[International] :
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Washington will sternly respond to North Korea’s deployment of troops to the war in Ukraine.   Ahead of attending a meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels on Wednesday, Blinken said North Korean troops have been sent to the battlefield ...

[more...]

Halloween is around the corner, and it’s time to brainstorm the best group costume ideas for you and your friends. Whether you’re going to a Halloween party, trick-or-treating or entering a costume contest, the key to success is creativity, coordination and a dash of humor.

We've all been there: Spooky season has arrived, and you don't have any costume ideas for Halloween. Whether you're a casual fan of the holiday who is looking for a good Halloween costume, or a long time devotee of All Hallow's Eve who wants to top last year's effort, we've got you covered with some great Halloween costume ideas.

Discover if Cancer and Pisces compatibility creates a strong, harmonious bond. Dive into emotional insights and learn what makes these water signs connect so deeply.

[Economy] :
A large delegation representing Czech power authorities will make a two-week visit to South Korea for working-level negotiations ahead of the conclusion of a final contract for the Czech nuclear power plant project.  Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power(KHNP), which was selected in July as the preferred bidder ...

[more...]

Following the work of Day & Hawthorne [Acta Cryst. (2022), A78, 212–233] and Day et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 258–281], the program GraphT–T has been developed to embed graphical representations of observed and hypothetical chains of (SiO4)4− tetrahedra into 2D and 3D Euclidean space. During embedding, the distance between linked vertices (T–T distances) and the distance between unlinked vertices (T⋯T separations) in the resultant unit-distance graph are restrained to the average observed distance between linked Si tetrahedra (3.06±0.15 Å) and the minimum separation between unlinked vertices is restrained to be equal to or greater than the minimum distance between unlinked Si tetrahedra (3.713 Å) in silicate minerals. The notional interactions between vertices are described by a 3D spring-force algorithm in which the attractive forces between linked vertices behave according to Hooke's law and the repulsive forces between unlinked vertices behave according to Coulomb's law. Embedding parameters (i.e. spring coefficient, k, and Coulomb's constant, K) are iteratively refined during embedding to determine if it is possible to embed a given graph to produce a unit-distance graph with T–T distances and T⋯T separations that are compatible with the observed T–T distances and T⋯T separations in crystal structures. The resultant unit-distance graphs are denoted as compatible and may form crystal structures if and only if all distances between linked vertices (T–T distances) agree with the average observed distance between linked Si tetrahedra (3.06±0.15 Å) and the minimum separation between unlinked vertices is equal to or greater than the minimum distance between unlinked Si tetrahedra (3.713 Å) in silicate minerals. If the unit-distance graph does not satisfy these conditions, it is considered incompatible and the corresponding chain of tetrahedra is unlikely to form crystal structures. Using GraphT–T, Day et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 258–281] have shown that several topological properties of chain graphs influence the flexibility (and rigidity) of the corresponding chains of Si tetrahedra and may explain why particular compatible chain arrangements (and the minerals in which they occur) are more common than others and/or why incompatible chain arrangements do not occur in crystals despite being topologically possible.

Macromolecular crystallography contributes significantly to understanding diseases and, more importantly, how to treat them by providing atomic resolution 3D structures of proteins. This is achieved by collecting X-ray diffraction images of protein crystals from important biological pathways. Spotfinders are used to detect the presence of crystals with usable data, and the spots from such crystals are the primary data used to solve the relevant structures. Having fast and accurate spot finding is essential, but recent advances in synchrotron beamlines used to generate X-ray diffraction images have brought us to the limits of what the best existing spotfinders can do. This bottleneck must be removed so spotfinder software can keep pace with the X-ray beamline hardware improvements and be able to see the weak or diffuse spots required to solve the most challenging problems encountered when working with diffraction images. In this paper, we first present Bragg Spot Detection (BSD), a large benchmark Bragg spot image dataset that contains 304 images with more than 66 000 spots. We then discuss the open source extensible U-Net-based spotfinder Bragg Spot Finder (BSF), with image pre-processing, a U-Net segmentation backbone, and post-processing that includes artifact removal and watershed segmentation. Finally, we perform experiments on the BSD benchmark and obtain results that are (in terms of accuracy) comparable to or better than those obtained with two popular spotfinder software packages (Dozor and DIALS), demonstrating that this is an appropriate framework to support future extensions and improvements.

File: Stephen Yan dresses as Deadpool at Comic-Con on July 19, 2013 in San Diego.; Credit: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Hey, you! Yeah, you reading this! They're finally making a Deadpool movie!

If you like fourth-wall breaking, second-person addresses like the above, you may be in the target audience for the long-in-development "Deadpool," which Twentieth Century Fox announced Thursday that it was finally moving ahead with, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The studio announced a Feb. 12, 2016 release date for the film with Tim Miller set to direct the character who's served as both friend and foe to the X-Men.

The so-called "Merc with a Mouth" is a mercenary character created in the early '90s by artist Rob Liefeld, with Liefeld being an outspoken champion for the character. The character was part of the same Weapon X program that created Wolverine, with a similar healing factor power, but with a horribly scarred face he covers with a mask. He's also been played as crazy, which manifests itself as the character often knowing he's in a comic book and talking directly to the reader.

Ryan Reynolds has long been tied to the project, including playing a version of the character in the much-hated "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," but no deal has been made yet, according to the Reporter.

This follows footage leaking over the summer of a "Deadpool" test with Reynolds voicing the character in a CGI clip. Reynolds said in an interview in the Niagara Falls Review earlier this month that that it's unfortunate the footage leaked, "but who cares," because the positive response to the clip had helped push the film forward after being stuck in development hell.

"The movie has been in a state of limbo for a while. There was such an overpowering reaction to the footage, you sort of feel like, 'Oh, so we weren't crazy for our reasons for loving this character, for loving this role.' It's interesting to see the power of the Internet. It's awe-inspiring, actually," Reynolds told the Review. "And it's neat that Twitter and Facebook and Instagram can move mountains when used in the right way."

Watch the "Deadpool" test footage below (Warning: Contains some adult language):

Deadpool test footage

There'd also been debate about whether a movie would stay true to the character's outrageous attitude mixed with violence and go for an R rating, or whether it would go for a wider audience by staying at PG-13. Deadpool creator Liefeld has argued that the film would work just fine without restricting its audience with an R.

Liefeld tweet 1

Liefeld tweet 2

Liefeld told the Daily Superhero in a previous interview that the footage for the test was filmed three years ago, using motion capture over footage of Reynolds. He also talked up Miller as a director, noting that he directed the pre-credits scene for "Thor: The Dark World."

"Fox had released a relatively small budget for Tim to present his vision of the script written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick," Liefeld said. "The digital costume over Ryan Reynold's motion capture (Mo-Cap) performance was an approach they wanted to explore and they had a relatively small window to create this short so they opted to 'test' the look of a digital Deadpool costume over Ryan. I'm quite pleased at how it turned out, especially considering Baraka-Deadpool from Wolverine Origins."

Liefeld was referring to the transformation of Deadpool in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" to a mouthless, pointy-limbed character in the film, which many fans argued took away what they loved most about Deadpool: His sense of humor. Liefeld also said he'd seen even more impressive sequences than the one that made its way online.

It's unclear whether this will tie in with the other X-Men films, but with the studio's recent attempt to tie together the "First Class" franchise with the older X-Men films in "Days of Future Past" and the character's long history of involvement with the X-Men and other related teams, it seems like a likely move.

Comedian Paul Mooney takes part in a discussion panel after the world premiere screening of "That's What I'm Talking About" at The Museum of Television & Radio January 30, 2006 in New York City.; Credit: Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve lost several industry icons, including Paul Mooney, Charles Grodin and Norman Lloyd. 

Actor and comedian Paul Mooney was a boundary-pushing comedian who was Richard Pryor’s longtime writing partner and whose bold, incisive musings on racism and American life made him a revered figure in stand-up. He was 79. Charles Grodin was an offbeat actor and writer who scored as a caddish newlywed in “The Heartbreak Kid” and later had roles ranging from Robert De Niro’s counterpart in the comic thriller “Midnight Run” to the bedeviled father in the “Beethoven” comedies. He was 86. Norman Lloyd’s role as kindly Dr. Daniel Auschlander on TV’s “St. Elsewhere” was a single chapter in a distinguished stage and screen career that put him in the company of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and other greats. He was 106. Lloyd’s son, Michael Lloyd, said his father died at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Today on FilmWeek, our critics reflect on their work. Plus they share a couple of their favorite films of the 2021 so far. 

With files from the Associated Press

Guests:

Angie Han, film critic for KPCC and deputy entertainment editor at Mashable; she tweets @ajhan

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and CineGods.com

Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor

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

George R.R. Martin has entered into a five year deal with HBO to develop content for both HBO and HBO Max, the network said in a statement on Monday.

The best-selling fantasy author and four-time Emmy award winner, best known for his book series A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, is attached to multiple projects in the pipeline for the media company and streaming service.

The Game of Thrones television series followed powerful families aiming for the iron throne in the continent of Westeros. It ran for eight years on HBO, with the final season wrapping in 2019.

Martin has a new drama series in the works, House of the Dragon, which is based on his Fire & Blood book. The Game of Thrones prequel follows House Targaryen and is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.

The show has been given a ten episode order. Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, and Emma D'Arcy have joined the series, with additional cast members to be announced.

The show is co-created by Martin and Ryan Condal, whose prior work includes Colony, Rampage, and Hercules. Condal and Miguel Sapochnik (Game of Thrones, Altered Carbon) serve as showrunners and producers with Martin and Vince Gerardis (Game of Thrones).

Martin is also set to executive produce HBO's Who Fears Death, a fantasy post-apocalyptic series with Tessa Thompson attached to star and adapted from the novel by Nnedi Okorafor; and Roadmarks, an adaptation of the sci-fi novel from Roger Zelazny.

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

Actor Charles Grodin, whose comic characters were almost always hapless, and whose serious characters generally gave that trademark haplessness a sinister twist, died Tuesday of cancer at his home in Wilton, Conn. He was 86.

His death, from bone marrow cancer, was confirmed to NPR by his son, actor Nicholas Grodin.

He was the obstetrician who gave Rosemary's Baby to a coven of witches, the dog owner who couldn't control his enormous Saint Bernard in the Beethoven movies, and the man who met the girl of his dreams just a little bit late in The Heartbreak Kid. He was, sad to say, on his honeymoon.

Grodin credited Elaine May's direction of The Heartbreak Kid with jump-starting his film career in 1972, though he'd made his debut as an uncredited child actor almost two decades earlier in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He became a familiar face in such comedies as Heaven Can Wait and Midnight Run, in which he played an accountant pursued by Robert De Niro after having embezzled from the mob.

When not working in films, Grodin directed plays on Broadway, including Lovers and Other Strangers in 1968 and Thieves in 1974 with Marlo Thomas. And in 1975, he scored a big success opposite Ellen Burstyn as an annual philanderer in the Broadway romantic comedy Same Time, Next Year (the part went to Alan Alda in the film version).

Grodin once described himself as "low-key, but high-strung," which also described a lot of his characters. And he was so sought after as a talk-show guest on late-night TV (Johnny Carson had him on The Tonight Show 36 times), he ended up hosting a talk show host himself in the 1990s.

His knack for deadpan humor extended to books with titles such as How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am.

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

Amazon has made a deal to purchase MGM for $8.5 billion.; Credit: /SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Editor's note: Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters.

Amazon has made a deal to buy Hollywood studio MGM for almost $8.5 billion. It's the second-largest acquisition for the company after purchasing Whole Foods.

The tech company already runs a film studio, Prime Video streaming service, and video game streaming site Twitch. But the MGM deal is its biggest move into entertainment. Amazon will get the rights to the Golden Age studio's film and television library.

The announcement was made Wednesday morning by the two companies. In a statement, Amazon's senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, Mike Hopkins, emphasized the intellectual property value of MGM's vast holdings, which go back to the 1920s. "The real financial value behind this deal," Hopkins said, "is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM's talented team."

With its mascot lion roaring logo, MGM made such movie classics as Singin' In the Rain and 2001: A Space Odyssey. MGM also owns the EPIX cable channel and runs a TV studio that produced The Handmaid's Tale and Fargo.

MGM also splits the highly lucrative James Bond movie franchise with a family that holds creative control of the 007 movies. According to Variety, as of 2020 the 24 films released so far in the series have generated $16.3 billion in global ticket sales, adjusted for inflation.

In all, MGM's catalog includes more than 4,000 films — including such pop-culture staples as Moonstruck, Legally Blonde, Rocky, The Pink Panther, The Silence of the Lambs and Poltergeist — and 17,000 television shows. Access to those movies and shows will certainly augment Amazon's Prime Video offerings, particularly at a time when other studios and networks have created their own platforms to reach consumers, such as HBO Max, Paramount+ and Disney+. As of last month, there were more than 200 million Amazon Prime account holders worldwide, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told Variety.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the deal for $8.45 billion includes taking on MGM's current debts. The deal has not yet closed, an Amazon spokesperson noted to NPR, and is subject to regulatory approvals. The company is already facing antitrust inquiries in both the U.S. and Europe.

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

The Biden administration is opening the West Coast to offshore wind. Companies have largely focused on the East Coast, like this wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island.; Credit: Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images

The Biden administration plans to open the California coast to offshore wind development, ending a long-running stalemate with the Department of Defense that has been the biggest barrier to building wind power along the Pacific Coast.

The move adds momentum to the administration's goal of reaching 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035, coming just weeks after the country's first large-scale offshore wind farm was approved off the coast of New England. Today, the country has just a handful of offshore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, with around a dozen wind farms being developed in federal waters off the East Coast.

"It's an announcement that will set the stage for the long term development of clean energy and the growth of a brand new made-in-America industry," says national climate adviser Gina McCarthy. "Now we're thinking big and thinking bold."

The agreement identifies two sites off Central and Northern California with the potential to install massive floating wind turbines that could produce 4.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.6 million homes.

Interest in offshore wind on the West Coast has grown for years, especially with California's own ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The deep waters off the coast have the potential to produce a significant amount of energy.

But the Defense Department has largely objected to the idea, since the Navy and Air Force use the area for training and testing operations. In response to the growing interest, the Navy released a map in 2017 putting large swaths of California waters off limits.

In 2018, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management solicited interest from wind developers. But negotiations with the Department of Defense have been slow going ever since, effectively blocking wind development off California.

Tuesday's announcement outlines a compromise for a 399-square-mile area off Morro Bay, a site that's appealing to renewable energy companies because of existing transmission lines nearby that once service a retired power plant. It also identifies a location off Humboldt County in Northern California.

"It's our view that the world faces a grave and growing climate crisis," says Dr. Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy. "Climate change is both a threat to the Department of Defense's operations around the world and an existential challenge to our ability to maintain resilience here at home."

Another key site, just offshore from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, was not included in Tuesday's deal. California's last-remaining nuclear plant is scheduled to completely close by 2025, freeing up more potential transmission lines for offshore wind.

The Biden administration has set a goal of jump-starting the country's offshore wind sector with 30 gigawatts of projects by 2030. Those wind farms will foster tens of thousands of jobs, according to the White House, between renewable energy installers, manufacturers and steelworkers.

"This is a major breakthrough — a major advancement that will allow California to start planning for its carbon-free electricity goals with offshore wind firmly in the picture," says Nancy Rader of the California Wind Energy Association, who also pointed to the challenges. "Offshore wind development off the coast at Morro Bay and Humboldt will require a major port facility in each area to construct the floating platforms and assemble the turbines that will require continued proactive planning by the state and federal governments."

Still, the areas identified in the agreement may not be enough for hitting the administration's clean electricity goal, as well as California's. The state is planning to get 100% of its electricity from zero-emission sources by 2045. To reach that, renewable energy needs to triple statewide with offshore wind playing a key role, reaching 10 GW, according to a recent state analysis. Tuesday's deal could provide just half of that.

A potential lease auction for the offshore wind sites could be held in mid-2022. But the projects will still have to negotiate concerns about the potential impacts on California's fishing industry and shipping channels, as well as any environmental concerns about sensitive ecosystems.

"Far too many questions remain unanswered regarding potential impacts to marine life which is dependent on a healthy ecosystem," says Mike Conroy of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "The fishing industry has been told these areas work best for offshore wind developers; but no one has asked us what areas would work best for us."

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

Rescuers search for bodies from the site where a Philippine military C-130 plane crashed in Patikul town, Sulu province, southern Philippines on Sunday, July 4, 2021.; Credit: /Joint Task Force-Sulu via AP

MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine air force C-130 aircraft carrying combat troops crashed in a southern province while landing Sunday, killing at least 29 army soldiers on board and two civilians on the ground, while at least 50 were rescued from the burning wreckage, officials said.

Some soldiers were seen jumping off the aircraft before it crashed and exploded around noon in the periphery of the Jolo airport in Sulu province, military officials said. Two of six villagers who were hit on the ground have died.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said rescue and recovery efforts were ongoing. The aircraft had 96 people on board, including three pilots and five crew and the rest were army personnel, the military said, adding 17 soldiers remained unaccounted for by nightfall. The pilots survived but were seriously injured, officials said.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was one of two ex-U.S. Air Force aircraft handed over to the Philippines as part of military assistance this year. It crashed while landing shortly before noon Sunday in Bangkal village in the mountainous town of Patikul, military chief of staff Gen. Cirilito Sobejana said.

Military officials said at least 50 people on board were brought to a hospital in Sulu or flown to nearby Zamboanga city and troops were trying to search for the rest. "Per eyewitnesses, a number of soldiers were seen jumping out of the aircraft before it hit the ground, sparing them from the explosion caused by the crash," a military statement said.

Initial pictures released by the military showed the tail section of the cargo plane relatively intact. The other parts of the plane were burned or scattered in pieces in a clearing surrounded by coconut trees. Soldiers and other rescuers with stretchers were seen dashing to and from the smoke-shrouded crash site.

The plane was transporting troops, many of them new soldiers who had just undergone basic training, from the southern Cagayan de Oro city for deployment in Sulu, officials said.

"They were supposed to join us in our fight against terrorism," Sulu military commander Maj. Gen. William Gonzales said. Government forces have been battling Abu Sayyaf militants in the predominantly Muslim province of Sulu for decades.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Regional military commander Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan said it was unlikely that the aircraft took hostile fire, and cited witnesses as saying that it appeared to have overshot the runway then crashed in the periphery of the airport.

"It's very unfortunate," Sobejana told reporters. "The plane missed the runway and it was trying to regain power but failed and crashed."

An air force official told The Associated Press that the Jolo runway is shorter than most others in the country, making it more difficult for pilots to adjust if an aircraft misses the landing spot. The official, who has flown military aircraft to and from Jolo several times, spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to speak publicly.

Initial pictures showed that the weather was apparently fine in Sulu although other parts of the Philippines were experiencing rains due to an approaching tropical depression. The airport in Sulu's main town of Jolo is located a few kilometers (miles) from a mountainous area where troops have battled Abu Sayyaf militants. Some militants have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group.

The U.S. and the Philippines have separately blacklisted Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings. It has been considerably weakened by years of government offensives but remains a threat.

President Rodrigo Duterte expanded the military presence in Sulu into a full division in late 2018, deploying hundreds of additional troops, air force aircraft and other combat equipment after vowing to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf and allied foreign and local gunmen.

Government forces at the time were running after Muslim armed groups a year after quelling the five-month siege of southern Marawi city by hundreds of militants linked to the Islamic State group. More than 1,000 people, mostly militants and long-elusive Abu Sayyaf commanders, were killed in months of intense air and ground assaults.

Sunday's crash comes as the limited number of military aircraft has been further strained, as the air force helped transport medical supplies, vaccines and protective equipment to far-flung island provinces amid spikes in COVID-19 infections.

The Philippine government has struggled for years to modernize its military, one of Asia's least equipped, as it dealt with decades-long Muslim and communist insurgencies and territorial rifts with China and other claimant countries in the South China Sea.

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

Crews searching the building collapse site in Surfside, Fla., have discovered four more victims since Monday, bringing the death toll to 32. Authorities have identified 26 of the bodies.

Another 113 people were unaccounted for, though local officials said they had only been able to confirm that about 70 of those people were in the building at the time of the collapse nearly two weeks ago.

Detectives are continuing to follow up on reports submitted about possible victims in the partial collapse, but in some cases they have been unable to reach those who submitted the tips in the first place.

"People call anonymously. People call and don't leave return phone numbers. People call with partial information, not enough to really secure whether that person may or may not have been in the building," Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters on Tuesday.

Some of the reports of possible victims are also incomplete, she said, including a name but no apartment number or no date of birth.

Levine Cava urged people who are missing loved ones to communicate with local authorities. She said there may also be victims of the collapse who have not been reported missing.

The rescue effort stopped briefly overnight due to lightning from a passing storm. Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said high winds were hampering the cranes moving heavy debris from the collapse site.

Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said Florida has declared a state of emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa, which is expected to reach hurricane strength before making landfall Wednesday morning on the state's west coast.

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

Reliance Jio Infocomm is set to sign a $1.7bn deal with Nokia this week to purchase 5G network equipment. This follows the $2.1bn worth of equipment ordered by the Indian telecom operator from Ericsson in its attempt to roll out 5G across India this year. The company has already purchased 5G spectrum and plans to invest $25bn in 5G infrastructure, making its standalone mode the sole holder of the 700 MHz band in the country.

; Credit: LA Johnson/NPR

Writing a graduation speech is a tricky task. Should you be funny, or sincere? Tell a story — or offer advice? For Yusef Pierce, a graduating senior in California, the job of putting together his public address was a bit more challenging.

"Being inside, I can't really refer to other graduation speeches," Pierce says. He's speaking by phone from inside the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium-security prison in Norco. "I was just trying to come up with what sounded like a graduation speech."

He is the first person to graduate with a bachelor's degree from the Inside-Out program at Pitzer College, a liberal arts school outside Los Angeles. In a normal year, the school would bring traditional students by bus to the prison to take classes alongside the students who are in prison.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, those classes are happening online. Pierce shared his Zoom square with 10 other guys, all wearing the CRC's blue uniforms and seated at those classic classroom desks, where the chair and the table are attached. This spring, his classes included topics like feminism for men, microeconomics and mass incarceration.

In one of those classes on a recent evening this spring, professor Nigel Boyle goes around asking each student what they're looking forward to doing that week. Pierce replies: "I'm looking forward to doing a lot of homework!"

"Every professor wants a Yusef in your class," says Boyle, who leads the Inside-Out program and teaches Pierce's Wednesday night class about mass incarceration. "You want that student who's bright, does the work, but is also helping to bring along the others."

It was only natural then that Pierce would be one of the college's graduation speakers.

"We don't label the student speaker as a valedictorian," explains Boyle. "But it happens that Yusef has a 4.0, and he's got a really interesting story to tell."

Pierce is in his early 30s and is a bit of a nerd and a class leader. He also writes poetry and paints. "It is true that oppression often requires that individuals make themselves extraordinary in order to simply survive," reads his artist's statement in an online exhibit of his work. "My paintings are entire conversations on canvas."

Eventually, he says, he wants to be a college professor, working with formerly incarcerated students.

"So he wants my job," says Boyle, laughing, "and he'd be much better at it than I am."

Boyle serves as the academic adviser to all of the incarcerated students, and he has become a mentor to Pierce, navigating him through the graduation process. In one of the last classes of the semester, Boyle hosts an impromptu fashion show, wearing his own blue cap and gown, backing away from the camera to give the onlooking students a full view of his outfit.

The guys inside cheer and whistle. "Do a spin," one guy shouts. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" another yells.

As the cheering dies down, Boyle looks for Pierce on the screen. "He doesn't know this, so it may be a slight surprise," he tells the class, "but, Yusef, you will also be receiving these cords." He drapes dark orange cords around his shoulders. "These cords are for students who graduate with honors in their degrees. Congratulations, Yusef, you are going to graduate with honors."

***

The story of how Yusef Pierce wound up in these college classes, wound up inside prison at all, starts with trauma. When he was a teen, his older brother was shot and killed. "He was murdered in the front yard of our home, right in front of my face," he explains, "and so I had to call my mom and let her know what had happened." All these years later, it's still something he doesn't like to talk about. He considered putting it in his graduation speech, but took it out, worried it might be too much for his mom to hear.

"It had a traumatic effect on all of us," Drochelle Pierce tells me over the phone, from her house in Victorville, Calif. She remembers a change in Yusef around that time.

"It was just kind of one thing after another. He got into a little bit of trouble. He allowed people that he associated with to kind of influence him in a direction that really wasn't him." Yusef finished high school, but in his early 20s he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery. Drochelle Pierce says she was beside herself when she learned his sentence would be nearly 20 years. "I tell you, honestly, I never envisioned that Yusef would ever go to prison. Never, never. Never."

A few months into Yusef's prison sentence, she wrote him a letter. "What's done is done," she wrote. "You, now more than ever, must diligently seek and obtain higher education."

It wasn't a new message. Education had always been at the center of her relationship with Yusef. When he was young, he remembers riding in the car with his mom, a sociology textbook open on his lap. "She wouldn't let me turn on the radio," he says. "She would make me read to her."

"Oh, I made [my kids] read everything," Drochelle Pierce says. "If they read it out loud, I knew they were reading it. That's the only way I would know that they were actually reading anything."

Today, the two talk on the phone nearly every day. "He was always a deep thinker," says Pierce. She knows she sounds like a typical proud mother, but she can't help it: "Yusef is very smart."

In California, college classes can shorten a prison sentence. So when the opportunity first arose for Yusef Pierce to take courses in prison, it felt like simply a means to an end. "I just want to get home sooner," he remembers joking with a friend at the time. "If they gave us time off for going to college, I would walk out of here with a Ph.D.!"

But by the time Pitzer College started offering classes for a bachelor's degree, Pierce found to his surprise that he really liked college.

"I loved it because it gave me validation," he says. "To know that somebody was reading my stuff and that somebody felt like the things that I was thinking about and writing were worth something. I got really addicted to that validation, and it just really turned me into an overachiever. And I just took class after class after class."

That drive paid off.

After writing and rewriting a number of drafts, on May 15 Pierce delivered his final graduation speech to hundreds of Pitzer graduates and their family members and friends. The content he landed on? That letter his mom sent him all those years ago.

"I realize now that I've saved this letter because it was meant for me way back then to share it with you all today," he says, dressed in his white cap and gown, draped in a kente stole, with the prison classroom where he has spent so much time in the background. "It reads, 'Dear son, I was so glad to see you Monday ...' "

As he reads the letter aloud, he gets to the part where his mother, a big poetry fan, included the lines from Invictus, a poem by William Ernest Henley. Pierce looks directly into the camera as he reads; he knows this part by heart.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Drochelle Pierce watched the speech on her laptop at home, with family gathered around. "We were all crying. We were just boohooing. It was just so sweet," she says.

The final line of the poem:

It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.

"I love that so much," she says. "I sent that to my son because I wanted him to think in terms of 'OK, here you are now. What happens to you from this point going forward, it really depends on you.' "

She is proud of her son and inspired by him too. "Look what he did. He turned a bad situation into something very, very positive. Here he is, graduating with his degree."

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

Smokers who are exposed to radon appear to be at even greater risk for lung cancer, because the effects of smoking and radon are more powerful when the two factors are combined, says a new report by a committee of the National Research Council.

Reducing one of the nations leading causes of death and injury – medical errors – will require rigorous changes throughout the health care system, including mandatory reporting requirements.

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Research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Across the current military and civilian trauma care systems, the quality of trauma care varies greatly depending on when and where an individual is injured, placing lives unnecessarily at risk, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

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Recent gains against the burden of illness, injury, and disability and commitment to universal health coverage (UHC) are insufficient to close the enormous gaps that remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

While progress toward developing a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection continues to dominate conversations about the pandemic, international and multigenerational teams of engineers have come together once again through the National Academy of Engineering’s COVID-19 Call for Engineering Action to find creative solutions to myriad pandemic-related problems. Their ideas aim to combat misinformation, help people most at risk, and prevent the spread of the virus.

To more accurately quantify disaster-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies supporting disaster response should adopt a uniform national framework of data collection approaches and methods for distinguishing direct from indirect disaster deaths, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new rapid expert consultation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examines methods to better track and evaluate deaths and mental health consequences among health care workers (HCWs) due to COVID-19.

Young and middle-aged adults (25-64 years old) in the U.S. have been dying at higher rates since 2010, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Nearly 100 students, faculty, and other experts recently gathered online for the first-ever Fall Forum of the Gulf Scholars Program, a pilot program of the National Academies’ Gulf Research Program aimed at preparing undergraduate students to address environmental, health, energy, and infrastructure challenges in the Gulf of Mexico region.

The widespread IT outages triggered by a faulty CrowdStrike update have put software updates in the spotlight. Here’s why you shouldn’t dread them.

In the second quarter ending September of the ongoing fiscal year 2025, LTIMindtree closed several multi-year projects including a $200 million-plus deal from a US-based manufacturer. The total order intake for the three-month period was flat year-on-year at $1.3 billion, down 7% from previous quarter.

In a call with analysts, CEO Pat Gelsinger attributed their slower uptake to software related to Gaudi and a recent transition from the second to third generation of the chip.

Scientists have built a new sensor that can detect the potentially deadly E.coli bacteria in 15-20 minutes, much faster than traditional lab tests. E.coli can be transmitted in contaminated food and water, posing particular risks to children and the elderly. In the late spring of 2011 a serious outbreak of E.coli bacteria sickened thousands of people in Germany and killed more than 50.

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The company recorded a pre-tax non-cash charge of $60 million in the second quarter due to the settlement agreement.

Geothermal power is a renewable energy source that uses the Earth's internal heat to produce electricity and heat water. One-hundred and fifty megawatts is roughly enough electricity to power 38,000 homes.

Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, since 2014, embraced cloud computing and doubled its market share. He quickly approved the $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition at a Suncadia Resort retreat in the Cascade Mountains. GitHub supports global developer collaboration with Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, establishing Microsoft’s No. 2 role behind Amazon in cloud computing, as reported by New York Times.

Do you have your food defense plan in place? July 26, 2019 is the compliance deadline for the FDA's final rule on Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against International Adulteration under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

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We’ve grown more flexibly remote of late as we seek to connect as an industry. 

Proposals accepted by the technical committee will appear in the 2024 NSPC.

Abacus Plumbing's whole-house carbon water filtration, softener and reverse osmosis equipment can dramatically reduce water contaminates.

The company selected Blackline Safety to provide more than 850 G7x cloud-connected wearable safety devices for their workforce.

Regardless of the specific industry or job, lone workers face unique occupational risks due to their isolation from others.

The owner of a Liverpool, Pennsylvania roofing company risked the lives of two of his children by exposing them to falls from heights.

One of New York man's employees died after a fall from an improperly secured roof.

Wisconsin construction company has failed to correct multiple fall protection hazards, exposing workers to risk.