A fortnightly welfare payment for farmers, considered to be the cornerstone of drought assistance, should be removed from social security legislation, an independent review recommends.

A random survey of people living in the Murray-Darling Basin shows support for reallocating water from irrigators to Indigenous communities.

Almost five years after the Arnhem Land community of Galiwin'ku was battered by Cyclone Lam, the NT Government is yet to spend $20.3 million of disaster relief funding for rebuilding housing.

Emma Sharp had already used up 14 weeks of leave before her newborn son was healthy enough to come home. Now, she's calling on the Commonwealth to allow mums with premature babies to delay when their leave starts.

Barnaby Joyce sees "no problems" with extending cashless welfare to families receiving the Farm Household Allowance.

Chinese telco giant Huawei urges the Federal Government to reconsider its ban on the company providing equipment to Australia's 5G mobile network, describing claims it answers to Beijing as "unfounded attacks and smears".

Scott Morrison steps in after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce suggested the family facing deportation to Sri Lanka should be allowed to remain in the central Queensland town of Biloela.

A fake doctor working at a Sydney hospital was detected as a fraud but allowed to continue working in the health system, an independent inquiry is told.

Water allocations for farmers and communities in western NSW are reduced in new plans released today.

Four years ago, Portland voters approved a 10-cents-a-gallon gas tax to fund road projects. Four years later, the tax is up for renewal. But this time around, the debate around the tax is limited.

Friday on Fox News Channel's "Your World," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) argued when determining how and whether or not China was responsible for coronavirus global pandemic, it was undeniable China allowed the virus to spread beyond its borders.

By Drew Sandsor

Updated 4:45 p.m.

For the first time, every eligible voter in California will get a mail-in ballot, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday during his daily coronavirus briefing. 

Newsom signed the executive order Friday, saying it was a matter of voter safety.

"Not to feel like they have to go into a concentrated, dense environment where their health may be at risk, we'll provide an additional asset, an additional resource, by way of voting by mail," Newsom said.

Newsom said there will be physical voting sites as well with safety measures put in place to protect against the spread of COVID-19. Newsom's executive order is solely for the November general election.

Voting by mail has been steadily increasing. During California's March statewide primary, a record 72 percent of the ballots cast were mail-in.

Newsom held his daily briefing at a Sacramento florist shop that reopened Friday under the state's next phase of economic recovery. It allows non-essential retailers to offer curbside service.

In his remarks, Newsom said the 14.7% national unemployment rate doesn't represent the true number of those out of work. The jobless figure released Friday is the highest since the Great Depression. He said that 4.3 million people have applied for unemployment in California alone since mid-March, and that's on top of those who were already out of work.

"When you add 4.3 million people to a workforce that's north of 18 million … do the math," he said. "We're not at 14.7%. The state of California is north of 20% right now."

While President Trump has continually praised Newsom's handling of the pandemic he criticized the governor Friday. Trump said he thinks the state can move a little quicker on reopening and that people may force the issue. 

What spring break taught me about God.

In March, we went on vacation as a family. It was a beautiful trip—clear skies, blue water, white sandy beaches. The resort where we stayed offered a “kids club” in the morning, so I had time for walks by myself and with Peter, for naps in the shade of a palm tree, for times of prayer, for reading lots of books. It was extravagant and luxurious and strangely challenging all at the same time.

Every day after camp, our kids wanted to go to the pool. They wanted to jump into the safe, contained, semi-toxic water. They wanted to dive for rings on the pool’s concrete floor. They wanted to get a drink at the poolside bar. Every day, we tried to cajole them toward the ocean instead. The ocean, filled with rocks and coral, teeming with life. This vast expanse of water required our respect and our attention with its powerful waves, its constant motion. They liked it once we were there—the feeling of their toes in the sand, the sight of hermit crabs scuttling across the beach, the pulsing rhythm of the water. But even then, every day, they wanted to go back to the pool.

I want to teach our children, and I want to challenge myself, to swim in the ocean. I mean this literally, but I also mean it in every other aspect of our lives.

The easiest area to see this tension in our lives is with food. Recently, our kids have been offered candy at every turn—Easter eggs in the backyard from the church youth group, Easter candy from aunts and uncles, Easter candy in Sunday school, and more from a family egg hunt. Jellybeans, Starburst, Twix, Peeps. Tastes great. Rots their teeth. Gives a burst of energy. And then a crash. They would always choose candy over, say, the lentil soup I offered last night. ...

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Groups that were planning to ask Colorado voters for money and new laws in November are seeking rule changes after the coronavirus brought their efforts to a screeching halt.

U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff secured a dominant victory Saturday at a Democratic Party assembly, earning him a slot in the June 30 primary and setting the stage for a likely one-on-one contest between him and John Hickenlooper.

A Denver judge ordered that U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Ferrigno Warren must be placed on the June 30 primary ballot, despite falling well short of the Colorado Secretary of State's usual signature requirement.

U.S. Senate candidate Lorena Garcia must be placed on the June 30 primary ballot, a Denver District Court judge ruled Thursday.

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court decision to put Senate candidate Michelle Ferrigno Warren's name on the June 30 Democratic primary ballot, siding with the Secretary of State's Office.

The Colorado Supreme Court has all but cemented a two-way Democratic primary for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat in June between John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff after reversing another Denver District Court decision. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Democratic candidate Lorena Garcia shouldn’t be placed on the primary ballot because she didn’t collect enough […]

Sponsors are abandoning efforts to create a paid family and medical leave program in Colorado through legislation, announcing Friday they will instead support a ballot initiative already in the works. The proposed family leave bill faced rough waters from the beginning, but the coronavirus pandemic proved to be an insurmountable obstacle, the Democratic would-be sponsors […]

In the first round, Mark Kiszla wants the best player available, with the most Pro Bowl potential, regardless of position, every single time. Is that the right approach?

If your arms are starting to look puny, we feel you.

"The big questions of the day for the workers is, 'I don’t feel safe. Do I have to go back to work?'" a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment official said Monday. "And, as with everything with unemployment, it depends."

So far, state labor officials have opened investigations into 150 instances of workers being called back to their workplaces or being offered new jobs and refusing, choosing instead to continue requesting unemployment benefits because of coronavirus-related concerns.

Vanessa Bell Calloway and Shanola Hampton take the hot seat!

Be very afraid.

Changing the world one step at a time.

EPISODE SUMMARY This week, Dave and Brad drill down deep on a crucial topic in comics — word balloons! Then Dave talks about his recent Kickstarter, and why it didn't fund. Plus... how will the global pandemic affect comic ships, distributors, the USPS and ... webcomics? EPISODE NOTES Today's show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! This week, Dave and Brad drill down deep on a crucial topic in comics — word balloons! Then Dave talks

Politicos watered down earlier efforts, so data defenders will fight to the end

The small group of policy wonks that forced California’s legislature to rush through privacy legislation two years ago are back – and this time they want a ballot.…

Date: May 6, 2020

As COVID-19 continues to impact communities around the world, people and families everywhere are spending more time at home. In light of this, we’re launching a throwback Doodle series looking back at some of our popular interactive Google Doodle games!

Stay and play at home with today’s featured throwback: 

Our 2016 Doodle game celebrating Halloween!
 

Help stop the spread of COVID-19 by following these steps.  
 

Learn more here about the latest ways we’re responding, and how our products can help people stay connected during this time.

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BACKGROUND The anti–programmed cell death 1 (anti–PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab is clinically active against non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In addition to T cells, human natural killer (NK) cells, reported to have the potential to prolong the survival of patients with advanced NSCLC, also express PD-1. This study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab plus allogeneic NK cells in patients with previously treated advanced NSCLC.METHODS In total, 109 enrolled patients with a programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor proportion score (TPS) of 1% or higher were randomly allocated to group A (n = 55 patients given pembrolizumab plus NK cells) or group B (n = 54 patients given pembrolizumab alone). The patients received i.v. pembrolizumab (10 mg/kg) once every 3 weeks and continued treatment until the occurrence of tumor progression or unacceptable toxicity. The patients in group A continuously received 2 cycles of NK cell therapy as 1 course of treatment.RESULTS In our study, patients in group A had longer survival than did patients in group B (median overall survival [OS]: 15.5 months vs. 13.3 months; median progression-free survival [PFS]: 6.5 months vs. 4.3 months; P < 0.05). In group A patients with a TPS of 50% or higher, the median OS and PFS was significantly longer. Moreover, the patients in group A treated with multiple courses of NK cell infusion had better OS (18.5 months) than did those who received a single course of NK cell infusion (13.5 months).CONCLUSIONS Pembrolizumab plus NK cell therapy yielded improved survival benefits in patients with previously treated PD-L1+ advanced NSCLC.TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02843204.FUNDING This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) – Guangdong Joint Foundation of China (no. U1601225); the NSFC (no. 81671965); the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory Construction Project of China (no. 2017B030314034); and the Key Scientific and Technological Program of Guangzhou City (no. 201607020016).

Lymph node stromal cells (LNSCs) regulate immunity through constructing lymphocyte niches. LNSC-produced laminin α5 (Lama5) regulates CD4+ T cells but the underlying mechanisms of its functions are poorly understood. Here we show that depleting Lama5 in LNSCs resulted in decreased Lama5 protein in the LN cortical ridge (CR) and around high endothelial venules (HEVs). Lama5 depletion affected LN structure with increased HEVs, upregulated chemokines, and cell adhesion molecules, and led to greater numbers of Tregs in the T cell zone. Mouse and human T cell transendothelial migration and T cell entry into LNs were suppressed by Lama5 through the receptors α6 integrin and α-dystroglycan. During immune responses and allograft transplantation, depleting Lama5 promoted antigen-specific CD4+ T cell entry into the CR through HEVs, suppressed T cell activation, and altered T cell differentiation to suppressive regulatory phenotypes. Enhanced allograft acceptance resulted from depleting Lama5 or blockade of T cell Lama5 receptors. Lama5 and Lama4/Lama5 ratios in allografts were associated with the rejection severity. Overall, our results demonstrated that stromal Lama5 regulated immune responses through altering LN structures and T cell behaviors. This study delineated a stromal Lama5–T cell receptor axis that can be targeted for immune tolerance modulation.

Sometime over the summer, I saw a video on Facebook about a little town in Oregon where it’s Halloween all year long. Halloween? OMG YES, I LOVE HALLOWEEN! You’re not the only one dressing up for once, so it really doesn’t feel awkward to let your geek shine! Especially now that “sexy” halloween costumes aren’t the only “cool” option. I mean, as if nerdy costumes were ever less than cool, but I digress. History has been hard to us nerds. Anyways! So, I saw a video for this Halloweentown that made it look really, really cool, and I thought, hey, I have to go!  Guess what? I did! ???? Here is my report.  First off, did you know that this isn’t a Halloween thing, as much as it is a movie set thing?? I had never even heard of the Halloweentown movie until a week before I went, much less that there was an entire series of movies that I guess kids my age grew up with! I was more of an It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and The Worst Witch kid. Side note: holy cow, why is that movie so expensive now?! Maybe because it’s awesome, but still… So, in order to get myself into the mood, I watched Halloweentown the night before. It was cute, but it’ll still never mean to me what it means to people that grew up watching it. Here’s me and Joanne (my traveling companion — she and my cousin used to be an item, but she’s too cool for him now) at the “famous” gates! We let our Ravenclaw banner fly high all weekend! So, we drove from western Washington for about two hours to get to St. Helens, where all of the festivities take place. From the video, which I had bookmarked and is no longer available(!), it looked like this place would be huge and chock-full of Halloween everywhere we looked. Yay! There were events listed including coin hunts and rides in hearses, and because we went on a weekend in October, some of the movie cast would even be there taking photos (for a price)! It sounded really neat, and we planned to stay the night in the closest drivable town, which was 40 minutes away. There were only a few hotels in town and they were all booked up, boo. So, here’s where I want to mention something… St. Helens is a small town on the bank of the Columbia River. Right across from St. Helens, on the opposite bank of the river, is a town called Kalama. You can stand on the riverbank in St. Helens and look at Kalama on the other side. But there is no bridge. Nada. Nothing! So if you want to drive to that town that you can see happening over yonder, you have to either drive all the way up to Longview,  or all the way down to Portland, and then back. So it’s an hour’s DRIVE to cross the river, and you have to go through other cities to do it. WTF. I don’t understand this at all. Who planned these cities?!?! I just had to say something because it still boggles my mind! Alright, whew! Let’s look at some cute photos to feel better. ???? There was a band performing in Town Square, the center of all activity Halloweentown. Here’s the taxi from the movie. And this big steel pumpkin. It didn’t get crowded until night, but it was still hard to get a shot without people all over the place. I didn’t feel like waiting around, so this was the best that I could do. There was one huge parking lot, and this guy was there to welcome us in… Looks like he’d been waiting for quite a while! City Hall was at the front of the Town Square, and in the movie. This woman is apparently the ideal resident. Someone had a drone, and I thought it made for a cool shot. Looking at Mt. Hood in the distance! I’d love to go hiking there in the spring! Well… to be honest, there wasnt’ actually much to do. There were a few food trucks next to town hall selling noms and running charity drives, a haunted house around the corner, a street full of consignment/used goods shops, and a hair salon selling t-shirts and mugs of the event. During the day, there was also a shuttle to take you uptown where you could do a scavenger hunt and win a commemorative coin. It took Joanne and I over an hour to figure out where the shuttle came, even though you could walk the entire downtown area in 5 minutes, because it wasnt’ on any map and none of the shopkeepers or staff that we asked knew where it came to pick up people! Organization points: 0 We did find it, though, around the corner from all of the fuss, and boarded to do the scavenger hunt. I wasn’t really expecting anything, and it basically was a piece of paper asking us to go into 10 of 15 or so listed shops on the street and find a plaque with numbers on it. If we collected ten numbers and then took them to a certain gas station on the way out of town, we’d receive our coin. Alright, well it wasn’t super imaginative, but I get what they were going for. We did get to see some cute local shops (and I saw my second pot store in a town that takes 1-2 minutes to drive through… I’m not sure I could ever live in Oregon, as I despise any kind of smoking). I also found, of all things, local vegan caramel, so I bought it fully aware that I would try not to eat the entire bag, but would probably fail (I finished them all before I went to bed). It was delicious, though! Soft and chewy and so, so buttery….. yum! Well, after the scavenger hunt, we decided to get the car and drive around a little bit because we had run out of things to do and, guess what? According to a map that we picked up in town, apparently the Twilight series was also filmed there, and all of the locations were mapped! Forget Halloweentown (sorry!), I am a sucker for Edward and Bella’s tale of fated love. I’ve visited Forks and La Push, the real towns that the books are set in, but never the actual movie filming locations. This sort of made my weekend! There were also some old cemetaries marked on the map as places to visit. Both of those things will be in my next posts! After having a bit of an adventure, we returned to the town square to check out the nightly festivities. I think, honestly, that just coming at night to St. Helens would have been enough, because when we returned to Town Square it was starting to get packed. Apparently, at night is when the real town comes alive! Although there still wasn’t a lot to do, the atmosphere was really eerie and the throngs were thick enough that we had trouble getting through. There was a pumpkin-lighting ceremony at 7:30, but it started really late, so we abandoned it to go to the adults-only haunted house. I’m on a perpetual quest to find a haunted house that is actually scary, and this one turns adults-only after 7pm, so I was hoping for something great! Here’s the coin that we got for our scavenger hunt. It was plastic, not metal as I’d been hoping for, but it had been a nice afternoon looking in shops that we otherwise would have probably passed by. Jack was hanging out. You can see how thick the crowd was after dark! These girls had on mermaid-sparkle witch hats. I approve! I wonder whether they attended Ilvermorny. I had to have one of these necklaces. Can’t wait to rock them on halloween! I wore it into the haunted house, which was… well, it was very well done. It was probably the best put-together haunted house that I’ve ever visited in America, but I wasn’t scared at all. So, in terms of usual haunted houses, it gets an A+ rating! But on the honestly-scared-o-meter, it doesn’t register at all. This is probably what most people want, so give it a go when you visit, though! I just have really, really high expectations! Oh, and we did get a photo with Marnie’s actress. She was a real sweetie! Sure, I had just watched Halloweentown for the first time the night before, but why not! So that’s our little visit to Halloweentown! Final Verdict: If you’re nearby and a fan of Halloween, it’s definitely worth a stop! It’s only a half-hour’s drive from Portland, so it’s easy to take a little nip up and check out the festivities! It’s definitely kid-appropriate, and probably actually the most fun for the little ones. If you’re a fan of the movies, this place should definitely be on your bucketlist! Don’t plan for a whole day, though. It’s mostly a nighttime thing. See you tomorrow to share my photos from Bella’s!