, enabling characterization of the local structure using traditional data-analysis methods. This is accomplished through tomographic reconstruction of the spatial distribution of a handful of mathematical components identified by non-negative matrix factorization from the large dataset of X-ray scattering intensity. Joint analysis of multiple datasets, to find similarity between voxels by clustering of the decomposed data, could help elucidate systematic differences between samples, such as those expected from genetic modifications, chemical treatments or fungal decay. The spatial distribution of the microfibril angle can also be analyzed, based on the tomographically reconstructed scattering intensity as a function of the azimuthal angle.

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis trifunctional enzyme (MtTFE) is an α2β2 tetrameric enzyme in which the α-chain harbors the 2E-enoyl-CoA hydratase (ECH) and 3S-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (HAD) active sites, and the β-chain provides the 3-ketoacyl-CoA thiolase (KAT) active site. Linear, medium-chain and long-chain 2E-enoyl-CoA molecules are the preferred substrates of MtTFE. Previous crystallographic binding and modeling studies identified binding sites for the acyl-CoA substrates at the three active sites, as well as the NAD binding pocket at the HAD active site. These studies also identified three additional CoA binding sites on the surface of MtTFE that are different from the active sites. It has been proposed that one of these additional sites could be of functional relevance for the substrate channeling (by surface crawling) of reaction intermediates between the three active sites. Here, 226 fragments were screened in a crystallographic fragment-binding study of MtTFE crystals, resulting in the structures of 16 MtTFE–fragment complexes. Analysis of the 121 fragment-binding events shows that the ECH active site is the `binding hotspot' for the tested fragments, with 41 binding events. The mode of binding of the fragments bound at the active sites provides additional insight into how the long-chain acyl moiety of the substrates can be accommodated at their proposed binding pockets. In addition, the 20 fragment-binding events between the active sites identify potential transient binding sites of reaction intermediates relevant to the possible channeling of substrates between these active sites. These results provide a basis for further studies to understand the functional relevance of the latter binding sites and to identify substrates for which channeling is crucial.

β-Glucosidase from the thermophilic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor saccharo­lyticus (Bgl1) has been denoted as having an attractive catalytic profile for various industrial applications. Bgl1 catalyses the final step of in the decomposition of cellulose, an unbranched glucose polymer that has attracted the attention of researchers in recent years as it is the most abundant renewable source of reduced carbon in the biosphere. With the aim of enhancing the thermostability of Bgl1 for a broad spectrum of biotechnological processes, it has been subjected to structural studies. Crystal structures of Bgl1 and its complex with glucose were determined at 1.47 and 1.95 Å resolution, respectively. Bgl1 is a member of glycosyl hydrolase family 1 (GH1 superfamily, EC 3.2.1.21) and the results showed that the 3D structure of Bgl1 follows the overall architecture of the GH1 family, with a classical (β/α)8 TIM-barrel fold. Comparisons of Bgl1 with sequence or structural homologues of β-glucosidase reveal quite similar structures but also unique structural features in Bgl1 with plausible functional roles.

In this work, regenerated cellulose textile fibers, Ioncell-F, dry-wet spun with different draw ratios, have been investigated by scanning wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) using a mesoscopic X-ray beam. The fibers were found to be homogeneous on the 500 nm length scale. Analysis of the azimuthal angular dependence of a crystalline Bragg spot intensity revealed a radial dependence of the degree of orientation of crystallites that was found to increase with the distance from the center of the fiber. We attribute this to radial velocity gradients during the extrusion of the spin dope and the early stage of drawing. On the other hand, the fiber crystallinity was found to be essentially homogeneous over the fiber cross section.

The TIR (Toll/interleukin-1 receptor) domain represents a vital structural element shared by proteins with roles in immunity signalling pathways across phyla (from humans and plants to bacteria). Decades of research have finally led to identifying the key features of the molecular basis of signalling by these domains, including the formation of open-ended (filamentous) assemblies (responsible for the signalling by cooperative assembly formation mechanism, SCAF) and enzymatic activities involving the cleavage of nucleotides. We present a historical perspective of the research that led to this understanding, highlighting the roles that different structural methods played in this process: X-ray crystallography (including serial crystallography), microED (micro-crystal electron diffraction), NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and cryo-EM (cryogenic electron microscopy) involving helical reconstruction and single-particle analysis. This perspective emphasizes the complementarity of different structural approaches.

People rest while riding a Los Angeles Metro Rail train amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 1, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.; Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Despite the racial reckoning going on in America right now, and despite the fact that attitudes towards race, inclusion and representation are different now than they were 30 years ago, new research from UC Berkeley shows that a large majority of American metro areas are more segregated now than they were in 1990. The new report from Berkeley’s Institute covers a number of topic areas, but among the key findings were from the national segregation report component of the project, which found Los Angeles to be the sixth-most segregated metro area with more than 200,000 people.

Today on AirTalk, we’ll talk with the lead researcher on the new report and a local historian to talk about how we see the findings of the report play out in Southern California.

Guests:

Stephen Menendian, assistant director and director of research at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, which works to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change; he tweets @SMenendian

Eric Avila, professor of history, urban planning, and Chicano/a studies at UCLA

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Circus of Books storefront.; Credit: Netflix/Circus Of Books (2020)

The documentary “Circus of Books”  tells the story of two book stores, one in West Hollywood and the other in Silver Lake, operated by Karen and Barry Mason, who became accidental book sellers. They also became real pillars of the LGBTQ communties. Rachel Mason is the daughter of the masons and she’s also the filmmaker. Larry talked with Rachel about “Circus of Books” when it was first released on Netflix. Today on FilmWeek, we excerpt a portion of that conversation. 

This conversation aired during FilmWeek’s Saturday broadcast. 

Guest: 

Rachel Mason, director of the Netflix documentary ‘Circus of Books’ and daughter of Circus of Books owners Karen and Barry Mason; she tweets @RachelMasonArt

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Source: Streetwise Reports 10/31/2024

Healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company Treatment.com AI Inc. (TRUE:CSE; TREIF:OTCMKTS; 939:FRA) announced that it has closed a non-brokered private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of CA$1.95 million.

A total of 2,138,766 special warrants of the company were offered at CA$0.75 per special warrant with proceeds of CA$1.6 million. The company also said 466,666 units of the company were offered at CA$0.75 per unit for proceeds of CA$349,999.50.

The company said it intends to use the proceeds for working capital purposes.

"We are very encouraged by the support from our investors with their overwhelming response to the financing and the subsequent over-subscription," Chief Executive Officer Dr. Essam Hamza said. "This money will help expedite our aggressive growth plans over the next year."

Technical Analyst Clive Maund noted on October 9* that the outlook for the company is "outstandingly bright" because it has "positioned itself to revolutionize the healthcare industry using AI and advanced machine learning technologies."

The company "is set to transform the current archaic system so that no longer do patients have to sit for hours in waiting rooms to see a doctor or doctors, and doctors and other healthcare professionals have to suffer a crushing burden of often unnecessary patient visits and tedious repetitive bureaucracy," he wrote. "Treatment AI's platform will take care of most of it."

Healthcare Professionals Worldwide Contribute to AI Engine

Treatment.com AI said it is a company utilizing AI and best clinical practices with a goal to positively improve the healthcare sector and impact current inefficiencies and challenges.

With the input of hundreds of healthcare professionals globally, Treatment.com AI said it has built a comprehensive, personalized healthcare AI engine called the Global Library of Medicine (GLM). With more than 10,000 expert medical reviews, the GLM is designed to provide tested clinical information and support to all healthcare professionals, as well as providing recommended tests (physical and lab), X-rays, and billing codes.

According to the company, the GLM will help healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, and pharmacists) reduce administrative burdens, creating more time for face-to-face patient appointments.

"AI is set to expedite and streamline the healthcare industry, making it vastly more efficient for the benefit of both healthcare professionals and patients," Maund noted.

The Catalyst: A 'Profound Transformation' in the Industry

AI has an important role to play in the healthcare offerings of the future, a 2019 report from the National Center of Biomechanical Medicine listed in the National Library of Medicine said. "In the form of machine learning, it is the primary capability behind the development of precision medicine, widely agreed to be a sorely needed advance in care."

Healthcare organizations are increasingly turning to the technology to address both clinical and administrative challenges. The combination of generative AI, as noted by Appinventiv in September, and operational tools like those developed by Treatment.com AI are driving this transformation.

Generative AI is "catalyzing a profound transformation within the healthcare industry" by generating synthetic data, predicting patient outcomes, and optimizing treatment plans, all of which revolutionize clinical decision-making processes, Appinventiv reported. This aligns with Treatment.com AI's announced collaboration with SPRYT on September 17 whereby integrating SPRYT’s AI receptionist "Asa" with its GLM has the goal of enhancing patient access to healthcare while reducing administrative burdens.

A CBC report from September 16 said real-world applications of AI in healthcare are already showing promising results. Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, co-author of a study on the topic, expressed optimism about AI's ability to "complement clinicians' own judgment and lead to better outcomes for fragile patients."

According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global AI in healthcare market in total was valued at US$20.9 billion this year and will reach an estimated US$148.4 billion by 2029, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1%.

"The growth of AI in the healthcare market is driven by the generation of large and complex healthcare datasets, the pressing need to reduce healthcare costs, improving computing power and declining hardware costs, and the rising number of partnerships and collaborations among different domains in the healthcare sector, and growing need for improvised healthcare services due to imbalance between healthcare workforce and patients," the report said.

Analyst: A 'Genuine Breakout Soon' for Stock

Maund said its stock charts are also looking "very positive indeed" for the company.

Of particular note is the big upleg late in June and early in July on persistent heavy volume, which broke the price clear above the May high and drove volume indicators steeply higher," the analyst noted. [OWNERSHIP_CHART-10594]

"This is very bullish price/volume action, especially as the volume indicators have not just held up but have actually advanced as the price has reacted back in a normal manner from the early July high to arrive at a support level where it has stabilized above the 200-day moving average in readiness for renewed advance, so the correction looks like a large bull Pennant that, as it is now closing up, promises renewed advance soon," continued Maund, who said holders should stay long and rated the stock a Strong Buy that "is thought worth going overweight on."

"The June-July rally must be classed as a 'preliminary' breakout," he noted. "But that said, the exceptionally bullish price/volume action of recent months does promise a genuine breakout soon that looks set to lead to a sustained and substantial uptrend."

Ownership and Share Structure

According to Sedi.ca, insiders own approximately 8% of Treatment.com AI. Retail investors own the remaining 92%.

The company has 48.84 million outstanding common shares and has 41.3 million free float traded shares.

As of October 31, the market cap is approximately CA$31.75 million. Over the past 52 weeks, the company traded between CA$0.355 and CA$1.11 per share.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter at: www.streetwisereports.com/get-news

Important Disclosures:

1. Treatment.com AI has a consulting relationship with Street Smart an affiliate of Streetwise Reports. Street Smart Clients pay a monthly consulting fee between US$8,000 and US$20,000.
2. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Treatment.com AI.
3. Steve Sobek wrote this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an employee.
4. This article does not constitute investment advice and is not a solicitation for any investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her personal financial adviser and perform their own comprehensive investment research. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company.
5. This article does not constitute medical advice. Officers, employees and contributors to Streetwise Reports are not licensed medical professionals. Readers should always contact their healthcare professionals for medical advice.

For additional disclosures, please click here.

* Disclosure for quotes from the Clive Maund source October 9, 2024

1. For the quote (sourced on October 9, 2024), the Company has paid Street Smart, an affiliate of Streetwise Reports, US$1,500.
2. Author Certification and Compensation: [Clive Maund of clivemaund.com] is being compensated as an independent contractor by Street Smart, an affiliate of Streetwise Reports, for writing the article quoted. Maund received his UK Technical Analysts’ Diploma in 1989. The recommendations and opinions expressed in the article accurately reflect the personal, independent, and objective views of the author regarding any and all of the designated securities discussed. No part of the compensation received by the author was, is, or will be directly or indirectly related to the specific recommendations or views expressed.

Clivemaund.com Disclosures

The quoted article represents the opinion and analysis of Mr. Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund's opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund's opinions on the market and stocks cannot be only be construed as a recommendation or solicitation to buy and sell securities.

( Companies Mentioned: TRUE:CSE; TREIF:OTCMKTS;939:FRA, )

Traffic on Interstate 95 was diverted for hours after a group of armed men fled from police near Wakefield, Mass. on Saturday. Massachusetts state police say 11 suspects have been taken into custody.; Credit: Michael Dwyer/AP

Eleven people were taken into custody Saturday after an hours-long standoff with police early Saturday outside Boston.

While police engaged in negotiation, members of the group engaged the public on social media, saying their group was called "Rise of the Moors."

The heavily armed men were said to be driving from Rhode Island to Maine for "training."

The incident started around 1:30 a.m., when state police noticed two cars stopped at the side of I-95 near Wakefield, Mass., apparently out of fuel. As troopers stopped to assist, they noticed that some individuals near the cars had "military-style" gear, and were carrying long guns and pistols, Massachusetts State Police Col. Christopher Mason told reporters.

"You can imagine 11 armed individuals standing with long guns slung on an interstate highway at 2 in the morning certainly raises concerns and is not consistent with the firearms laws that we have in Massachusetts," Mason said.

Police requested backup, and thus began a standoff that lasted several hours. The men refused to lower their weapons, saying that they "don't recognize our laws," police said. Some of the armed men fled into a nearby wooded area, police said, and a portion of I-95 was closed for several hours.

The standoff was broadcast on social media

Around 4 a.m., a man whom the Boston Globe identified as Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey said he was broadcasting live from I-95 and said that he told police they had nothing to fear.

"I reassured them that we are not sovereign citizens," a man who appeared to be Bey said in a live-streamed video. "I reassured them that we are not Black identity extremists. I reassured them that we are not anti-police. I reassured them that we are not anti-government. I reassured them that these men here will not be pointing guns at them. I reassured them that we are trying to come to a peaceful resolution."

"We're going to our private land to train, which is our Second Amendment right," he said, showing a vehicle he said contained camping equipment.

As police tactical teams brought in armored vehicles to surround the area, and negotiators interacted with the men, they ultimately surrendered. Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan told reporters the suspects were expected to appear in court on Tuesday morning.

State police "don't have any knowledge about this particular specific group" but as state police "it is not unusual for us to encounter people that have sovereign citizen ideologies — I'm not saying that this group does — but we have had those encounters before in the past," Mason said at a Saturday morning press briefing.

"We train to those encounters," Mason continued. "We very much understand the philosophy that underlies that mindset. And we train our officers, actually, at the academy, on these interactions and how to de-escalate those situations, and how to engage with people that have that philosophy and mindset and resolve those situations in a peaceful manner."

The group calls itself "Rise of the Moors"

The same man appearing to be Bey said in a later video: "They keep portraying us as being anti-government, but we're not anti-government at all."

The group's website lists Bey as a leader of the "Rhode Island State Republic and Providence Plantations." According to the site, Bey served in the military for four years, some or all of that time in the Marines, after which he began studying "Moorish Science."

That website, "Rise of the Moors," explains that Moors are not "sovereign citizens" because "sovereignty does not stand alone," but can rather be considered synonymous with "nationality."

"The record show that the Moors are the organic or original sovereigns of this land — America," the FAQ says. "When we declare our nationality as Moorish Americans we are taking back the position as the aboriginal people of the land, to which the sovereign power is vested in."

Bey's group may be associated with the Moorish sovereign citizen movement, which the Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes as an offshoot of the antigovernment sovereign citizens movement. Moorish sovereigns "have come into conflict with federal and state authorities over their refusal to obey laws and government regulations," SPLC writes.

"The Moorish Sovereign movement is a rapidly growing group of people who believe that they belong to a sovereign nation that has a treaty with the US but otherwise operates outside of the federal and state laws," JJ MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism, explained on Twitter.

"They rely on an alternative history that borrows from Moorish Science Temple, Black Hebrew Israelism, Nation of Islam, UFO theories, phony Native American tribes, and the pseudo-legal arguments crafted by white supremacist 'patriot' groups in the 1970s," MacNab said.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Sonata Software announced that its Unified Enterprise Mobility Platform, Halosys, has been enhanced with additional features that boost optimization and usability

Family Builders, the adoption service of Catawba County Social Services, can now help adult adoptees, birth parents and their close relatives find each other. Not all counties in North Carolina offer this service, which is called Confidential Intermediary Services. Until recently all adoption records were sealed under North Carolina state law. In 2008, a new law took effect that allowed the release of certain records to adult adoptees and birth parents, if both parties agreed.

The Supreme Court found that a law that allowed farmworkers union organizers onto farm property during nonworking hours unconstitutionally appropriates private land.; Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Wednesday tightened the leash on union representatives and their ability to organize farmworkers in California and elsewhere. At issue in the case was a California law that allows union organizers to enter farms to speak to workers during nonworking hours — before and after work, as well as during lunch — for a set a number of days each year.

By a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the court ruled that the law — enacted nearly 50 years ago after a campaign by famed organizer Cesar Chavez — unconstitutionally appropriates private land by allowing organizers to go on farm property to drum up union support.

"The regulation appropriates a right to physically invade the growers' property," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court's conservative majority. "The access regulation amounts to simple appropriation of private property."

The decision is a potentially mortal blow that threatens the very existence of the farmworkers union. However, the ruling stopped short of upending other laws that allow government officials to enter private property to inspect and enforce health and safety rules that cover everything restaurants to toxic chemical sites.

Indeed, as Roberts wrote: "Under this framework, government health and safety inspection regimes will generally not constitute takings."

The court's decision on Wednesday was only the latest in a series of decisions that have aimed directly at the heart of organized labor in the United States. In 2018, the court hamstrung public-sector unions' efforts to raise money for collective bargaining. In that decision, the court by a 5-4 vote overturned a 40-year precedent that had allowed unions to collect limited "fair share" fees from workers not in the union but who benefited from the terms of the contract that the union negotiated.

The case decided by the court on Wednesday began in 2015 at Cedar Point Nursery, near the Oregon border. The nursery's owner, Mike Fahner, said union organizers entered the farm at 5 a.m. one morning, without the required notice, and began harassing his workers with bullhorns. The general counsel for the United Farm Workers, Mario Martinez, countered that the people with bullhorns were striking workers, not union organizers.

When Cedar Point filed a complaint with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the board found no illegal behavior and dismissed the complaint. Cedar Point, joined by another California grower, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing they should be able to exclude organizers from their farms.

Writing for the court's three liberals, Justice Stephen Breyer said the access in the case was "temporary" and so did not constitute a "taking" under the law.

The rule, he wrote , is "not functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which government directly appropriates private property or ousts the owner from his domain."

"In my view, the majority's conclusion threatens to make many ordinary forms of regulation unusually complex or impractical," he wrote.

The court's decision could be disastrous for unions in general, but especially those that represent low-income workers. The growers asserted that unions should have no problem organizing workers in the era of the internet. But many of the workers at Cedar Point don't own smartphones and don't have internet access. What's more, many speak Spanish or indigenous languages and live scattered throughout the area, in motels, in labor camps or with friends and family, often moving after just a few weeks when the seasonal harvest is over.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

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