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Unemployment fears mount in UK holiday hotspots with mass job cuts predicted



BRITAIN'S summer holiday destinations will face some of the biggest economic hits of the coronavirus pandemic with fears of massive job losses in coastal communities, a study has claimed.




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Line of Duty season 6 spoilers: Kate Fleming revealed as bent copper as huge clue spotted?



LINE OF DUTY has been keeping BBC viewers hooked for nearly a decade and with the show set to return for its sixth season in the coming months, could one of its key cast members be revealed as a corrupt officer in a huge twist?




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Line of Duty season 6 spoilers: Kate Fleming revealed as bent copper as huge clue spotted?



LINE OF DUTY has been keeping BBC viewers hooked for nearly a decade and with the show set to return for its sixth season in the coming months, could one of its key cast members be revealed as a corrupt officer in a huge twist?




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UK holidays: Travel experts reveal their best staycation spots in the UK for post-lockdown



UK HOLIDAYS and staycations are becoming more sought after since the coronavirus pandemic sent most the world into lockdown back in March. With many planning their next staycation, the Trip Sisters gave their verdict on the best UK destinations for your next trip.




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Will Purdue fill Matt Haarms' spot with one-year fix or save scholarship for 2021 class?

With Matt Haarms announcing his decision to leave the Boilermakers, the coaching staff begins the search to fill a void in the middle

       




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Athlete spotlight: Catching up with Greenwood Christian senior Champ McCorkle

McCorkle leads the Class A second-ranked Cougars in scoring (13.7 ppg), rebounding (6.9) and assists (4.2) through 11 games this season.

      




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Greenwood Christian wins first Johnson County title, likely will get top spot in Class A

Champ McCorkle notched his 1,000th-career point as the Cougars beat Center Grove for the Johnson County tournament championship.

      




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Athlete spotlight: Catching up with Roncalli wrestler Brayden Lowery

Four-time regional champion Brayden Lowery on his love of wrestling, favorite memories, college plans and more

      




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You can now find Elvis Presley final-concert plaque amid shiny new spots on Market Street

Elvis Presley fans gather inside new luxury apartment tower 360 Market Square to rededicate 16-year-old plaque previously displaced by construction.

      




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Spot the ball: England win Women's World Cup final in 2017

How good is your eye? Can you pick out the correct ball in these photos of the epic 2017 final?




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Coronavirus: Bank holiday warning to avoid beauty spots

Emergency services and other authorities say travel to beaches and national parks will "cost lives".




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An unlikely coronavirus hotspot in forgotten US corner

How poverty and economic inequality are threatening an entire generation of African Americans.




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The AFC’s final playoff spot is between the Colts and Ravens and no one else

Even with the Dolphins, Broncos, Bengals and Titans within striking distance, if you are hoping for a dramatic playoff push in the AFC to end the season, bad news: there won’t be any.




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Harold Baines does not deserve a spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame. Period.

Baines, a six-time all-star, led the league in a batting category just once over a 22-year career. If that' the new bar for the Hall, it's time to talk about Freddy Garcia and Placido Polanco, too. (Note: It should never be time to talk about Freddy Garcia and Placido Polanco.)




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Kim Kardashian spotted filming at D.C. jail

The reality star and criminal justice reform advocate was in town Tuesday.




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Giant Asian ‘Murder Hornets’ Spotted in US for First Time

What one expert called “something out a monster cartoon” has now arrived in the United States. The Asian giant hornet, which can decimate bee colonies and is responsible for 50 deaths a year in Japan, is now in Washington state, according to The New York Times. A new threat reaches the United States: A massive…

The post Giant Asian ‘Murder Hornets’ Spotted in US for First Time appeared first on The Western Journal.




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Spotify's new new 'Daily Wellness' playlist is worth a try but has a few flaws

With all the stress in the world — you know, a deadly, terrifying global pandemic — Spotify dropped a new service: a daily, personalized aimed at wellness. Fittingly, it's called Daily Wellness and I gave it a try. 

OK, first, let me drop my biases: I can be a cynical person and I'm pretty high energy — like hyper hyper — which has made meditation difficult for me. I can get both mentally and physically uncomfortable while trying anything resembling meditation or therapy or sincere reflection.

That being said, amid the pandemic — and battling some, let's say, serious anxiety — I've been taking active steps to try to improve my mental health. Therapy, meditation, exercise, whatever else, it all seemed like a good idea to help me get through the day. Read more...

More about Spotify, Meditation, Playlists, Self Care, and Coronavirus




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Newsroom: US Spotify Listeners Surpassed Pandora Listeners in 2019, Sooner than Expected

Spotify will gain more than 10 million US listeners in 2020   February 25, 2020 (New York, NY) – Pandora is no longer the most popular music streaming service in the […]




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For a US Trade Deal, UK Should Secure Its Spot in TTIP After Brexit

25 August 2016

Marianne Schneider-Petsinger

Senior Research Fellow, US and the Americas Programme
Having Britain as an additional party to a US−EU free-trade agreement would benefit all sides.

2016-08-25-UnionNY.jpg

A Union flag hangs in the window of a British grocery store in New York City. Photo by Getty Images.

Even though President Barack Obama cautioned that the UK would be at the ‘back of the queue’ for a trade agreement with the US if the country chose to leave the EU, in the post-Brexit world a deal might be struck more swiftly. Various ideas for bringing the UK and US into a formal trade arrangement have been floated – ranging from a bilateral UK-US trade deal, or the UK joining NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico), to the UK becoming a part of the TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the US is pursuing with 11 other countries along the Pacific Rim). However, one option stands out: opening the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which the US and EU are currently negotiating, to the UK after Brexit.

Good reasons for Britain in TTIP

First, from the perspective of the UK, signing up to TTIP would mean a more comprehensive deal with the US than a bilateral UK−US trade agreement. For instance, Britain is very keen to include financial services regulation in any trade agreement with America, but given Washington’s reluctance, this ambition might only be achievable if other countries like France and Germany throw their financial weight into the negotiations.

Second, continuing involvement in the TTIP negotiations allows London to begin securing its trade position with the US now. Though its influence in the EU may weaken as it heads for the exit, Britain could make the best use of influencing the EU position on TTIP while it is still a member. It could then accept the terms of TTIP and accede as a third party relatively quickly after exiting the EU. Official negotiations on a UK−US-only deal would have to wait until the UK has left the EU, as trade talks fall under the exclusive competence of the EU.

Third, for the US and EU, having the UK as a party to TTIP would ensure the scale of the deal is not reduced, and thereby maintain the strategic appeal and ability to set global standards. At the moment, the UK is the EU’s second-largest economy, accounting for approximately 18 per cent of GDP. With Britain in TTIP, the sheer size of the transatlantic market space will have more pull for other countries to adopt the common transatlantic rules in order to gain market access.

Fourth, the UK joining TTIP as a third party would establish the agreement as an ‘open platform’ that is available for other countries to join. Michael Froman, the United States trade representative, has characterized TTIP as being such an open agreement. EU representatives have been more ambivalent, though this is starting to change in the wake of Brexit. David O’Sullivan, the current EU ambassador to the US, recently said that as ‘we’ve always seen TTIP as a potential open platform, [the] UK could still benefit [from it] even not as a member of the European Union’. While now might not be the right time to expand the TTIP bloc beyond its original participants given that negotiations are already complex and drawn out, it would be beneficial for the negotiating partners to send a strong message that countries that are willing and able to commit to the high TTIP standards will be welcomed later on.

Obstacles to Britain in TTIP

But before the UK could be added to TTIP after Brexit, major hurdles will have to be jumped and crucial questions answered. The first obstacle is actually getting a TTIP deal, which will require significant efforts by political leaders and negotiators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Second, selling the ‘UK in TTIP option’ to Brexiteers will not be an easy task. After all, Leave campaigners argued that the US−EU deal might undermine the NHS and was thus presented as one of the reasons to cut loose from Brussels. As the major rationale behind TTIP is regulatory harmonization, if the UK were to sign up to TTIP it would still have to apply many EU rules. This, however, would go counter to the arguments for leaving the EU in the first place.

Third, it will be a challenging job for the UK to untangle its trade relationship with the EU while at the same time negotiating TTIP together with the EU. It would be easiest if the UK decided to remain a member of the EU customs union. Britain would then be required to impose the EU’s external tariffs on countries like the US. This would fit seamlessly with the ‘UK in TTIP’ option. But as the UK will most likely pull out of the customs union, it will be more complicated than that.

Finally, the timing of Brexit and the TTIP negotiations could cause complications. In the unlikely event that a US-EU free trade deal is concluded and ratified while the UK is still a member of the EU, the agreement (or the parts of it that fall under national competence) would most likely continue to apply to Britain after Brexit without the need for accession. If the TTIP negotiations continue beyond Brexit, then the UK would move from negotiating as part of the EU bloc to becoming a third party. This raises the issue of whether the UK and EU continue to negotiate as one bloc vis-à-vis the US.

Special economic relationship

Still, the depth of the economic ties between the US and UK means that the TTIP option is likely to be welcomed favourably by both countries. The US is the most important single export market for the UK, with goods and services worth £45 billion shipped in 2015. Last year, the US ranked third (after Germany and China) as a source for UK imports. With nearly $1 trillion invested in each other’s economies, the US and the UK are also each other’s largest investors. Given this special economic relationship, Britain is unlikely to be at the ‘back of the queue’ in any event. But the TTIP option is the best path to preserving and strengthening the relationship post-Brexit while also realizing the wider strategic benefits of a transatlantic trade agreement.

A version of this article appeared on Real Clear World.

To comment on this article, please contact Chatham House Feedback




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Wildlife through the window: what readers have spotted during lockdown

We asked Guardian readers living in cities and towns across the world to share their images of the wildlife they can see from their homes. You answered in your droves, from Canada to Cardiff, and here are some of the best.




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CBD Communiqué : CNN International Spotlights Biodiversity.




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CBD News: On the International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrated under the theme of Island Biodiversity, islands are taking action to effectively conserve biodiversity and promote sustainable livelihoods. These actions, or "Bright Spots,"




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Astronomers could spot life signs orbiting long-dead stars

(Cornell University) To help future scientists make sense of what their telescopes are showing them, Cornell University astronomers have developed a spectral field guide for rocky worlds orbiting white dwarf stars.




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Carbon footprint hotspots: Mapping China's export-driven emissions

(University of Michigan) The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted just how reliant the United States and other countries are on Chinese manufacturing, with widespread shortages of protective medical gear produced there.




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Seafloor currents may direct microplastics to biodiversity hotspots of the deep

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Microplastic particles entering the sea surface were thought to settle to the seafloor directly below them, but now, a new study reveals that slow-moving currents near the bottom of the ocean direct the flow of plastics, creating microplastic hotpots in sediments of the deep sea.




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Gospel Spotlight: Gospel Song winner explores ‘Excess Love’

E xcess Love, a song by Nigerian gospel artiste Mercy Chinwo, has found favour with both Christians and non-Christians alike and has been flooding the airwaves since last year. Joanna Walker, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's (JCDC)...




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Concentration Determination of >200 Proteins in Dried Blood Spots for Biomarker Discovery and Validation [Technological Innovation and Resources]

The use of protein biomarkers as surrogates for clinical endpoints requires extensive multilevel validation including development of robust and sensitive assays for precise measurement of protein concentration. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) is a well-established mass-spectrometric method that can be used for reproducible protein-concentration measurements in biological specimens collected via microsampling. The dried blood spot (DBS) microsampling technique can be performed non-invasively without the expertise of a phlebotomist, and can enhance analyte stability which facilitate the application of this technique in retrospective studies while providing lower storage and shipping costs, because cold-chain logistics can be eliminated. Thus, precise, sensitive, and multiplexed methods for measuring protein concentrations in DBSs can be used for de novo biomarker discovery and for biomarker quantification or verification experiments. To achieve this goal, MRM assays were developed for multiplexed concentration measurement of proteins in DBSs.

The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was found to have a median total coefficient of variation (CV) of 18% for 245 proteins, whereas the median LLOQ was 5 fmol of peptide injected on column, and the median inter-day CV over 4 days for measuring endogenous protein concentration was 8%. The majority (88%) of the assays displayed parallelism, whereas the peptide standards remained stable throughout the assay workflow and after exposure to multiple freeze-thaw cycles. For 190 proteins, the measured protein concentrations remained stable in DBS stored at ambient laboratory temperature for up to 2 months. Finally, the developed assays were used to measure the concentration ranges for 200 proteins in twenty same sex, same race and age matched individuals.




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Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




spot

Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




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Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




spot

Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




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Patient spotlight - Doing it for themselves

In our accompanying roundtable discussion,we hear views from a group of patients and clinicians based largely in the UK on the actions required  to advance  progress towards providing patient centred care. To extend the conversation we talked to members of the BMJ's international patient advisory panel and other patient advocates - and what...




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Patient spotlight - How can we get better at providing patient centred care?

Participants in our discussion on person centred care in January agreed that a change in culture and better use of technology could benefit both patients and doctors. At the roundtable: Fiona Godlee (chair), editor in chief, The BMJ Tessa Richards, senior editor, patient partnership, The BMJ Rosamund Snow, patient editor, The BMJ Navjoyt Ladher,...




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Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




spot

Prospects who should vie for a roster spot

The 30 prospects below all are getting very long looks this spring with an eye toward breaking camp with the parent club. Even if they start the year in the Minors, they all should get the chance to contribute at some point in the very near future.




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Lovullo expects D-backs to vie for playoff spot

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Ex-MLB players in spotlight as world turns to Asia for baseball

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Blood test may effectively spot multiple cancers

A new blood-test approach for cancer screening was able to identify 26 previously undetected cases of the disease, according to the findings of a new study published Friday by the journal Science.




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Social Innovation for Refugee Inclusion: From Bright Spots to System Change

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We’re Not Good At Spotting When Someone Has A False Memory Of Committing A Crime

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Lincoln Public Schools students getting free hotspot service




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Lincoln Public Schools students getting free hotspot service




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Desegregation Order Lifted on Georgia School District in Coronavirus Hotspot

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Spot the ethical solutions in estate administration dilemmas : part 1 / presented by Pam McEwin, Treloar & Treloar.




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Spot the ethical solutions in estate administration dilemmas : part 2 / presented by Pam McEwin, Treloar & Treloar.




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SafeWork SA in the Spotlight.




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The Ladybird who had no spots / written and illustrated by Katherine Lam.