The Second International Conference on National Urban Policy was held in Paris France on 15-16 May 2017. The conference was a joint initiative of the OECD, UN Habitat and Cities Alliance.

An OECD policy perspective is now available which describes some of the major highlights from an OECD report on Nanotechnology and Tyres: Greening Industry and Transport.

1. Only Severe Covid-19 Patients To Be Tested Before Discharge From Hospital: Centre Revises Policy  ABP Live
2. New revised policy: No test before discharge says Health Ministry  Yahoo India News
3. Coronavirus blood-clot mystery intensifies  Nature.com
4. Coronavirus Treatment: Blood Thinners Can Boost Survival Of COVID-19 Patients, Study Reveals  Medical Daily
5. Could Blood Thinners Be Crucial For Patients With COVID-19 Related Clots?  Forbes
6. View Full coverage on Google News

Qantas has moved to revamp its credit policy during the coronavirus crisis after a wave of anger from out-of-pocket customers.

: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has instructed officials to prepare a comprehensive agriculture policy for the state with an aim to make the agriculture sector profitable. Rao said he would be talking to farmers through clusters, farmers groups such as Rythu Bandhu Samithis and agriculture officers through a video conference very soon, an official release issued late on Saturday night said. Rao, who held a review on the agriculture department, instructed officials concerned to prepare the comprehensive agriculture policy and stressed the need for everything to happen in tune with it. "The government should decide on which crops the farmers should cultivate. Planning should be done in such a way that crops should be cultivated based on the food needs of people in the state and the crops, which are in demand in the markets in other regions," Rao said. Alternative crops should be identified and suggested to farmers and cultivation done on these lines, he said,

The disconnect between civil society and government has led to successive generations of policy and implementation failures. The India Together editorial.

Popular ideas of development and management of common resources should be revisited in light of this year's Economics Nobel Prize, given to Prof. Elinor Ostrom, writes Prakash Kashwan.

Instant messaging platform WhatsApp today opposed in Delhi High Court a plea alleging that privacy of its users has been threatened by a new privacy policy announced by Facebook, saying regulations were in place and the latter does not have access to any data as it provides end-to-end encryption.

A public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court (HC) challenges the change in WhatsApp's privacy policy.

A special bench was hearing a writ petition filed by the All India Centre Council of Trade Unions(AICCTU) questioning the government's rationale to cancel trains that were meant to ferry migrant labourers back to their homes.

The development led to the deferment of the cabinet meeting which was scheduled to be held on Saturday. Now, it will be held on Monday.

Chandigarh, May 09: Punjab ministers on Saturday walked out of a pre-cabinet meeting on the excise policy with senior state officials over an ‘unacceptable behaviour’ of the chief secretary with one of their colleagues. The development led to the deferment

Content Security Policy can be used to generate reports describing attempts to attack your site. This post briefly explains how this works, and presents a simple example script that can be used to process these reports.

The UT excise and taxation department has extended the excise policy from May 15 to June 30 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing lockdown.

Invertebrates make up more than 80 percent of all known species and provide humans with a myriad of valuable services—from crop pollination to their use as food—yet they are overlooked and underrepresented in conservation decisions and on priority lists of threatened and endangered species.

The post Invertebrates are ignored, overlooked by conservationists, policymakers and the public appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The United States should ban human reproductive cloning aimed at creating a child.

The role of guns in U.S. society is a subject of intense policy debate and disagreement.

The aging of the U.S. population will have broad economic consequences for the country, particularly for federal programs that support the elderly, and its long-term effects on all generations will be mediated by how -- and how quickly -- the nation responds, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council.

A series of educational modules has been developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to help students in professional schools – law, public policy, medicine, journalism, and business – understand science and its role in decision making.

The number of patients in the U.S. awaiting organ transplantation outpaces the amount of transplants performed in the U.S., and many donated organs are not transplanted each year due to several factors, such as poor organ function, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine proposes a framework for evaluating proposals to provide authorized government agencies with access to unencrypted versions of encrypted communications and other data.

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today named the 2018-2019 class of RWJF Health Policy Fellows.

The Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced the recipients of its 2018 Science Policy Fellowships.

For his pioneering role in national health policy and health services research, the National Academy of Medicine today announced Stuart Altman is the recipient of the 2018 Gustav O. Lienhard Award for Advancement of Health Care.

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) at its annual meeting announced its inaugural International Health Policy Fellow, Roger Chung, Ph.D., M.H.S., assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Primary Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is now accepting applications for its Early-Career Research Fellowships and Science Policy Fellowships for 2019.

In a Nature commentary published today, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia K. McNutt and several colleagues make the case for the creation of a U.S. advisory board for research integrity and quality.

The Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has announced the nine recipients of its 2019 Science Policy Fellowships.

The opioid epidemic in the U.S. is driving a simultaneous epidemic of infectious diseases — including HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV) and bacterial infections, and sexually transmitted infections — but workforce shortages, stigma, and financial and policy barriers are preventing the integration of opioid use disorder (OUD) and infectious disease services, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The National Academy of Sciences, in partnership with The Kavli Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, will host a symposium to consider the future of science in the U.S. and how it can best serve society in the 21st century.

A Southern California Edison sign outside the San Onofre Nuclear Plant.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

Large utilities cut off power to millions of Californians over the past two months to reduce the risk that power lines might spark new fires. Nearly 200,000 Southern California Edison customers were blacked out, some for days at a time. These public safety power shutoffs mean that many rural residents lose a lot more than just their electricity. 

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

Data from studies monitoring the amount of plastic eaten by seabirds suggest that levels in the North Sea are well above targets established for the North East Atlantic Ocean by OSPAR (the Oslo and Paris Convention). For the most recent monitoring period, the target amount was exceeded in well over half the birds studied.

Wide receiver Wes Welker #83 of the Denver Broncos tries to avoid the tackle of free safety Earl Thomas #29 of the Seattle Seahawks during Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in this file photo taken February 2, 2014 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Under a new drug policy agreed to by the NFL and the players union, Welker and two other suspended players will be allowed to return to the field.; Credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images

The NFL said Wednesday that its new performance-enhancing drug policy will allow the Broncos' Wes Welker and two other suspended players to return to the field this week.

The deal with the players association also adds human growth hormone testing, ending several years of wrangling between the league and the union.

Welker, Dallas Cowboys defensive back Orlando Scandrick and St. Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey had been suspended for four games.

Under the new rules, players who test positive for banned stimulants in the offseason will no longer be suspended. Instead, they will be referred to the substance abuse program.

The league and union are also nearing an agreement on changes to the substance abuse policy. That could reduce Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon's season-long ban.

Testing for HGH was originally agreed upon in 2011, but the players had balked at the science in the testing and the appeals process for positive tests. Under the new deal, appeals of positive tests in the PED program will be heard by third-party arbitrators jointly selected by the NFL and union. Appeals will be processed more expeditiously under altered procedures

Testing should begin by the end of the month.

The new rules also change the length of suspensions. Previously, all first-time violations of the performance-enhancing drug policy resulted in at least a four-game suspension.

Now, use of a diuretic or masking agent will result in a two-game suspension. The punishment for steroids, in-season use of stimulants, HGH or other banned substances is four games. Evidence of an attempt to manipulate a test is a six-game suspension.

A second violation will result in a 10-game ban, up from a minimum of eight games. A third violation is at least a two-year suspension. Before, the ban was at least a year.

Science for Environment Policy are very pleased to announce the launch of a new series of policy briefs. Entitled 'Future Briefs', these will explore emerging areas of research with implications for environmental policy.'Plastic Waste: redesign and biodegradability' is the first Future Brief, which will be published week commencing 27 June. Future Briefs will be available to download free from our website: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/index_en.htm

Urban planning policy has had a powerful influence on the amount of green space in cities, according to a recent UK study. It found that a change in planning policy in 2000 led to a decline in urban green space in nine cities between 2001 and 2006, although the amount of green space in all but one of the cities studied has increased overall since 1991.

Assessing the potential of new environmental management tools often brings an ???innovation dilemma???: is it better to stick with what is known to work, or to implement new measures that are potentially more effective, but also more uncertain? Researchers have proposed an approach to deal with these dilemmas, and applied it to the case study of an invasive species programme in the US.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) is a holistic approach to improving environmental performance along the supply chain. A new study by Italian researchers on over 4000 manufacturing facilities in seven developed countries has indicated that GSCM increases environmental performance.

New research has recommended using both ecological and carbon footprints to assess the impact of environmental policies and strategies at a regional level. The combination can provide an evidence-based means of evaluating policies to help achieve environmental targets.

Sustainable management of complex ecosystems requires clear understanding of uncertainty. However, scientific guidance documents show a lack of clarity and coherence regarding uncertainties and tend to focus solely on the need for more data or monitoring, new research indicates. The researchers suggest that scientific guidance should recognise uncertainty as an inherent part of any complex ecosystem.

There is an ongoing debate over exploitation of the Dutch Wadden Sea, over issues including gas extraction and cockle fishing. According to a review analysing interactions between scientists and policymakers during these debates, the productivity of such discussions is substantially influenced by the policy setting, i.e. the level of government involved and the key decision-makers.

What do you think of Science for Environment Policy? Tell us your thoughts with our online survey. The survey aims to assess how the service has diversified and responded to audience needs. Many thanks for your valuable feedback.

This Thematic Issue reports on research into policy targets for sustainability, and associated indicators, to tie in with the launch of the EU's 7th Environmental Action Programme.