Indian authorities used drones and fire engines to disinfect the pandemic-hit city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, as virus cases surged and police clashed with migrant workers protesting against a reinforced lockdown. The western city of 5.5 million people in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state has become a major concern for authorities as they battle an uptick in coronavirus deaths and cases across India.

Whether we categorize uneaten food as “lost” or “wasted” depends on where it goes out of the food supply chain. Imagine how everything we eat travels across a food supply chain, a complex journey that stretches from farm to table. Studies show that an astounding 1/3 of all the food we produce for human consumption never actually reaches our plates. Most [...]

Bees pollinate a third of what we eat and play a vital role in sustaining the planet’s ecosystems. Some 84% of the crops grown for human consumption need bees or other insects to pollinate them to increase their yields and quality. Bee pollination not only results in a higher number of fruits, berries or seeds, it may also give a [...]

Pulses are being celebrated in 2016 all over the world since they are nutritious, suited for use in a variety of dishes, easy on the budget  and good for the health of the soil. From food security and nutrition to ensuring biodiversity and mitigating the effects of climate change, pulses contribute to sustainable development. Here is how.  1.     Nutritional benefits of pulses   Pulses [...]

Gamers are brushing up on their art history knowledge to spot Redd's counterfeit creations

From gas stations to public libraries, these celebrity architect-designed buildings are worth a road trip

For Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky and former Canadian champions Nam Nguyen and Keegan Messing, the Four Continents results will determine who takes the one spot available in the men's event at the worlds.

The battle for humanity and solidarity in the post-American world.

After several years of back-and-forth litigation, Apple has withdrawn what was likely its final appeal in a Wi-Fi hotspot patent infringement case due to a Supreme Court decision.

LOCKDOWN may start easing soon, but it seems likely to be a long time yet before any of us find ourselves in an actual physical pub. It’s not of course the booze we’re missing – we can get plenty of that – but the company, the conviviality, the atmosphere, the feeling that, in the late hours, almost anything might kick off. So, for those who cry inside every time they walk past their closed-down local, or wake-up having dreamed of standing with a pint at the bar, here’s a few ways you

Dougherty County, a largely black school district in an region heavily affected by coronavirus, is no longer subject to desegregation orders first imposed in 1963.

The annual issue, now in its eighth year, highlights the work of district leaders who are deploying new ideas to make a difference for their staff and students.

Keira Knightley plays a feminist activist who disrupts the Miss World contest in 1970 in the new film Misbehaviour.

With more than 130,000 black ELLs in public schools, White House and U.S. Department of Education officials will develop tools for educators.

Little is known about the pharmacokinetics and required dosage of metronidazole in preterm neonates.

In this study the pharmacokinetics of metronidazole in preterm neonates was investigated by measurement of the drug in dried blood-spot samples. A dosage regimen is proposed that should result in more appropriate, less frequent dosing in the most preterm neonates. (Read the full article)

Newborn screening is often seen as a fait accompli, even in programs that ostensibly proceed on the basis of informed choice and parental consent.

The study reports details of parental understanding, perceived ability to make an informed choice, and the availability of choice together with variables predictive of parental assessments of having made an informed choice. (Read the full article)

Cotinine assays for dried blood spots have been developed but not deployed in a large sample of newborn specimens.

Cotinine levels consistent with active maternal smoking were detectable in 12% of newborn blood spots, although 41% of the mothers reportedly did not smoke. Data confirm that reported smoking during pregnancy is an imperfect measure of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure. (Read the full article)

Advocates for increased federal funding for special education cheered Thursday when the issue was raised on the Democratic presidential debate stage in Los Angeles.

Even before the recent news of the season’s first confirmed spotted lanternfly hatches in the Philadelphia region, homeowners in many parts of Pennsylvania were gearing up for their annual battle with the destructive pest.

A new online newsletter offered by Penn State Extension will give readers “the scoop” on the spotted lanternfly.

HubSpot CRM does a great job delivering a high-quality CRM for small business customers. With a fast-growing portfolio of new platforms and features, HubSpot might also evolve into an end-to-end martech ecosystem for many customers.

Not sure which sources to trust when you're online? These browser plug-ins and online tools can help you figure out how to detect fake news sites.

Today, Apple takes on the biggest name in music streaming, Spotify. How do they measure up to each other?

The big difference between Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited is Amazon offers an affordable tier of service available on just one Echo device. Here's how else they differ.

Spotify, available in both free and premium versions, remains a top-tier streaming music thanks to its deep library, collaborative playlists, early album access, and podcasts.

The Netgear M5 is the 5G hotspot we've been waiting for, but it isn't coming out until the second half of the year. A separate Netgear CES announcement, meanwhile, showed another weakness of 5G in the US right now.

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

Matteo Ricci College (MRC) is one of eight schools and colleges that form part of Seattle University, a Catholic institution conducted by the Society of Jesus. 

With the Humanities as its core, MRC offers three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (BAH), a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Leadership (BAHL), and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Teaching (BAHT). 

Mission of MRC

MRC educates teachers and leaders for a just and humane world. The study of Western culture is the surest place to begin. Pseudo-educators claim it’s a waste of time.   Yet, the facts don’t lie.  We are the beneficiaries of Greco-Roman culture preserved, reinterpreted, and handed down through the Catholic Church’s medieval monastic tradition and continued through the Italian Renaissance. To be human is to be in a story, and to forget one's story leaves a person without a present identity, without a past and without a future.  At MRC, cultural history is taught so that students can draw moral lessons from it.  Those who don’t learn from these lessons are condemned to repeat and relive them.    

With the small class size at MRC, professors can take a personal interest in each student.  In this environment conducive to learning, a close collaboration between student and professor is pursued.   This encourages greater participation in class. Shouldn’t MRC be the envy of most serious students?  You would think so. 

What’s in a Name? 

MRC is named after the 16th - century Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) who spent his adult life as an educator and missionary in China.  At that time, the doors of the Chinese empire were closed to foreigners from the West.   It was Ricci who brought Western civilization to China, and Chinese literati reciprocated by sharing with him their ancient and venerable culture.  For him, inculturation was a reality centuries before the term was invented. He founded the modern Chinese Catholic Church.  

Ricci astonished the Chinese because he loved them. An authority on so many subjects and disciplines—mathematics, astronomy, apologetics, literature, popular catechesis, poetry, art and music—he brought this treasury of gifts to his mission. His intellectual gifts were prodigious: a photographic memory, linguistic ability to speak flawless Chinese, ingenuity to write maps, assemble clocks, read the stars.  As if this weren’t enough, Ricci had a keen ear for music and reportedly sang with great sweetness.   This “wise man from the west” is recognized as “the most cultivated man of his time and one of the most remarkable and brilliant men of history.”  

Known throughout the realm as Li-Ma-T’ou, this missionary scholar remains the most respected and beloved foreign figure in Chinese culture. Some in the Chinese government view him as the “Second Founder of Modern China.”  

This is the man after whom MRC is named.  He is its model of a complete liberal arts education cast in the Jesuit mold.

Student Protest against the Curriculum of MRC

In May, some two hundred enrolled students at (MRC) staged a week-long sit-in objecting to the core curriculum: The focus on Western culture and values was declared irrelevant. Studies in Western Civilization had failed to serve the academic interests of these students. 

The students demanded of the administration that the classic core curriculum in the Humanities be discarded in favor of a new program of studies to reflect special interest groups of race, class, gender, and disability.  Additionally, they demanded that only qualified faculty be hired to teach courses that reflected their interest in identity group studies of race, class, gender, and disability. The Dean of the MRC was to be fired.

Student demands focused on “dissatisfaction, traumatization, and boredom,” that is, “the Humanities program as it exists today” which “ignores and erases the humanity of its students and of peoples around the globe.”  . . . “We are diverse, with many different life experiences, also shaped by colonization, U.S., and Western imperialist, neo-politics, and oppression under racist, sexist, classist, heteronormative and homophobic, transphobic, queerphobic, ableist, nationalistic, xenophobic systems which perpetuate conquest, genocide of indigenous peoples, and pervasive systemic inequities.”

Students spoke of oppression perpetrated by the Administration:  “The first manifest demand is a complete change in the curriculum from a Whiteness-dominated curriculum to a non-Eurocentric interdisciplinary curriculum.  If the (MRC) is unable to tackle these requirements, we demand that it be converted into a department so as to be accountable to another college.”   

What Students at MRC Seek

If MRC students are seeking social justice and equality for all, if they are to make sense of this complex world, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how other cultures have learned to develop feelings of compassion, tolerance, respect, empathy, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how creative other people can be, if students are determined to live in a democracy of free citizens, the Humanities should be studied. Without the Humanities, democracy would not exist.  

The Crisis of Higher Education

In this country, we are experiencing an intellectual crisis that has already affected our work force, our politics, and our culture.  Western civilization, the human culmination of centuries of learning is under attack by an identity-driven student population exemplified by the protesters at MRC.  Whereas many academic leaders fail to uphold the purpose of teaching Western civilization, the faculty at MRC values it.  Whereas academic leaders don’t believe that the Humanities have any fundamental influence on their students, the faculty at MRC is invested in it.  Shared values—this is what brings the world together.  

MRC is not alone in promoting a Humanities core curriculum. Many non-sectarian and private colleges proudly offer a core curriculum around which other subjects are framed. At least twenty-five colleges and universities in the United States offer the Great Books tradition to their undergraduates. These books are part of the great conversation about the universal ideas of cultures and civilizations, always related to ethical and religious values. 

Many educators believe that nearly half of college graduates show no measurable improvement in knowledge or critical thinking. They speak and write incorrectly; they do not read.  Their constant companions? Electronic devices with accompanying head sets. Weaker academic requirements, greater specialization in the departments, a rigid orthodoxy and doctrinaire views on liberalism are now part of the university’s politics and cultural life.  

Clash of Goals

If the demands of these special interest groups—race, class, gender, and disability, were met, MRC would cease to exist. A program of identity studies clashes with the raison d’être of a college named after Matteo Ricci, a name synonymous with the richest of classic studies.   

The student protesters are demanding to be extricated from the program that distinguishes itself in the pantheon of Catholic higher education.  

Who would be so foolish as to look down on, much less protest, such a rich curriculum that prompts the most influential employers to hire MRC’s crême de la crème? 

Let the disgruntled students go elsewhere with their partisan interests and narrow viewpoint.  They lose.

Ricci Speaks to College Students

Matteo Ricci has left us several proverbs that can inspire college students.  But not just college students:  

 “Man is a stranger in this world.”

 “The virtuous person speaks little.”

“Time past must be thought of as gone forever.  Don’t waste time.”

“True longevity is reckoned not by number of years but according to progress in virtue.  If the Lord of Heaven grants me one day more of life, He does so that I may correct yesterday’s faults; failures to do this would be a sign of great ingratitude.”

The canonization of Father Matteo Ricci, S.J. ranks high on the ‘to-do list’ of Pope Francis whose high regard and love for him are well known.  This is the Servant of God, Matteo Ricci, S.J.

Somerset West stands out as one of the fastest growing property areas – commercial, residential and industrial - in the Western Cape, according to a new report on the state of the property sector in the Western Cape.

Programs on Delaware's Lenape and Nanticoke Indian tribes to be featured.

Events presented in honor of Presidents Day 2020.

The real challenge with regulations is that of implementation and compliance.

The spotted lanternfly - a destructive, invasive plant hopper - has been confirmed in New Castle County. This insect is a potential threat to several important agricultural crops including grapes, apples, peaches, and lumber. State plant health and forestry officials are providing information, fact sheets, photographs, and links to other resources at de.gov/hitchhikerbug. Early detection is vital for the protection of Delaware businesses and agriculture.

The spotted lanternfly found in Kent County last week hitched a ride down to Dover where she was found dead and reported by a local citizen. “When you look at the Dover find, there are a few key points that help classify this specimen as a hitchhiker,” said Hauss.

DOVER, Del. – The steady increase in daily temperatures has spurred spotted lanternfly nymphs to hatch out of their egg masses. While the hatching will continue for the next few weeks, this causes concern for businesses, residents, and the agriculture industry because this notorious hitchhiker will be on the move. “From the time we enacted […]

DOVER, Del. – The Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) announced today that they expanded the spotted lanternfly quarantine to include all portions of New Castle County north of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. This is due to recent detections of established populations outside of the initial quarantine zone enacted in February 2019 that included eleven […]

NEW CASTLE (May 3, 2018) – Ranking in the bottom half of states in a variety of health measures, including adults who smoke, annual diabetes treatment testing, and adults who are obese, Delaware fell four spots in The Commonwealth Fund’s 2018 Scorecard on State Health System Performance released today. Delaware ranked 22nd among all the […]

Kerry Cunningham of SiriusDecisions talks about how AI can power the B2B revenue engine

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Governor John Carney on Tuesday declared Sussex County a hot spot for COVID-19 in Delaware and announced the initial schedule for the State of Delaware’s Coordination and Care community testing sites. Testing and outreach will occur in several Sussex communities that are at the center of Delaware's COVID-19 epidemic. Governor Carney first announced the community testing and outreach partnership among the state, hospital systems, and others last week, with an initial focus on Sussex County.

A huge success in the premium hatchback segment in India, the i20 will boast a whole new design that is much sharper than the outgoing model owing to Hyundai 'Sensuous Sportiness’ design language.

Black Panther spotted in Goa: Due to the ongoing Coronavirus lockdown in the country, there have been multiple reports of wildlife being spotted in areas where they aren't generally seen.

Authorities have cracked down on Seoul’s night life after reports of a young clubber infecting people with Covid-19 in South Korea’s capital. The nation now fears a new wave of infections after easing social distancing rules.
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  While India has kept in step with the way the Internet is used in the West in most aspects, we’re still behind when it comes to consuming streaming content. Apart from YouTube and some music and...

Lisa Nakano of SiriusDecisions describes a framework for understanding customer engagement and maintaining it throughout the customer lifecycle

Maran was ranked 43rd on the pan-India IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2019, released in September.

ICC ODI rankings: In the all-rounders' category, Ravindra Jadeja, moved up three places above to be placed at seventh position .

In the ICC World Test Championship, India continue to be placed at the top with 360 points, followed by Australia.

India dropped in the ladder largely because the record of 12 Tests victories and just one Test defeat in 2016-17 was removed in the latest chart, the ICC said in a statement.