Police are investigating a report of a suspicious package in north Edmonton.

The NDP health critic says comments Premier Doug Ford made this week calling out medical officers of health for not getting enough COVID-19 testing done are uncalled for.

Tensions are rising on Manitoulin Island because a First Nation is stopping travellers on provincial highways that go through the community. But opinions on M'Chigeeng's attempt to protect its people from COVID-19 are not divided along racial lines. 

Three residents at a long-term care facility in Sault Ste. Marie have tested positive for COVID-19, prompting officials to declare an outbreak at Extendicare Maple View.

A doctor on Manitoulin Island is encouraging seasonal residents to stay home and not to come visit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the province of Ontario starts to relax some COVID-19 restrictions, one Sudbury business owner says it feels great to be opening back up.

Business owners throughout northern Ontario will have the chance Friday morning to speak directly with federal Economic Development Minister Mélanie Joly.

The Porcupine Health Unit is declaring a COVID-19 outbreak at a long-term care home in Iroquois Falls.

A former miner who was forced to breathe in a fine aluminum dust before each shift says he’s not surprised a new report links that dust and a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Those in Sudbury may have had a few choice words when waking up Friday morning after a snowfall overnight.

Provincial surveillance testing has returned a positive case of COVID-19 in a resident of Wikwemikong Nursing Home on Manitoulin Island. Ogimaa Duke Peltier says every staff member and resident underwent tests Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and the results are starting to come in.

There are now 176 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in northeastern Ontario, and seven deaths.

Just across town from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., stands Gallaudet University, an institute for higher learning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the law that allowed the school to begin issuing college degrees, a milestone for deaf people seeking higher education. Edward M. Gallaudet (right) was the […]

Spring has arrived. While some of us may have an opportunity to carefully step outside and view blossoms in our own neighborhood, others may not. Wherever you are, you can take a virtual stroll among the shoots and blossoms planted among the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division. Many images of gardens can be […]

The following is a post by Kristi Finefield, Reference Specialist in the Prints & Photographs Division, and member of the Picture This blog team. Images have a way of opening our eyes to new aspects of a well-known story. When I think of singer Marian Anderson, an image of her performing at the Lincoln Memorial […]

Below is an interview with Elizabeth Lindqwister, the summer 2019 Liljenquist Family Fellow, and Prints & Photographs Division staff members, Karen Chittenden and Micah Messenheimer, about creating a Story Map focusing on the Civil War experience of Susie King Taylor. Many courageous people are pulling double and triple duty in this time of quarantine for […]

The only way to solubilize many antigens for immunoprecipitation is by denaturation. This cell lysis protocol is ideally suited for this purpose to release proteins from complex structures or reveal antibody epitopes hidden within native proteins. Short linear epitopes may not be accessible to antibodies within the native tertiary and quaternary protein structures, but they become exposed upon the unraveling of proteins, exposing their secondary structure. Antibodies otherwise not suitable for the immunoprecipitation of proteins prepared under nondenaturing conditions are now able to bind these antigens of interest in cell lysates prepared under denaturing conditions. These antibodies may also work well for immunoblotting purposes when the protein target is completely denatured. Harvested cells in this protocol are washed in tris-buffered saline (TBS) before lysis in 2% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-containing Lysis buffer for 10 min at 100°C. The resulting sample is diluted 20-fold in TBS to reduce the SDS concentration to ≤0.1% before the addition of an antibody for immunoprecipitation. Addition of 2% bovine serum albumin (BSA) or 0.1% Nonidet P-40 to the TBS before an immunoprecipitation, respectively, ensures either removal of SDS from the target protein or retaining denatured proteins in solution.

Differential detergent fractionation of cells is a rapid method for extraction of cytoplasmic and nuclear proteins in preparation of an immunoprecipitation. This method can be applied for use of adherent or suspension cells and can significantly reduce nonspecific background in an immunoprecipitation by separation of cellular compartments into individual fractions. The lysis of cells by differential detergents permits the rapid extraction of proteins from the cytoplasm (digitonin), the cytoplasmic membranes, and organelles (Triton X-100), and nucleoplasm (Tween/DOC), facilitated through the use of distinct extraction buffers. Cytoplasmic and nuclear matrix proteins as well as DNA are left behind during the detergent-based extraction.

Over many years, the Xenopus laevis embryo has provided a powerful model system to investigate how mechanical forces regulate cellular function. Here, we describe a system to apply reproducible tensile and compressive force to X. laevis animal cap tissue explants and to simultaneously assess cellular behavior using live confocal imaging.

In this protocol, DNA fragments are separated according to size by electrophoresis through low-melting-temperature agarose, and then recovered by melting the agarose and extracting with phenol:chloroform. The protocol works best for DNA fragments ranging in size from 0.5 to 5.0 kb. Yields of DNA fragments outside this range are usually lower, but often are sufficient for many purposes.

For most immunoblots developed with chemiluminescence or with fluorochrome-based detection systems, it is possible to remove the primary and secondary antibodies from the membrane without affecting the bound antigen. This allows you to reuse the membrane for detection of another protein antigen. The blots developed with chromogenic substrates can also be stripped of antibodies and reprobed, but the bands detected in the first round of immunoblotting will remain unaffected. Stripping and reprobing of the membrane are particularly useful when the amount of sample is limited or when it is important to accurately compare the signal between two different protein antigens in the same sample. Examples of such experiments include determining the levels of a protein antigen in a series of samples relative to the loading control and comparison of the phosphorylated form to the total levels of the protein in the sample.

Before probing blots for the presence of an antigen, the total composition of the transferred proteins can be determined by staining the nitrocellulose or polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane. Staining for proteins is useful to determine the position of the non-prestained molecular weight markers or individual lanes on the gel and to ensure that efficient transfer has occurred. It can be also used to verify equal loading of the samples in the gel when a comparison of the protein of interest between the different samples is important. The conventional procedures such as Coomassie Blue and silver staining methods used for staining polyacrylamide gels are incompatible with immunoblotting. Ponceau S is the more common staining method in immunoblotting protocols because it is compatible with antibody–antigen binding, is cost efficient, and provides a good contrast between the stained bands and background. In this protocol, nitrocellulose or PVDF membrane is rinsed with ultrapure H₂O after the transfer of proteins. Ponceau S dye is applied as an acidic aqueous solution, and the proteins on the membrane are stained with red color. The membrane is briefly destained with water and can be photographed or scanned to obtain the image of the total protein staining. Individual lane positions or the molecular weight standards can be marked with a pencil, if required.

The Bradford assay is a quick and fairly sensitive method for measuring the concentrations of proteins. It is based on the shift in absorbance maximum of Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250 dye from 465 to 595 nm following binding to denatured proteins in solution.

Bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones are rendered electrocompetent and transformed with the recombinant shuttle vector, pLD53SCAB/AB-box. Cointegrates are selected by growth on chloramphenicol and ampicillin to ensure recombination of the shuttle vector into the BAC.

Plasmid DNA is prepared from the recombinant shuttle vector pLD53.SCAB/A-B created by cloning of the A and B homology arms for two-step bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) engineering. To confirm that the A-box and B-box arms have been successfully incorporated into pLD53.SCAB, the pattern of enzyme digestion of the modified plasmid is compared with that of the unmodified pLD53.SCAB. Once the shuttle vector is shown to carry the proper sequences, it is ready for transfer into the BAC host.

This protocol describes the preparation of the shuttle vector before its introduction into bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) host cells for BAC two-step engineering. The homology arm sequences, prepared previously, are introduced by ligation into the digested shuttle vector DNA to provide sites for recombination within the BAC clone. Crude lysates of individual bacterial transformants serve as templates in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis to confirm the presence of the homology arms in the recombinant shuttle vector.

In two-step bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) engineering, a single plasmid is introduced into the BAC-carrying cell lines. The shuttle vector pLD53.SCAB (or pLD53.SCAEB) carries the recA gene and the R6K origin, which requires the protein to replicate. PIR2 cells, expressing , are typically used for the amplification of the vector and maintain about 15 copies/cell of the donor vector, which is relatively stable in this host.

Amid widespread sell-offs in risky asset classes, corporate bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) traded at steep discounts to underlying asset values in March. Contributing factors were high market volatility, reduced risk-taking by dealers and investors' reaction to policy decisions. Policy interventions that improve market functioning in a given sector can have temporary yet important spillovers to other segments through portfolio rebalancing by investors.

FSI Briefs No 1, April 2020. Regulatory policy responses should seek to support economic activity while preserving the financial system's soundness and ensuring transparency. The recommendation for banks to make full use of capital and liquidity buffers should go hand in hand with restrictions on dividends and bonuses and clarity concerning the process for rebuilding them. Flexibility in loan classification criteria for prudential and accounting purposes should be complemented with sufficient disclosure on the criteria banks use to assess creditworthiness. The publication of detailed guidance on the application of expected loss provisioning rules, combined with sensible transitional arrangements, may constitute a balanced approach to mitigating the unintended effects of the new accounting standards.

Using a cross-country sample of bank-dependent public fi rms we study the international spillovers of a change in banking regulation on corporate borrowing. For identi cation we examine how US rms' liabilities vis-a-vis banks, non-bank lenders and bond markets evolve after an increase in capital requirements implemented by the European Banking Authority (EBA) in 2011. We find that US firms experience a reduction in credit lines but not in term loans from EU banks.

FSI Briefs No 4, April 2020. Currently, insurers are more likely to experience losses from financial market volatility than from higher insurance claims arising from Covid-19. Few insurance supervisors have seen a need to strengthen or adjust prudential requirements to insulate insurers from current financial market uncertainties. So far, authorities have responded mainly by taking measures to provide operational relief to insurers from regulatory and supervisory requirements so that they can continue providing insurance services. These measures will also help insurers to enhance risk monitoring of their Covid-19 financial exposures. Some authorities have set out expectations for insurers to conserve capital through prudent exercise of dividend and variable remuneration policies. The aim is to enhance their resilience against huge uncertainties from potential Covid-19 fallout. Other capital-related measures should relieve supervisory pressures and reduce the tendency of insurers to manage their investments in a procyclical manner. These measures include: extending the supervisory intervention ladder, triggering the countercyclical lever and recalibrating capital requirements. The far-reaching impact of Covid-19 calls for sustained vigilance by both supervisors and insurers. In the post-pandemic phase, the extraordinary measures currently warranted will need to be unwound through a carefully crafted exit strategy that preserves sound risk management practices and protects policyholders' interests.

This paper reviews post-crisis financial regulatory reforms, examines how they fit together and identifies open issues. Specifically, it takes stock of the salient new features of bank and CCP international standards within a unified analytical framework.

The Covid-19 shock is placing enormous strains on corporates cash buffers. Corporate financial statements from 2019 suggest that 50% of firms do not have sufficient cash to cover total debt servicing costs over the coming year. Credit lines could provide firms with additional liquidity. On average undrawn credit stood around 120% of debt servicing costs at end 2019. However, access is uneven and banks may be reluctant to renew or extend them in the current environment. Sticky operating expenses result in many firms running operating losses, placing an additional burden on cash buffers. Estimates indicate that following a 10% drop in revenues, operating expenses only fall by 6% on average. Simulations suggest that if revenues fall by 25% in 2020, then closing the entire funding gap with debt would raise firm leverage by around 10 percentage points.

Our ongoing celebration of the Library of Congress National Book Festival continues with presidential scholar Annette Gordon-Reed discussing "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family" on the Special Programs stage at the 2015 Festival.

Our ongoing celebration of the Library of Congress National Book Festival continues with crime writer Patricia Cornwell discussing "Red Mist,” her 19th Kay Scarpetta novel, on the Fiction & Mystery stage at the 2012 Festival.

Even celebrity chef Julia Child said that the sleek appliance made mixing 'marvelous'

Rural educator Frank Cyr had the vision and pull to force the nation to standardize the color of the ubiquitous vehicle

The graphic designer is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt for her recognizable computer icons, typefaces and graphics

A new book explores the evolution of cartography throughout more than a century of commercial air travel

Architects and planners from the Netherlands are advising coastal cities worldwide on how to live with water

The Wisconsin-born architect's buildings helped turn the city he once called an 'inglorious mantrap' into the center of the world

Application deadline: 17 May 2020 | Banking Settlements Centre | Location: Basel, Switzerland

Press release about the Basel Committee publishing consultation paper on revisions to the credit valuation adjustment risk framework, 28 November 2019.

Press release: CPMI and IOSCO share authorities´ experiences in cooperation to increase FMI safety and efficiency, 10 December 2019

Press release: CPMI report sets out considerations for developers of wholesale digital tokens, 12 December 2019

Press release: Basel Committee invites comments on the design of a prudential treatment for crypto-assets, 12 December 2019.

Press release about the Basel Committee launching the consolidated Basel Framework, 16 December 2019.

The BIS Board of Directors has decided to invite the central banks of Kuwait, Morocco and Vietnam to become members of the BIS. This is the first such expansion since 2011 and will take the number of members to 63.