[Politics] :
K-pop boy band SEVENTEEN has received a certificate of appreciation from Los Angeles for their contribution to music and youth empowerment.  Joshua, the LA-native of the 13-member group, accepted the honor on behalf of SEVENTEEN at the invitation of the LA City Council on Friday, local time. The ...

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[Politics] :
If the opposition unilaterally passes a bill mandating a special counsel investigation targeting first lady Kim Keon-hee, ruling People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho has said he will strongly recommend a presidential veto.  At a party Supreme Council meeting Monday, Choo said the ruling party ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
The Supreme Court has ruled against a man who cited his socialist beliefs as grounds for objecting to military service.  In upholding a lower court decision to dismiss the man’s case against the state conscription agency, the top court said Oct. 25 that there had been no error in interpreting the legal ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism says it has uncovered evidence of financial misconduct at the Badminton Korea Association(BKA). During a briefing on an ongoing investigation Tuesday, the ministry said it suspects the head of the association and another top official improperly distributed 150 ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
Former national football team member Son Jun-ho has been permanently banned by the Chinese Football Association(CFA). The CFA on Tuesday announced the disciplinary action against Son, accusing the football player of engaging in match-fixing and bribery. With the latest decision, Son is permanently ...

[more...]

[International] :
A high-level U.S. government official reportedly confirmed that many North Korean troops deployed to Russia have been killed in combat against Ukraine. On Tuesday, the New York Times quoted the official as saying “a significant number” were killed in action, with the exact time of the armed conflict ...

[more...]

Archangel Gabriel is one of the most revered and influential figures in religious traditions across the world, often seen as a messenger of divine will and a guide to those seeking spiritual clarity.

[Culture] :
The Writers Association of Korea says Han Kang’s recognition with a Nobel Prize in Literature is a blessing for literary language. The association, one of the nation’s most prominent writers’ groups, said in a statement Friday that the latest feat is a reminder of the role that literature plays in ...

[more...]

[Culture] :
BLACKPINK member Rosé's latest collab with American pop star Bruno Mars, "APT.," has reached number two on the United Kingdom's Official Singles Chart, the highest ranking on the chart by a female K-pop artist. After debuting at number four on October 25, "APT." jumped two spots to number two in the ...

[more...]

The roof of a house is not just a protective covering; it's a defining element that contributes to the overall aesthetics, functionality and energy efficiency of a structure.

Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) is the enzyme responsible for the first step of carbon dioxide (CO2) fixation in plants, which proceeds via the carboxylation of ribulose 1,5-biphosphate. Because of the enormous importance of this reaction in agriculture and the environment, there is considerable interest in the mechanism of fixation of CO2 by RuBisCO. Here, a serial synchrotron crystallography structure of spinach RuBisCO is reported at 2.3 Å resolution. This structure is consistent with earlier single-crystal X-ray structures of this enzyme and the results are a good starting point for a further push towards time-resolved serial synchrotron crystallography in order to better understand the mechanism of the reaction.

This paper summarizes brief perspectives on the historic process of establishing an African Crystallographic Association (AfCA) and includes representative references. It covers activities within four arbitrarily selected, approximate time slots, i.e., 1890s–1999, 2000–2013, 2014–2019 and 2020–2023. A genuine attempt is made to include appropriate role players, organizations and accompanying events within these periods. It concludes with the official admission of AfCA as the fifth Regional Associate of the IUCr at the 26th Congress and General Assembly of the IUCr in Melbourne, Australia in 2023.

X-ray ghost imaging with a crystal beam splitter has advantages in highly efficient imaging due to the simultaneous acquisition of signals from both the object beam and reference beam. However, beam splitting with a large field of view, uniform distribution and high correlation has been a great challenge up to now. Therefore, a dedicated beam splitter has been developed by optimizing the optical layout of a synchrotron radiation beamline and the fabrication process of a Laue crystal. A large field of view, consistent size, uniform intensity distribution and high correlation were obtained simultaneously for the two split beams. Modulated by a piece of copper foam upstream of the splitter, a correlation of 92% between the speckle fields of the object and reference beam and a Glauber function of 1.25 were achieved. Taking advantage of synthetic aperture X-ray ghost imaging (SAXGI), a circuit board of size 880 × 330 pixels was successfully imaged with high fidelity. In addition, even though 16 measurements corresponding to a sampling rate of 1% in SAXGI were used for image reconstruction, the skeleton structure of the circuit board can still be determined. In conclusion, the specially developed beam splitter is applicable for the efficient implementation of X-ray ghost imaging.

The Next-Gen Technologies to Detect Fraud and Financial Crime Report 2024 highlights how banks, fintechs, and PSPs leverage AI and emerging tech to detect and combat advanced fraud.

Mastercard has launched the Mastercard Move Commercial...

TerraPay, a global money movement company,...

The back cover photo splash from Ruth Batchelor's album "Songs for Women's Liberation: Reviving a Dream"; Credit:

I’ve been a member of the LA Film Critics Association since 1999. LAFCA is a good group - collegial and filled with real movie lovers. But it has a problem.

It's a professional organization, meaning a baseline for membership is you have to have a job, and film criticism is overwhelmingly white and male. 78 percent of the top critics listed on RottenTomatoes are male, and women write only 18 percent of the major reviews. So LAFCA is like the profession itself: overwhelmingly a platform for white men.

It's trying to diversify. It has been for years. But how do you do that when the pool you draw from has a huge institutional bias? According to film critic Claudia Puig, "Criticism has been a white male dominated field for very long. And it continues to be. And not just white males, but middle aged."

Claudia is the current LAFCA president - and a legendary critic, who wrote lead reviews for 14 years at USA Today, and now appears regularly on KPCC’s Film Week.

"Very few movies pass the Bechdel Test. Women are often just girlfriends, wives, mothers. They don't get to have a story arc of their own. But if you had more women reviewing these movies, they would point out certain things that people might not notice as potentially offensive. Because we have been harassed, or we have experienced any number of things. It's something I've grappled with through my entire career." - Claudia Puig

I'm on a committee with Claudia for the LA Film Critics. The concept is to mentor young writers - to generate diversity, from the ground up. One idea is to have a scholarship for aspiring female film critics. We thought it would be good to name it after a prominent woman from the group's past.

So I went to Myron Meisel, who joined LAFCA in 1979, just four years after it formed, and I asked him, "Is there a woman you can think of who played an especially prominent role in the history of the LA Film Critics Association?" "Oh!," Myron said. "Ruth Batchelor was the founder and driving force..." "Wait, what?" I asked. "LAFCA was founded by a woman?"

"We weren't shocked. You had Ruth, who was very much concerned with creating a Los Angeles equivalent to the New York Film Critics Association. Which she largely pulled together by force of will. While Ruth was the moving force, you really can't discount her ability to martial the enthusiastic support of Charles Champlin as a co-founder, and the imprimatur of the Los Angeles Times behind him. Ruth had an enviable ability to make everything she undertook seem inevitable." - Myron Meisel

It's poignant, isn't it? And a little creepy. A prestigious group commits to gender diversity, and somehow, it doesn't have the institutional memory to know that the pivotal figure in its history was a woman.

How could we forget Ruth? Batchelor was nothing if not memorable. Before she became a pundit, she was a successful pop songwriter in the style of Neil Sedaka, or Goffin and King. She wrote dozens of songs, recorded by everybody from Phil Spector to the Partridge Family. She wrote Elvis Presley numbers, including "Cotton Candy Land," which might be the most hated track in the Presley catalogue.

But Batchelor also wrote "Where Do You Come From?", which is beautiful.

Elvis Presley performing Ruth Batchelor's "Where do you come from?"

Where do you come from, Ruth?

It wasn't easy to find out.

Batchelor's New York Times obituary was full of false leads. It said she was a critic for National Public Radio. She wasn't, but when NPR searched their archives, they unearthed a lead: a Film Comment article from 1982, where Batchelor is described as "Ruth Batchelor of National Public Radio's 'As it Happens.'" "As It Happens" airs on Canada's CBC.

So I placed a call. And I waited.

Meanwhile, I found a blog post about Batchelor as a songwriter on an excellent site called "Zero to 180 - 3 Minute Magic." The title of the post was riveting: "First 'Women's Liberation LP.'"

It turns out in 1971, Ruth Batchelor self-produced and financed a concept album called "Songs for Women's Liberation: Reviving a Dream." 

Myron Meisel told me about Ruth's earthy sense of humor, and it's right there in the first write-up's, where her working title is "A Quarter for the Ladies Room." A Billboard article from August 1971 quotes Batchelor about the album: "Right now I have an album of dirty Women's Liberation poems recorded, and I'm trying to sell the master." Then she laughs. "The last record company I recorded for folded."

Batchelor shopped her record. There were no takers.

But Batchelor proved unstoppable. She created her own record company and called it Femme Records. Then she put out what the leftist journal Broadside called "the first feminist record album," all by herself. "Reviving a Dream" is forgotten, bordering on lost. It's never been available for streaming, or released on CD.

Batchelor's record is a pastiche of radio styles from her era. There's Joan Baez folk, two drawling country laments, even some call and response stuff Batchelor probably learned from Phil Spector and his girl groups.

Are Batchelor's songs any good? They're amazing. Amazing just because they exist.

She fits into the churning sea of anonymous faces so seamlessly it takes awhile to realize: She's Ruth Batchelor. The woman who founded the LA Film Critics. A group currently struggling with gender diversity.

LAFCA prez Claudia Puig agreed to an interview knowing it had to do with LAFCA, but not what it was about. I played her Batchelor's song "Drop the Mop." Batchelor intended it as an anthem, scored to a tempo of marching feet.

The listen was awkward - like force feeding a roommate your iTunes playlist. Claudia took notes the whole time, to occupy her critical mind, but I could see when it ended that she was moved.

 "Yeah, it's a really interesting song," Claudia said. "My reaction is sort of...ummm..."

Claudia hesitated, looking for words.

"And this was the origin of the group. Yeah. It really kind of... It is really interesting. I'd never heard of her. She was right there, fighting that fight." 

"And here, we were looking for an avatar," I said.

"Right. Right. It means something. This is a really important discovery that you made."

A piece of the portrait was missing - an essential one. It came courtesy of Kevin Robertson, a producer for "As It Happens" at the CBC. Batchelor had been the show's "Hollywood Correspondent" in the early 1980s. There was audio in the archives. Kevin provided me with five MP3s.

Batchelor's CBC brand was gender traditional. She was the tinseltown gadfly, a niche created by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons in the 1930s. There was gossip about Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson. Richard Burton's widow. Marvin Hamlisch. TV's "Gomer Pyle."

It was kitsch heaven, so I wasn't disappointed. Not exactly. But it was still a bit like listening to Wonder Woman try to be ordinary, because hey, we all gotta eat.

Ruth Batchelor's "Mr. Principal"

The LA Film Critics get a cameo in Batchelor's Oscar season broadcast, when she mentions her LAFCA Awards vote. For awhile, I thought that would be the only audio connecting the "As It Happens" Ruth Batchelor to the feminist fireball she wanted to be.

Then Batchelor starts riffing on "Partners," a buddy cop farce about a straight cop who goes undercover as a gay man. The film had sparked protests from the gay community. Batchelor is unsympathetic, which is surprising in a civil rights pioneer. Her reasoning is devastating.

"You know if women got angry every time there was a movie against women," Batchelor says, "there wouldn't be any movies."

Batchelor died of cancer early - she was just 58. 25 years later, men still direct most mainstream movies - 93 percent as of 2015. They have 70 percent of the speaking parts, and play 88 percent of the leads.

While women get to be naked twice as often in American movies.

Men review almost all movies too. Maybe that's why Ruth Batchelor founded the LA Film Critics. Because she lived in that world. She covered it. Spoke to it. Fought hard against it.

And then left behind a hidden legacy.

"She is our avatar," Claudia says, as our interview time runs out. "It sort of makes me want to redouble our efforts to honor her spirit."

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

Full Text:

The same artificial intelligence technique typically used in facial recognition systems could help improve prediction of hailstorms and their severity, according to a new, National Science Foundation-funded study. Instead of zeroing in on the features of an individual face, scientists trained a deep learning model called a convolutional neural network to recognize features of individual storms that affect the formation of hail and how large the hailstones will be, both of which are notoriously difficult to predict. The promising results highlight the importance of taking into account a storm's entire structure, something that's been challenging to do with existing hail-forecasting techniques.

Image credit: Carlye Calvin

Singapore-based TransferTo has partnered with the Pan-African Ecobank Group in order to expand financial access and cross-border payments across the region of Africa.

Western Fisheries Research Center scientists are studying the impacts of increased artificial light at night (ALAN) on aquatic ecosystems.  Here's an overview with recent pictures from the field!

President Biden listens as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks about the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida.; Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

President Biden landed in Florida on Thursday to visit privately with families whose loved ones were in the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo when it collapsed.

Biden also met with first responders to thank them for their rescue work. Search and rescue efforts paused on Thursday because of structural concerns. So far, 145 people are still unaccounted for while 18 people have been confirmed dead.

During a briefing with local and state officials, Biden said the federal government would pick up 100% of the costs associated with the response to the building collapse. I think I have the power and will know shortly to be able to pick up 100% of the costs of the county and the state. I'm quite sure I can do that," Biden said.

Biden sat beside Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who thanked the president for his support, saying "we've had no bureaucracy" from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"You recognize in each individual unit, there's an amazing story, and lives have been shattered irrevocably, as a result of this," DeSantis said. "We have families with kids missing. And we even have young newlyweds who hadn't even been married a year who were in the tower when it collapsed," he said.

"What we just need now is we need a little bit of luck. We need a little bit of prayers. And you know, we would like to be able to, you know, to see some miracles happen," DeSantis said.

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

Edgar Wright attends the 55th Annual International Cinematographers Guild Publicists Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 2, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California.; Credit: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images

The joke about Sparks — if you’ve even heard of them — is that it’s the best British band to come out of America. That confusion is why Edgar Wright, the director of “Baby Driver” and “Shaun of the Dead,” wanted to make his first documentary about the group, headed by brothers Ron and Russell Mael. Quite simply, Wright was tired of explaining who the band was and why he loves them. His documentary, called “The Sparks Brothers,” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. John Horn talked with Wright after its January premiere about his personal connection to the band, how he connected with the brother, the editing process of the documentary and more. The film is in theaters now.

With guest host John Horn

Guest: 

Edgar Wright, director of the new documentary “The Sparks Brothers;” he tweets @edgarwright

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

Over the last few years Catawba County has implemented many different ways for citizens to receive information and  interact with us.  I titled this Social Media because that term is recognized by everyone on the web.  It would be more appropriate to title it “Citizen Interaction with Catawba County” or just “Communicating” . And note [...]

Are you a self- directed, organized individual who would thrive multi-tasking in a fast paced office environment?  Do you desire to help others who cannot afford the cost of healthcare?   Catawba County Social Services is recruiting for several Eligibility Specialists II roles in Adult and Family Medicaid.  
 
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Salary is negotiable for applicants who are fully qualified.  (1 year or more of Income Maintenance experience in Medicaid or Food and Nutrition Services eligibility)
• Applicants must possess one year of experience in income maintenance eligibility in a Department of Social Services in order to be fully qualified. However, trainees may be accepted.   Trainee pay is $39,729.10 per year.  

• Providing services to children and families when children must be separated from their parents or caretakers when they are unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection and care and the child enters the legal custody and placement responsibility of social services. 

• Serving families, children, and our community by providing support and comprehensive family-centered, solution focused assessments and interventions that will support a parent’s capacity to protect and nurture their children. 

• Working cohesively with birth and resource families, children, guardian ad litems, court partners, community and in-agency partners, and other child welfare entities to support and strengthen families. 

• Striving for excellence in meeting all mandated standards in a fast-paced and mandated, but rewarding environment that ultimately seeks to assure child safety and develop and reinforce protective family units. 

An American flag flies from a crane on July 4th next to the Champlain Towers South condo building, where scores of victims remain missing more than a week after it partially collapsed.; Credit: Lynne Sladky/AP

Preparations continue in Surfside, Fla. for the demolition of a portion of the Champlain Towers South still standing after much of the building collapsed in the early morning hours on June 24.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters on Sunday that bringing down the remainder of the collapsed condominium in a controlled fashion is crucial to the safety of search and rescue teams.

Those teams have paused their work so demolition can take place. Levine Cava said officials are still unsure of a specific time that the demolition will occur.

"Our top priority is that the building can come down as soon as possible — no matter what time that occurs — and safely as possible," Levine Cava said at a morning news conference.

The number of confirmed dead from the collapse remains at 24. The number of people unaccounted for remains at 121.

Preparations for the demolition come as Tropical Storm Elsa is tracking towards southern Florida. The storm is expected to hit the area Monday and Tuesday.

The instability of the building could be made worse by the storm, which is expected to bring strong winds and rain at the beginning of the week. Mayor Levine Cava said that as soon as the demolition has occurred, search and rescue efforts are expected to resume.

Ahead of Elsa's arrival in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a state of emergency Saturday for 15 counties, including Miami-Dade.

On Sunday, he expressed optimism that the Surfside area may be spared from the worst of the storm.

"We could see some gusts, but it has tracked west over the last day and a half — more so than the initial forecast," he said. "So, we'll just keep watching that."

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

Bill Cosby gestures outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., on June 30, 2021, after being released from prison when the Pennsylvania's supreme court overturned his sexual assault conviction. Cosby expressed support for former TV co-star Phylicia Rashad's freedom of speech after she defended him in a tweet.; Credit: Matt Rourke/AP

Bill Cosby called on Howard University to support former co-star Phylicia Rashad's freedom of speech after she expressed support for him when his sexual assault conviction was overturned.

In a statement, Cosby also lashed out at the media, comparing journalists to the rioters who stormed the Capitol in January.

"Howard University you must support ones Freedom of Speech (Ms. Rashad), which is taught or suppose to be taught everyday at that renowned law school, which resides on your campus," Cosby said in a statement provided to NPR by his spokesman Andrew Wyatt.

"This mainstream media has become the Insurrectionists, who stormed the Capitol," Cosby continued in his statement. "Those same Media Insurrectionists are trying to demolish the Constitution of these United State of America on this Independence Day."

Cosby concluded by saying, "WE THE PEOPLE STAND IN SUPPORT OF MS. PHYLICIA RASHAD" in all caps.

Cosby's support of Rashad comes after the actress, who played his TV wife in The Cosby Show, defended the comedian in a tweet. Cosby was released from prison last week when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated his sexual assault conviction on the grounds that his due process rights were violated.

"FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted- a miscarriage of justice is corrected!" Rashad said last week.

The tweet has since been removed and Rashad later backpedaled, writing that she "fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward." She also sent a letter of apology to Howard students

Many Howard alumni had expressed disappointment at the remarks. Howard University responded with its own tweet, stating that Dean Rashad's "initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault."

Rashad was recently named Dean of Howard University's Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts.

Rashad, an acclaimed stage and screen artist, graduated from Howard magna cum laude in 1970 with a bachelor's in fine arts. She returned as a guest lecturer and adjunct faculty member.

In a statement announcing her appointment in May, Provost Anthony K. Wutoh said Rashad's "passion for the arts and student success makes her a perfect fit for this role."

One of the students Rashad mentored at Howard was the late actor Chadwick Boseman, for whom the school's College of Fine Arts is named.

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.

Supporting this massive surge, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an entity for operating retail payments and settlement systems, has provided the backbone and the infrastructure to help in the faster adoption of digital systems that has deepened financial inclusion.

As of January 2, 2010 restaurants, bars and other businesses that serve food and drink in Catawba County became smoke-free. Many health advocates and local residents are pleased that they can now enjoy a healthier dining experience. The ban is a result of a new law that prohibits smoking in all restaurants and bars across North Carolina.

In the fall of 2009, as a part of the Catawba Aging Leadership Planning Project, Catawba County, along with aging service providers, volunteers and local municipalities developed a �Livable & Senior Friendly Community Survey�. This survey was widely distributed throughout Catawba County and targeted the County�s Senior Community, their caregivers and professionals in the aging field. The purpose of the survey was to obtain current and relevant information on the quality of life of seniors. Obtaining this information is important when looking toward the future of Catawba County.

Brian Drum, one of the supervisors of the Catawba County 911 Communications Center, who has been called upon to increase his supervising duties over the past year and has a record of dedication to 911 dispatch that spans more than ten years, has been recognized by his peers in the North Carolina Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NC NENA) as Supervisor of the Year.

As it continues to note National Emergency Preparedness Month, Catawba County Emergency Services reminds citizens who have family members with special needs, and caregivers of those with special needs, that it�s very important to be prepared in advance to help those with special needs cope with an emergency or disastrous situation.

Cyndy Benson, who recently retired as Family and Children�s Services program manager in the Department of Social Services, has received the Kimberly F. Crews Memorial Award from the N.C. Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. This award is presented annually to honor a person who works directly with children suspected of having been abused.

Family Builders, the adoption service of Catawba County Social Services, can now help adult adoptees, birth parents and their close relatives find each other. Not all counties in North Carolina offer this service, which is called Confidential Intermediary Services. Until recently all adoption records were sealed under North Carolina state law. In 2008, a new law took effect that allowed the release of certain records to adult adoptees and birth parents, if both parties agreed.

A Catawba County Department of Social Services program that helped teenagers enrolled in a poverty reduction and teen pregnancy program better understand the myths of government support programs has been named a winner of a 2011 National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Award.

Senior Nutrition Services is now housed at 507 Boundary Street in Conover. Senior Nutrition Services includes Home Delivered Meals (Meals on Wheels), Seniors Morning Out, Nutritional Supplements (Ensure and Boost), Frozen Meals, and In Home Aide Services.

The facility is now testing biodiesel fuel being produced by several companies in the region and from the harvest of crops growing around the landfill to test which ones grow best in the local climate while producing the best oils for biodiesel.

The award was presented for the agency's Children and Aging Strategic Planning Projects in the category �Profiles in Community Collaboration�. The entry described the Children�s Agenda Planning Committee and the Aging Leadership Planning Project. In both cases, Social Services took the lead in collaborating with area agencies to develop reports about the needs of children and older adults.

County programs which developed QR (Quick Response) codes for building permits; reach families affected by economic distress, and serve as an ongoing, immediate source of food for students during weekends and extended breaks from school; and promote healthy, sustainable policies that improve physical activity and nutrition in schools were honored.

A Catawba County Social Services program that serves as an ongoing, immediate source of food for students who often go hungry, during weekends and extended breaks from school, and a Green Vendor Exhibition designed to shine a spotlight on existing and potential vendors that specialize in providing recycled and environmentally-friendly products and services, have been named winners of 2012 National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Awards.

The Catawba County Library System has received two awards from the North Carolina Public Library Directors� Association. Library Director Karen Foss was on hand to accept honors for the new Conover Branch facility and Battle of the Books programming presented at the NCPLDA annual awards banquet December 6 in Winston-Salem.

"Catawba County Facts and Figures" web page, the gateway for hundreds of pieces of data on dozens of topics related to the County government, demographics and quality of life, has been named winner of a 2013 National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Award.

Adult Services Social Worker Chandra Henson with Catawba County Social Services has been honored by the North Carolina Adult Foster Care Association.

Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2012-2013 shows Catawba County improved its financial position with conservative approach.

Social Services program honored as one of only 15 programs in U.S. making critical difference in lives of youth in foster care.