There was certainly was stress in the air when health and economic consqeuences of COVID-19 bore down on Brooklyn and the rest of America. But as these pressures grew, constructive hearts and minds prevailed at the BKLYN Commons (BKC) shared workspace operation at 495 Flatbush Ave., in the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens area, which creatively and passionately morphed to adapt to the new normal.

Two residents of Washington County organize donations from community members to pay Washington County School District 15k+ lunch debt

Federal officials stressed the dangers to long-term care residents and Indigenous communities if COVID-19 restrictions are lifted too quickly after projections in Quebec painted a dire picture of the potential cost.

Republicano perdeu seu principal discurso, os bons números econômicos, seis meses antes da eleição. Agora, luta para ser visto como bom gestor da crise.

A first half deficit proved too much to handle for the Boilermakers. Purdue also lost Elijah Sindelar and Rondale Moore to injury in the first half.

Last year's success will be hard to duplicate for Purdue's defense, but the standard has been set.

Austin Burton announced last week he's transferring from UCLA to Purdue. He'll be a graduate transfer with two years of eligibility.

A Forbes contributor notes that Belkin abruptly announced the end-of-life for its Wemo NetCams, which will discontinued on May 29 2020. But that's just the beginning... Unlike many other end-of-life announcements which simply render products ineligible for support or upgrades, Belkin is literally pulling the plug on its Cloud service, rendering its NetCam range of home security cameras as useless beige bricks... The question of how Belkin are deliberately bricking their products needs to be called out. When the NetCam was released, users had the option to use the Wemo software (which was lousy) or connect to the cameras using ffmpeg with their favourite NVS platform or even with VLC or equivalent. However, in a firmware update a few years back — Belkin disabled this capability. While workarounds do exist, such as the one published by Vladimir Sobolev in 2018, the whole premise of buying a Belkin product is for ease of use and simplicity. Belkin claim to design 'people inspired products'. All customers of Belkin need to look carefully at these words and see how they match up with their deeds? How many other Belkin products might be switched off on a whim? The criticism can be applied to cloud-enabled products as a whole, but in the main — vendors understand that to alienate customers by bricking their possessions is not a viable long term strategy to maintain trust... Forthcoming European legislation forcing technology companies to make their products easier to repair should go some way to address these concerns. The article points out that even Microsoft gave Windows 7 users five years of warnings about its 2020 end-of-life. And it also complains property owners now face two difficult choices: "Either leaving their property with no security system and zero surveillance capability, or breaking the quarantine orders in order to install new equipment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin sued AT&T over a SIM card attack in 2018 that lost him control over $23 million. Now Bloomberg reports that he's suing the "15-year-old hacker and his crew of 'evil computer geniuses'" behind the attack. (Alternate source) Terpin, the founder and chief executive officer of blockchain advisory firm Transform Group, is suing Ellis Pinsky, now 18, for $71 million under a federal racketeering law that allows for triple damages. "Pinsky and his other cohorts are in fact evil computer geniuses with sociopathic traits who heartlessly ruin their innocent victims' lives and gleefully boast of their multi-million-dollar heists," Terpin said in his complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. Pinsky, of Irvington, New York, couldn't be reached for comment.... According to Terpin. Pinsky's ring identifies people with large cryptocurrency holdings and gains control of their phones by bribing or fooling employees of their wireless carriers. The hackers are then able to intercept authentication messages, gain information and drain the victims' cryptocurrency accounts. Pinsky has boasted to friends that, starting at age 13, he stole more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency, hundreds of thousands of dollars of which has been converted into cash stored in his bedroom, the lawsuit alleges. Terpin also claims that, after confronting Pinsky about his alleged role in the theft, the teenager sent him cryptocurrency, cash and a watch with a combined value of $2 million. He claims this was an admission by Pinsky that he had stolen from Terpin.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The newly-created U.S. Space Force has released its first recruitment video, CNET reports: In a video posted Wednesday to Twitter showing rockets, mission control-types rooms and U.S. Space Force members in spacesuits, a voice-over says, "maybe your purpose on this planet isn't on this planet." Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said during a livestream Wednesday that so far recruitment hasn't been a problem for the Space Force. "There's been an avalanche of applicants." This sixth branch of the US military was established in December 2019 and will be operational by mid-2021. CNET notes the video appeared "a day after Netflix dropped a trailer for its upcoming comedy Space Force. And the leader of the U.S. Space Force says he's looking forward to the Netflix comedy co-created by Steve Carell. "The one piece of advice I'd give to Steve Carell is to get a haircut," Gen. Jay Raymond, the U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations, said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the nonprofit Space Foundation. Raymond is bald, and joked that Steve Carell is "looking a little too shaggy if he wants to play the Space Force chief."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Duke of Sussex sent a special video message to mark what would have been the opening ceremony of the 2020 Invictus Games.

Comparing “Likes” with “Tweets” of the Most Shared Stories

Filed under: Arts and Culture, North America, United States

Joanne and Gary, rival travel agents compete for their industry's top honor, the Globel Prize, while trying to address their clients' impossible demands in an Off-Broadway comedy that debuts this week, "Craving for Travel."

The 85-minute, two-actor, 30-character comedy was commissioned and produced by Jim Strong, president of the Dallas-based Strong Travel Services travel agency.

"Travel agents are always asked to do the impossible, and this play shows how that is done, from finding the impossible rooms to making dreams come true," Strong told the "Dallas Morning News." "I decided to bring it to life on stage as a comedy in New York."

From "Craving for Travel's" press release:

With their reputations on the line, travel agents Joanne and Gary will tackle any request, no matter how impossible, and any client, no matter how unreasonable. Full of overzealous travelers, overbooked flights, and hoteliers who are just over it, Craving for Travel reminds us why we travel-and everything that can happen when we do.

"Craving for Travel" opens Thursday at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, where it'll run through Feb. 9. Tickets are $32.50 and $49. They can be purchased at CravingForTravel.com, 212-279-4200 or the Ticket Central Box Office (416 W. 42nd St., 12-8 p.m. daily). More than half of the shows are already sold out.

Continue reading Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible

Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many companies use the term artificial intelligence, or AI, as a way to generate excitement for their products and to present themselves as on the cutting edge of tech development.

But what exactly is artificial intelligence? What does it involve? And how will it help the development of future generations?

Find out the answers to these questions and more in AI 101, a brand new FREE report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, that describes how AI works and looks at its present and potential future applications.

To get your copy of the FREE slide deck, simply click here.

Join the conversation about this story »

The ban on cigarette and alcohol sales during the lockdown has created an underground market of rampant deals all over Pietermaritzburg.

Members of the Joint Operational Committee in Tshwane is in self-isolation after one member tested positive for Covid-19, spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo has told News24.

Here are the winning Lotto and Lotto Plus numbers.

One person bagged more than R47 000 in the Daily Lotto Jackpot.

Ultimately, there are no easy solutions to reigniting a Covid-19 affected economy. It is evident, however, that addressing the public health crisis is non-negotiable, writes Haroon Bhorat.

The government locked down South Africa without knowing exactly how the virus works. And while there is evidence it helped to "flatten the curve", its time to reopen more of the economy, writes Thabi Leoka.

South Africans must insist on innovative solutions and new policies to ensure that when the country emerges from this governance and economic crisis, it does so not only aware of the country’s weaknesses but also primed to effect the necessary changes, writes Pieter du Toit.

Hairdressers have been forced to go underground as lockdown regulations stifle their livelihood and job security. For some, bootlegging has been 'life-saving'.

A bodyguard of Eastern Cape Social Development MEC Siphokazi Mani-Lusithi has been arrested with four others by the Green Scorpions for illegal hunting on a private farm outside East London, as well as for breaking Covid-19 lockdown regulations.

Four minutes and 28 seconds. That is how long it took a News24 reporter to find cigarettes – meant to be banned under Level 4 lockdown regulations – which were available for purchase at one of many places in South Africa.

We reassessed our hierarchy of needs, and survival always outweighs the rest. To be blunt, we would rather have load shedding than risk dying, writes Adriaan Basson.

While the phased-in reopening of schools in South Africa in the midst of Covid-19 remains provisional and sensitive, the Western Cape Education Department has advised principals and school management teams to wait a few more days before returning.

Two-time women's World Cup winner Alex Morgan and husband Servando Carrasco have welcomed a new player to their team.

The DML News App offers the best in news reporting.

The post REPORT: Here’s What Comey Told Congress About Whether Flynn Lied To FBI: Transcript appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.

The following article, OUCH! Michelle Obama’s Netflix Documentary “Becoming” Gets Panned By Critics, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com.

Unlike Melania Trump, who’s yet to appear on the cover of a major fashion magazine since becoming America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama has always been given special treatment by the far-left media, who couldn’t put her face on enough magazine covers. When her “Becoming” documentary aired on Wednesday, it was probably expected that the media […]

Continue reading: OUCH! Michelle Obama’s Netflix Documentary “Becoming” Gets Panned By Critics ...

8 November 2013

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, US Department of State
Chair: Dame Rosalind Marsden, Associate Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House

27 January 2015

The US-India relationship is full of potential, but until there is a sustained commitment from the countries’ leaders, it will remain largely unrealized.

Representative Michael McCaul, who has harshly criticized China in his position as the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disclosed that his family owns stock in a Chinese tech company he described as a threat to national security.An April 20 periodic transaction report showed that McCaul disclosed a February purchase of between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of the Chinese firm Tencent Holdings, Politico reported.In November, several months before the shares were purchased, the Texas congressman said that Tencent Holdings is among the "Chinese companies that threaten America’s economic and national security."The tech conglomerate is "heavily involved" in the "social credit system, a dystopian system China has implemented to score its citizens’ behavior," McCaul said at the time, as well as an "integral part" of the Chinese Communist Party’s industrial policies and "one of four national champions for artificial intelligence."McCaul's lawyer, Elliot Berke, said that the shares are not owned personally by McCaul but by his wife, and the decision to invest in Tencent was made by a third party.“Congressman McCaul did not purchase any shares in China’s Tencent Holdings or any other Chinese company,” the attorney said. “Congressman McCaul’s wife has assets she solely owns and a third party manager made the purchase without her direction.”Rachel Walker, a spokeswoman for McCaul, emphasized that the revelation of the Tencent shares “highlights that many Americans unwittingly invest their money in Chinese owned companies."Federal employees are often unaware they own such investments because the federal government’s thrift savings plan program creates portfolios that include Tencent and other Chinese companies, Walker said. McCaul has argued that such retirement investment plans should not invest American dollars in such "shady" Chinese companies, often without the knowledge of the investor."Congressman McCaul has been a fierce critic of the brutal behavior of the Chinese Communist Party and will continue to fight to hold them accountable as the Chair of the China Task Force," Walker said. "This should be a wake-up call to us all that the CCP’s involvement in the U.S. economy is far more reaching than many Americans realize and that we need to change the way we do business with China, including our investments."Tencent owns the Chinese social media platform WeChat, which has more than one billion users and is suspected of monitoring the activities of users both inside and outside of China. Tencent is also associated with Chinese tech firm Huawei, which U.S. officials said can secretly access American cellular phone networks, giving it access to sensitive information.McCaul has taken a leading role in criticizing China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic as well, accusing Beijing of launching perhaps the "worst cover-up in human history."He was tapped on Thursday by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as chairman of the China Task Force, the aim of which is to develop "legislative solutions to address the Chinese Communist Party’s malign global agenda."The task force will "develop new and enduring policy solutions that, among others, enhance our economic strength and create jobs, protect our national security, rethink our supply chains and grow our competitive edge in technology," McCaul said in a statement on his appointment.

Attorney General Bill Barr explained that the FBI did not conduct “a bonafide counterintelligence investigation” in the case that led former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn to plead guilty to federal investigators in 2017.Barr, speaking in an exclusive interview with CBS News after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn on Thursday, said that his review of the case found Bureau investigators laid “a perjury trap” for Flynn in a January 2017 White House interview.“They didn’t warn him, the way that would usually be required by the Department, they bypassed the Justice Department, they bypassed the protocols at the White House, and so forth,” Barr stated. “These were things that persuaded me that there was not a legitimate counterintelligence investigation.”Former FBI director James Comey admitted in a December 2018 interview that he “sent” the agents to interview Flynn, adding that it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration.”In its Thursday court filing, the Justice Department explained that it was “not persuaded” that Flynn’s interview, which led to his guilty plea for lying to FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, had proper predication and was materially relevant.Comey tweeted his disappointment, following the decision, saying "the DOJ has lost its way."> The DOJ has lost its way. But, career people: please stay because America needs you. The country is hungry for honest, competent leadership.> > -- James Comey (@Comey) May 7, 2020Barr pointed to recently-released information that showed the FBI moved to close its surveillance of Flynn after finding “no derogatory information” about the retired general’s contacts with Russians, only for Strzok to keep the case open, leading to the eventual interview.“They were closing the investigation, in December [2016], they started that process and on January 4, they were closing it. When they heard about the phone call, which the FBI had the transcripts to — there was no question as to what was discussed, the FBI knew exactly what was discussed — and General Flynn, being the former director of the DIA, said to them, ‘you listen to everything, you know what was said,’” Barr explained.“So there’s no mystery about the call, but they initially tried some theories of how could open another investigation, which didn’t fly, and then they found out that they had not technically closed the earlier investigation, and they kept it open for the expressed purpose of trying to catch — lay a perjury trap — for General Flynn,” he added. A different filing released last week showed handwritten notes from an FBI official that questioned if the goal of Flynn’s White House interview was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”Barr also did not comment on whether those that sought to entrap Flynn would face criminal charges, pointing to U.S. Attorney John Durham’s probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and saying his team was “in the middle” of “looking at the whole pattern of conduct.”“I’m going to wait until all the evidence is [in], and I get their recommendations as to what they found and how serious it is. But, if we were to find wrongdoing, in the sense of any criminal act, obviously we would follow through on that,” Barr said. “But again, just because something may even stink to high heaven, and appear to everyone to be bad, we still have to apply the right standard and be convinced that there is a violation of a criminal statute and that we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The same standard applies to everybody.”

In a tweet Saturday morning, Tesla's chief executive said it would file a lawsuit against county officials over not being able to run its factory.

The Government today welcomed the successful handling of a number of bills and subsidiary legislation by the Legislative Council House Committee (HC) at its special meeting yesterday afternoon.

      

In a statement, the Government said that in accordance with Article 73 of the Basic Law, one of the major functions of LegCo is to enact laws and that the HC plays the most essential role in LegCo in performing the constitutional function of making preparations for LegCo meetings.

 

Such work includes deciding if bills committees are required to be set up to scrutinise the bills submitted to LegCo and monitoring the progress of these bills committees.

 

The statement noted that starting from last October, the HC has held 17 meetings and spent more than 30 hours of discussion but still failed to elect its chairman and deputy chairman for the current term of LegCo, thereby seriously impeding the committee and jeopardising its normal operation, creating substantial backlogs of bills that affect social development, the economy and people's livelihood.

      

At the special meeting yesterday, the HC completed the handling of a number of bills and subsidiary legislation which had not been dealt with for seven months since last October owing to the delay in the chairman election that brought the HC to a standstill.

 

These include 13 bills submitted by the Government during the current legislative session, Legal Service Division reports on 31 subsidiary legislation gazetted since March 27, the motion on the endorsement of the appointment of the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal and four Reports of Bills Committees.

      

"The Government is pleased to learn that the impasse in the HC has finally ended which enables the continual scrutiny of bills and subsidiary legislation proposed by the Government.

 

“The Government will continue to fully co-operate with LegCo in its work of scrutinising laws in the remaining term of office of LegCo.

      

“As of May 8 this year, there are 26 bills that LegCo is scrutinising. Of these, 15 were proposed during the current legislative session, while the other 11 were first read in the past two legislative sessions and respective bills committees have been formed to scrutinise them,” the statement said.

 

Among the 11 bills, the bills committees have completed scrutiny of seven bills which have yet to be introduced to the full council for the resumption of second reading debate.

 

Of the seven bills, the HC has finished scrutinising the bills committee reports of six bills, including the National Anthem Bill and the Trade Marks (Amendment) Bill 2019.

      

The Bills Committee on the National Anthem Bill, after 17 meetings and over 50 hours of deliberation, had reported to the HC on June 14. At the HC meeting on June 28, the HC raised no objection to the Government's plan to resume the second reading debate on the bill in the 2019-2020 legislative session.

      

"The national anthem is the symbol and sign of the country. The legislative principle of the National Anthem Bill is clear, that is to fully reflect the legislative purpose and intent of the Law of the People's Republic of China on National Anthem as a national law, which is to preserve the dignity of the national anthem and promote respect for the national anthem; and at the same time to give due regard to the common law system practiced in Hong Kong, as well as the actual circumstances in Hong Kong,” the statement said.

 

In accordance with the National Anthem Bill, a person would only commit a criminal offence if the person publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem. It would not constitute an offence to express one's opinion as long as they are not expressed in the form of public and intentional insults to the national anthem, the statement added.

 

“Therefore, it is completely untrue and fabricated for certain LegCo members to claim that the law is 'draconian',” the statement noted.

      

The Government said it hopes that LegCo members would support the Government to continue to take forward the legislative procedures of the aforementioned bills, so that the efforts by the Government, LegCo and relevant stakeholders in formulating policies would not go down the drain.

β-1,3-d-Glucan is a ubiquitous glucose polymer produced by plants, bacteria, and most fungi. It has been used as a diagnostic tool in patients with invasive mycoses via a highly-sensitive reagent consisting of the blood coagulation system of horseshoe crab. However, no method is currently available for measuring β-1,6-glucan, another primary β-glucan structure of fungal polysaccharides. Herein, we describe the development of an economical and highly-sensitive and specific assay for β-1,6-glucan using a modified recombinant endo-β-1,6-glucanase having diminished glucan hydrolase activity. The purified β-1,6-glucanase derivative bound to the β-1,6-glucan pustulan with a KD of 16.4 nm. We validated the specificity of this β-1,6-glucan probe by demonstrating its ability to detect cell wall β-1,6-glucan from both yeast and hyphal forms of the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans, without any detectable binding to glucan lacking the long β-1,6-glucan branch. We developed a sandwich ELISA-like assay with a low limit of quantification for pustulan (1.5 pg/ml), and we successfully employed this assay in the quantification of extracellular β-1,6-glucan released by >250 patient-derived strains of different Candida species (including Candida auris) in culture supernatant in vitro. We also used this assay to measure β-1,6-glucan in vivo in the serum and in several organs in a mouse model of systemic candidiasis. Our work describes a reliable method for β-1,6-glucan detection, which may prove useful for the diagnosis of invasive fungal infections.

Lens proteins become increasingly cross-linked through nondisulfide linkages during aging and cataract formation. One mechanism that has been implicated in this cross-linking is glycation through formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Here, we found an age-associated increase in stiffness in human lenses that was directly correlated with levels of protein–cross-linking AGEs. α-Crystallin in the lens binds to other proteins and prevents their denaturation and aggregation through its chaperone-like activity. Using a FRET-based assay, we examined the stability of the αA-crystallin–γD-crystallin complex for up to 12 days and observed that this complex is stable in PBS and upon incubation with human lens–epithelial cell lysate or lens homogenate. Addition of 2 mm ATP to the lysate or homogenate did not decrease the stability of the complex. We also generated complexes of human αA-crystallin or αB-crystallin with alcohol dehydrogenase or citrate synthase by applying thermal stress. Upon glycation under physiological conditions, the chaperone–client complexes underwent greater extents of cross-linking than did uncomplexed protein mixtures. LC-MS/MS analyses revealed that the levels of cross-linking AGEs were significantly higher in the glycated chaperone–client complexes than in glycated but uncomplexed protein mixtures. Mouse lenses subjected to thermal stress followed by glycation lost resilience more extensively than lenses subjected to thermal stress or glycation alone, and this loss was accompanied by higher protein cross-linking and higher cross-linking AGE levels. These results uncover a protein cross-linking mechanism in the lens and suggest that AGE-mediated cross-linking of α-crystallin–client complexes could contribute to lens aging and presbyopia.

While aspects of the U.S. immigration system facilitate newcomers’ contributions to economic growth and competitiveness, others undermine them. Reforms are needed to enhance the job-creating power of U.S. employers and strengthen the system’s ability to select effectively from the large pool of foreign workers.