Andy Street joins expert panel for COVID-19 vaccine webinar.

Birmingham landmark hits £100,000 fundraising mark but "time is running out".

ASOS, the British online fashion retailer, is striving to regain growth by 2025 after facing challenges such as a decline in active customers and stiff competition.

Walmart is offering new incentives to its Spark Driver network for the holiday season to compete with Amazon in the e-commerce market. The company aims to attract more upper-income households to its Walmart Plus membership by offering faster deliveries and potentially increase advertising revenue.

India's economic growth is projected to slow to 6.2% in the second quarter of 2024-25, due to a high base effect and heavy rainfall, as per Barclays' estimates. While government spending and rural consumption are picking up, urban demand and private investment remain weak. Barclays has revised its GDP forecast for 2024-25 to 6.8% from 7% earlier, expecting a recovery in the second half of the year.

India's retail inflation rose to 6.21 percent in October. This is a significant increase from September's 5.49 percent. Food prices are the main reason for this surge. This is the first time since August that inflation has gone beyond the Reserve Bank of India's 6 percent limit. The rise in onion prices is a major concern.

Apple shipped 12.6 million tablets in the third quarter (Q3), with a modest growth of 1.4 per cent year-over-year in the quarter and garnering 31.7 per cent market share, as global tablet shipments grew 20.4 per cent to reach 39.6 million units.

Bajaj Electricals experienced a 59% drop in second-quarter profits, attributing the decline to weaker demand for cooling products due to monsoon rains. Despite a slight revenue increase, the company's profits were impacted by reduced demand and cost-of-living pressures. Analysts anticipate a demand resurgence in the December quarter, fueled by festive season promotions.

Infiniti Retail, that operates popular electronics retailer Croma, is preparing for a leadership transition. Shibashish Roy, the current Deputy CEO, will step into the role of CEO on November 18, 2024, succeeding Avijit Mitra. Mitra, who has been instrumental in Croma's growth.

​​The Umbergaon, Valsad-based company said the issue comprises Rs 850 crore of offer for sale and Rs 350 crore of fresh issue, and will close on December 15. Its chief financial officer Rahul Shah told reporters here that the floor price is 75 times and the cap price is 79 times the face value of the equity shares.

Stationery retailer DOMS Industries has acquired 51 per cent of stake in Skido Industries with an initial investment of Rs 51 lakh, marking its entrance into school bag manufacturing, it said in a press release on Thursday. The remaining stake of Skido remains with Sehgals.

Mumbai-based Pidilite Industries, the maker of Fevicol and M-Seal adhesive brands, has approached the court to restrain Dubond Products from allegedly infringing its registered trademarks, copyright and passing off for its waterproofing brand Dr Fixit LW.

Linc, a writing instruments brand, has appointed Sachin Bhatnagar as its new president of global business. Bhatnagar brings over 30 years of experience to the role, having previously served as CEO at Lykis. He will be responsible for driving Linc's strategic direction and growth.

He further claimed that the product is launched at a 15 per cent lower price compared to the existing products in the market. “We are retaining lower margins than other brands and it works for us, as we spend much less in marketing,” commented Shreyans Jain, co-founder, Nutrabay.

In his role, Dabas will foresee Nykaa Fashion’s online growth strategy, expand its global footprint, and build strategic partnerships—including current alliances with fashion retailers like Foot Locker and Revolve aiming at building brand presence in the fashion e-commerce space.

Founded by Supam Maheshwari and his colleague from a previous business, Amitava Saha, FirstCry has been the darling of investors which include SoftBank, Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata, Premji Invest, Mahindra & Mahindra and TPG Growth.

Baby food startup Bebe Burp shared that it will utilise 60 per cent of the fund for growth, 20 per cent for operations, 10 per cent for product development, and the remaining for team building for a coherent production.

Millennium Babycares Ltd announced the closure of a Rs 122 crore private placement round with Bharat Value Fund (BVF), which acquired a significant minority stake. BVF is managed by Pantomath Capital and targets a corpus of Rs 2,000 crores. The funds will be used for market expansion in India and internationally.

Looking to hire as an independent contractor a highly experienced backend software engineer with extensive experience with Node.js, and preferably with MongoDB as well. Familiarity with GCP would be a plus. This is a part-time, remote contract that will probably be for a minimum of three months and possibly a good bit longer. You must be a true high senior or expert level developer with extensive Node.js experience. A qualified candidate will most likely have at least ten years of solid software development experience. If you are not the right person but know somebody who might be, please feel free to have them contact me. Thank you.

My husband has a birthday coming up. I know he would like something like this coin bank, but it's sold out and I'm having trouble finding an adequate, grown-up substitute. As a kid my husband really liked marble roller coasters and other kinetic toys, but never got them because they were too expensive. He expressed that he really liked the coin bank in the link above. There are some toy options, like this one, that aren't quite right, mostly because they are cheaply made and our 5-year-old daughter will claim anything sufficiently toy-like for herself.

I'm considering making something myself, so links to DIYs would also be helpful. Thank you for your help!

Does anyone know what those green lapel pins are that about a third of Obama's staffers seem to be wearing in the photos here? (via)

I've been missing Miami's Cuban bakeries. My plans to visit have been put on hold indefinitely, so I'm looking for options to have a few items (cuban crackers, cuban bread and pastries) shipped overnight to my house a few states to the north. Does a service that does this exist? I'm willing to put some dollars toward paying for this, but would prefer something established as opposed to posting a Craigslist ad.

I know that Vicky Bakery ships guava pastries and croquetas, but I'm looking for a wider selection. Thanks everyone!

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is set to roll back the city's reopening plan back to phase one as COVID-19 continues to spread across the state, a spokesman said Friday. The first phase guidelines include encouraging residents to stay home except for essential trips, wearing a face covering in public and avoid in-person dining at restaurants.

This does sound very much like your anxiety latching on to a potential future and you getting stuck in that.

Others can give you advice about dealing with this particular scenario.

But here are some things to remember:

Seeking reassurance from others usually results in your anxiety getting worse, as their advice makes the imaginary danger seem more real.

No amount of rehearsing and imagining and ruminating will make you any safer. In fact, trying to prepare for this scenario means you're staying in the anxiety space for longer.

Don't try to fight your scary thoughts, don't argue with yourself. Just note the thought and briefly describe what you're doing to yourself in a non judgemental way.

"I'm arguing with an imaginary person right now"

"I'm trying to predict the future"

"I'm ruminating right now."

"I'm seeking reassurance"

You have the power to reassure yourself, and THAT kind of reassurance really works.

Change catastrophising thoughts into compassionate realism.

"I don't know what might happen in the future, but I'm going to cope with it when it dies"

"It's possible that this frightening thing might happen, and it might be unpleasant, but I will deal with it if it does and then it will just be another memory."

Find ways to distract yourself from your spiralling thoughts. I like explaining a topic I'm really interested in out loud to myself as a way to drown out stuck thoughts.

Trying to prepare for something that *might* happen just means you're making yourself be in that horrible scary worry space for much longer than it would take for the scary thing to happen. You can't control wether or not this thing you fear will happen, but you can control how much you focus on it.

Distraction is good! Be with people you enjoy, watch a comfort show, dance to music you love, do something to make yourself feel good.

One week ago, the Trump administration announced it would ban international students from attending U.S. colleges in the fall if they only take online classes. Now hundreds of colleges and universities, dozens of cities, and some of the country's biggest tech companies are pushing back. In several court filings Friday and Monday, the groups stand with the international students. They argue providing remote education is crucial given how contagious COVID-19 is — and they say they crafted policies for the fall by depending on earlier assurances from the federal government that international students would be able to attend class remotely "for the duration of the emergency" while still retaining their F-1 or M-1 visa status. They're supporting an initial legal challenge by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first to sue the administration over its new policy. Existing law had prohibited international students from taking all their courses online, but the

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit NOEL KING, HOST: There's a hearing today that is crucial for hundreds of thousands of international students. It's about a rule that ICE announced. If a college is doing online learning only in the fall, international students will have their visas revoked. ICE says if you're doing school online, you don't need to be in the U.S. to do it. So now, some schools are suing ICE over this rule. NPR education reporter Elissa Nadworny is covering this. Good morning, Elissa. ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: Good morning, Noel. KING: So explain what's happening here. What did ICE do and say, exactly? NADWORNY: So last week, ICE issued guidance that said if schools were all online because of the pandemic, their students couldn't stay in the U.S. You know, this has actually always been the case. There's always an in-person requirement in order to get a visa to come to the U.S. But last spring, when pretty much every school went virtual, ICE had allowed for

Forget about Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Page and Van Halen; we want to highlight the guitarists who have made an impact outside of the usual rock'n'roll axis of axes. It's a list full of invention, customs passed down through generations and a focus on rhythm as much as volume. These are the musicians who defined soukous, bossa nova and Touareg desert blues, who soundtracked revolutions and revelations, and made their traditions that little more recognisable to a global audience. These are our guitar heroes... from 50 Global Guitar Greats [Songlines]

The CIA on Thursday was forced to walk back an assertion by Director Mike Pompeo, who incorrectly said U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election were unsuccessful. Asked at a security conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday whether he could say with absolute certainty that the November vote was not skewed by Russia, Pompeo replied: "Yes. Intelligence community's assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election." In a later clarification, the head of the CIA's office of public affairs, Dean Boyd, said: "The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed, and the Director did not intend to suggest that it had." U.S. intelligence concluded in a January assessment that "the senior-most officials" in Russia had authorized hacks into the Democratic National Committee and officials connected with the Clinton campaign. And then

I joke that since I’m not very handy, after the apocalypse my main utility will be sending out a community newsletter. It occurs to me I can also, when duty calls, serve as a DJ in the no doubt much-needed chill-out room. Let’s kick things off, then, in our virtual decompression zone, with the album […]

Pop-Up Music is seeking SAMBA - big loud street samba. Bring on the pandeiro, ago-go, cuica, apito, surdo and the party!

This opportunity is for an exclusive contract with a term - all submissions must be 100% owned by the writer/writers.

Let the party begin! We look forward to your submissions.

Thanks,
The Pop-Up Music Team

I have a $285 budget and I want to get a fantastic gift/gift basket for a friend/coworker. My friend did something really wonderful for a bunch of coworkers, and we crowdfunded $285 to buy him a thank-you gift. The $285 must include stuff like taxes, delivery fees/tips, shipping, etc.

I'm thinking maybe a gift basket --he loves food and cooking both--probably not kitchen gadgets but more like interesting/new ingredients (we are in California ). So ya a gift basket of gourmet foods and/or amazing produce or some awesome ingredients. I've looked into frog hollow, I know people love Harry and David, and will look more into Delicious Orchards too.

Open to lots of suggestions! I am also open to gift basket + restaurant gift cert or the like. It just needs to be really special to show how much we appreciate him!

Oh he also loves plants, crochet/knitting, and is a musician.

My husband's (trauma-based?) anxiety runs to paranoia, and he occasionally makes angry and hurtful accusations at me. None of the accusations are true and are not really based in reality. Could this get better? My husband has been seeing a therapist who specialises in narcissistic abuse since spring of this year, following a set of realisations about past relationships and then decisions to cut contact with his best friend, his parents, and finally his only sibling. He tells me his therapist has tentatively suggested he may have cPTSD. Before he started therapy, he would in effect try to use me as his therapist and I have listened to him talk for many, many hours. I am sad that he has so few people in his life now but consider that he is better placed than I am to decide on the kind of relationships he should have with his family and friends.

My husband has also experienced IBS-related agoraphobia for about 8 years rarely leaving the house, and is entirely dependent on me financially. He came out to me, and my friends and family as bisexual early in the year. He is not engaging in any medical care except for his weekly therapist appointment on Zoom. We have sex very infrequently (and this is a mismatch for him) but otherwise have a very affectionate and loving relationship. He has always been supportive of me and been proud of my accomplishments inside and outside work. Before these very occasional accusations started happening, I felt generally like the character in Alanis Morrissette's Head over Feet.

He clearly has symptoms of anxiety including physical symptoms such as feeling dizzy and sometimes expresses paranoid thoughts about eg tradespeople that come to the house. Very occasionally he is angry at me. Sometimes this will be with a raised voice, other times with what feels to me like quite cold-blooded venom, sometimes it will be preceded by an obvious short period of silent treatment. It is always a long, confusing monologue, with vague insinuations and an insistence that I know exactly what he is talking about. He frequently claims that people say things 'subtextually' and sometimes specifically that I have clearly communicated something related to his insinuations 'subtextually'. Although I have never felt at risk of violence, when this anger happens I feel very physically frightened. I tend to remain silent, and my thoughts are focused on escape and the risks of escalation. I find his train of thought very difficult to follow, it is not concrete or specific and I am sometimes in panic mode. I am often very literal and am not sure that I really know what he means when he talks about things being 'subtextual'. Eventually he will make a specific accusation, or I will say something and that will lead to an accusation.

The accusations so far have been
•I am withholding sex deliberately to manipulate him
•I lack empathy and am manipulative
•I treat him badly in general and would be unhappy if he was no longer agoraphobic
•I have been having casual relationships with other people since we met 12 years ago
•I have at some point had a 'secret relationship' with a particular female friend.

The accusations are both unexpected and untrue.

After I have denied the accusation, eventually the anger will blow out and dissipate. There might follow another confusing monologue about his state of mind and the trauma he has experienced. Usually, we will then have a decent conversation (either immediately or the next morning) in which he provides some reasoning behind his accusation. They are generally based on very convoluted trains of logic and some snippet of a real-life event or comment. He interprets his accusations and my denials as a way of providing reassurance that I am not going to cause trauma like 'everyone else' has. He has some real sympathy for my being upset by them, but I am not convinced he understands how much they distress me. He has told me that wants me to have more empathy for his trauma and accept that he does not mean the accusations personally.

I find each anger and accusation event frightening at the time and destabilising afterwards. They have happened four or five times in this calendar year. Although I love him very much, I think that if they kept continuing, I would eventually want to leave. I am holding out hope that by continuing to work with his therapist they will stop at some point. Am I being wildly unrealistic? I recognise that I have a strong reaction to any anger. Is there anything I could do to reduce the impact it has on me in the meantime?

I unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to go to therapy for a very long time, and in the end, it was a friend of mine who convinced him, so my chances of talking him into any specific actions are low. But if he were asking for advice, what advice would you give?

In terms of my own real-life support, I have my own therapist that I have been seeing weekly for the past two years, mainly to help me cope with my husband's ill health and related issues. I am honest with my therapist about what is happening. One of my close friends also knows what is happening and I have a supportive colleague who knows some things. I have access to more than enough money to leave him in the short-term if I needed to and divorce would be expensive but not absolutely impoverishing.

The tragedy in the southeast is heartbreaking and motivates me to be more prepared for an escape in case of emergency. I'm looking for advice on the best practices for assembling a bug-out bag. Just after Katrina (where we were not severely impacted but were without electricity for 2 weeks ) I had put together a knapsack, but I've let it go in the last few years. I know there are resources online that offer recommendations, but I'd like to hear from this community about what you've found makes sense without going overboard. What are the essential items to include for a family of four? Are there any lessons learned from your experiences that might help ensure preparedness without feeling overwhelming? How do you organize it/them? How do you keep your bag(s) up to date, and where do you store them?

Thanks in advance for your input, and my heart goes out to those affected by recent disasters.

This week’s lesson will begin with the Prologue (John 1:1–18) and summarize its major themes. These themes will then be looked at in other places in John’s Gospel, as well.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit AILSA CHANG, HOST: The United Kingdom is banning Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, from developing Britain's 5G network. The U.S. welcomes this decision. It's just the latest move in a global struggle between the U.S. and China over technology, business and political power. As NPR's Frank Langfitt reports, it's also a sign of how China's increasingly assertive diplomacy has backfired. FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: The British government will forbid companies here from buying Huawei equipment for 5G beginning next year and require the removal of all Huawei equipment by 2027. The government says the decision was triggered by U.S. sanctions on Huawei suppliers that could make the company's equipment easier for China to use for spying. Oliver Dowden is the U.K.'s digital secretary. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) OLIVER DOWDEN: The security and resilience of our telecoms networks is of paramount importance. We have never and will never compromise that

Washtenaw County put three ballot issues before voters in Tuesday's primary elections. All three touch on components of our environment. All three passed by a wide margin. WEMU's David Fair discusses the results and future impacts with Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi.