The new state budget includes a $75-million increase in money for the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program. In case you’re not familiar with the EITC, it has been a great help to Catholic schools and other private institutions. As the Pennsylvania Resources Council explains, eligible businesses and individuals can receive tax credits equal to 75% of their contribution, or 90% if they agree to do it for two years. One of the biggest supporters of the EITC program is Bishop McCort Catholic High School Principal Tom Smith. “The EITC component has been a game-changer for our school,” Smith told us. “Not just for Bishop McCort, but mainly for our families. It allows those families who might not be able to afford it, to actually come here. I can tell you firsthand that it has changed the lives of several of the kids that have come into this building over the last few years. I would say that it has impacted hundreds of kids. About 70% of our kids get EITC funding.” Critics of the program, which include many Democratic lawmakers in Harrisburg, say the program is exploited by well-to-do families who really don’t need the money. Smith that is simply not true from his perspective. “The concept that EITC dollars go to rich families so that they can send their kids here so they can more money at home…that is so false,” he said. “Our school resides in one of the poorest cities in Pennsylvania—in the greater Johnstown School District– and we have a lot of the kids from the city come to our school. I would say almost every one of them get EITC dollars.” But not everyone that goes to McCort gets the financing. “There’s a qualifier for EITC for what a family brings in in terms of income,” Smith said. “Not all of our families meet that standard. We will show you that it is not going to kids of better means. There are kids of poverty that struggle every single day, but their parents want them to be to have more opportunities in life and move forward in life and the EITC program has done that.” Many schools reach out to members of the community to try to get them to participate in the EITC program. But it’s easy for anyone to initiate the process. “We actually have a person here, within our school—that is their job, to do outreach for EITC,” Smith said. “She has a pamphlet that she sends out teaching people how they can become involved. It’s not that cumbersome. It’s just a one-page sheet. They fill that out, return it to us and then we send it to the state.”

Our series on Maternal & Early Childhood Issues continues today with a look at the Heart of Tioga Pregnancy Center in Tioga County, PA and the support it gets from parishioners at Holy Child Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton. https://fb.watch/bHgvkXjO3Z/

The PA House Health Committee today unanimously passed Senate Bill 500, which calls for Medicaid coverage of human donor milk. The milk is vitally important for many newborns suffering from health issues. The PCC supports this issue. It has already passed the Senate and just needs approval by the full House. Here are the Facebook and X links for the two stories we ran. https://fb.watch/nLLsZciiLe/?mibextid=cr9u03 https://fb.watch/nLLsZciiLe/?mibextid=cr9u03 https://x.com/pacatholic/status/1714669965268193289?s=46&t=BhvQl7L4iZmDeA-ftim4Og https://x.com/pacatholic/status/1714667221551587757?s=46&t=BhvQl7L4iZmDeA-ftim4Og    

Title: Intertrigo
Category: Diseases and Conditions
Created: 3/20/2013 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 7/21/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Corticosteroids vs. NSAIDs
Category: Medications
Created: 10/12/2017 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/4/2022 12:00:00 AM

From the USCCB – June 4, 2018 – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The case involves a Christian baker named Jack Phillips who declined in 2012 to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. State officials sought to compel Phillips to create such cakes under Colorado’s public accommodations law. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., of Philadelphia, Chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued the following joint statement: “Today’s decision confirms that people of faith should not suffer discrimination on account of their deeply held religious beliefs, but instead should be respected by government officials. This extends to creative professionals, such as Jack Phillips, who seek to serve the Lord in every aspect of their daily lives. In a pluralistic society like ours, true tolerance allows people with different viewpoints to be free to live out their beliefs, even if those beliefs are unpopular with the government.” The USCCB filed an amicus curiae brief supporting Masterpiece Cakeshop, which can be found here: http://www.usccb.org/about/general-counsel/amicus-briefs/upload/16-111-tsac-USCCB.pdf.        

PA Speaker of the House Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) is praising a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals which will uphold the traditional practice of having a session-opening prayer. “We are pleased that the Third Circuit has found that our prayer complies with the United States Constitution,” Turzai said, “and has issued a precedent setting decision entirely in the House’s favor. As a result, we expect the House to be able to resume its tradition of welcoming guest chaplains as it has in the past.” In 2016 a group of atheists and other non-believers sued the House, claiming their exclusion as guest chaplains violated the Constitution. The plaintiffs also challenged the presiding officer’s traditional request to rise for the prayer and the pledge to the flag. Last year, a federal judge in Harrisburg ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and limited the practice to member-led prayers. But the House appealed. Late last month a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit ruled in the House’s favor on all counts. “By a 2-1 vote the panel held the House’s prayer practices were constitutional because they fit within the long history of legislative prayer in this country,” Turzai said. “The majority explained that ‘only theistic prayer can satisfy the historical purpose of appealing for divine guidance in lawmaking.’” Turzai said the panel ruled 3-0 that it is constitutional and not coercive to request that guests stand for the prayer and the pledge.              

  The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference applauds the Supreme Court’s decisions in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James Catholic School v. Biel. In both cases, the Court reaffirmed the religious liberties guaranteed in the United States’ Constitution. “These are incredibly important rulings for so many groups across the country,” said Eric Failing, the Executive Director of the PCC. “They take a big stand for religious liberty as a First Amendment freedom, which is continually being threatened. We are happy the Court has clearly recognized the importance of religious liberty to our nation.”

Assistant Professor Richard Crowley from SMU’s School of Accountancy examines financial accounting using both archival and analytical methods for his research. Much of his archival work deals with large sets of unstructured data using high-powered computing algorithms to address accounting issues that are otherwise infeasible to approach. He has recently written two research articles on using a machine learning technique to assess the content of companies’ disclosures. In this podcast, he discusses how fraud and misreporting can be detected by studying a company’s financial statement using a machine learning technique, and shares how companies disclose financial information on Twitter, and how feedback from investors and others can influence this.

Financial literacy in Singapore has not been analysed in much detail, despite the fact that this is one of the world’s most rapidly aging nations. In this podcast, Professor of Finance Benedict Koh from the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, discusses the key findings of his research jointly conducted with Olivia Mitchell from the University of Pennsylvania and Susann Rohwedder, Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Associate Director of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging. Using a unique new data-set and nationally representative survey - the Singapore Life Panel, they conducted an analysis of older Singaporeans’ financial literacy. Here, Professor Koh discusses his key findings, including: Do older Singaporeans score better on financial knowledge compared to their counterparts in the United States? What are the empirical linkages between financial literacy and retirement preparedness in Singapore? And is financial literacy positively associated with greater wealth and diversity of portfolios?

Rapid urbanisation, coupled with the lack of coordination in the use of resources, such as taxis and security personnel, has negatively affected a wide array of quality-of-life metrics. These include waiting time in queues, response time for emergencies, and the number of traffic violations in cities. Using AI and Machine Learning methods, aggregation systems have been developed and adopted to improve the matching of resources and demand, thereby enhancing the efficiency of real-world transportation, emergency response and security systems. In this podcast, Associate Professor Pradeep Varakantham from the SMU School of Information Systems shares how AI can be used to improve transportation and security.

Data has emerged as the most important driver for modern economic development. New industries have arisen from the use of data with personal information as the core asset, while many traditional models of business are ‘disrupted’ or drastically transformed. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has also become an integral tool for the management and processing of data, including personal data, as it provides greater accuracy and capability. How should the use of A.I. in data management be regulated and should it be treated any differently under the data protection regime? What role can A.I. play in regulating the use of personal data and as a cybersecurity tool? Is creating a form of propertisation of personal data and ‘data ownership’ useful? These are just some of the lingering questions that regulators and organisations are currently grappling with. Central to the issue is how A.I. can best serve and safeguard humanity’s interests. Warren Chik is Associate Professor of Law at SMU School of Law, and concurrently Deputy Director at SMU’s Centre for AI and Data Governance. In this podcast, he shares his recent research into Artificial Intelligence and Data Protection in Singapore, which takes a deeper look into consumers’ trust, organisational security and government regulation.

11/14/2024 - 6:00 PM - Venue: Eagles Steel City Aerie

11/14/2024 - 1:00 PM - Venue: Dorcy Cancer Center

11/13/2024 - 7:30 PM - Venue: Park East Restaurant

11/13/2024 - 6:30 PM - Venue: Assistance League of Pueblo

11/13/2024 - 11:00 AM - Venue: SRDA The Joseph H. Edwards Active Adult Center

Over the weekend, quite a large mudflow occurred on the banks of Loch Broom in the Wester Ross area of northern Scotland

A video posted to social media shows three people having a very lucky escape from a debris flow in Arunachal Pradesh, northern India.

Planetary scientists are using a volcanic flow field in New Mexico to puzzle out how long past volcanic eruptions on Mars might have lasted, a finding that could help researchers determine if Mars was ever hospitable to life. People don't usually think of New Mexico as a volcanically active place, but it has some of the youngest (geologically speaking) large lava flows in the continental United States.

The post New Mexico badlands help researchers understand past Martian lava flows (video) appeared first on GeoSpace.

On Tuesday, 9 July the full House Appropriations Committee marked up their Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior and Environment, and Energy and Water spending bills for fiscal year (FY) 2025. These bills collectively set the spending amounts for U.S. federal science agencies, including NASA, NOAA, NSF, USGS, EPA, the Department of Energy. Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, Congress established spending caps for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The Act allows only a 1% …

The post FY25 Appropriations overview part 1: House spending numbers mark weak support for science appeared first on The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy.

In this Bridge post, continued from our FY25 Appropriations Overview Part 1 blog, we’ll cover the House’s Interior-Environment, Energy-Water, and Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) spending bills for fiscal year (FY) 2025—detailing relevant funding levels and sharing committee report highlights that impact the Earth and space sciences.   House Interior-Environment Appropriations bill and accompanying report.   United States Geological Survey (USGS) FY2024 President’s Budget Request FY2025 AGU Request FY2025 House …

The post FY25 Appropriations overview part 2: House spending numbers mark weak support for science appeared first on The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy.

On Thursday, 25 July, the full Senate Appropriations Committee began marking up their spending bills for fiscal year (FY) 2025, starting with the Commerce-Justice-Science and Interior-Environment bills, which will be followed by the Energy-Water and Labor-HHS bills later this week. These bills collectively set the spending amounts for U.S. federal science agencies, including NASA, NOAA, NSF, USGS, EPA, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. …

The post Senate Aims to Preserve Scientific Progress in FY25 Spending Bills: Part 1 appeared first on The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy.

In this Bridge post, continued from our Senate FY25 Appropriations Overview Part 1 blog, we’ll cover the Senate’s Interior-Environment, Energy-Water, and Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) spending bills for fiscal year (FY) 2025—detailing relevant funding levels and sharing committee report highlights that impact the Earth and space sciences.   Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations bill and accompanying report.   United States Geological Survey (USGS) FY2024 President’s Budget Request FY2025 AGU Request FY2025 …

The post Senate Aims to Preserve Scientific Progress in FY25 Spending Bills: Part 2 appeared first on The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy.

From increased regulation, to a growing emphasis on food safety, to changing workforce and customer demographics, food processors and their vendors and partners are facing a period of unprecedented change.

The Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) today announced a wide variety of sessions scheduled to take place at PROCESS EXPO 2015 in conjunction with three of Canada’s top institutions of higher learning including University of Guelph, McGill University and Conestoga College.

Partnering with WMG, University of Warwick, Sustainable Packaging Technologies will lead efforts to commercialize FlexSea’s seaweed biopolymer material.

Chile recently passed a law that will ban all single-use plastic in several fields. The industry has been searching for materials that are non-plastic but that still have all the characteristics of plastic.

We share our Top 13 articles from 2019 that caught readers' attention — from the top beverage and food packaging companies of the year and the outlook for 2019 to some neat designs and trends. Enjoy the read!

The same government that destroyed Puerto Rico’s economy and the domestic pharmaceutical industry by repealing Section 936 in 2006 is now going to tell you what heroes they are by reviving that industry. It might be easier said than done.

To date, that program has kept over 500,000 coffee pods and capsules out of landfills, and more than $10,000 has been raised for charities. 

From filling to sterilizing, flexible packaging must be handled differently than rigid containers.

MULTIVAC has developed the DP 245, a new, highly innovative direct web printer for the X-line series of traysealers.

Leading manufacturer and supplier of rigid plastic-molded packaging products seeks to use M&A as a strategic tool to drive inorganic growth – as a complement to continued organic growth – with the goal of doubling sales by 2030.

AMERIPEN’s Dan Felton lauds both Maryland and Illinois for fostering productive discussions and collaboration among industry, environmental groups, and the government with respect to EPR and any future laws.

Against the backdrop of a lack of skilled labor, the food and beverage sector continues to invest in automated, efficient and stable processes. 

As part of our 2024 “State of Converting” outreach to the industry, The Packaging Group from BNP Media sought input from leading converters to gain perspective on the current EPR legislative climate.

Check out how new advancements are making retort equipment more efficient and packaging more eco-friendly. But let's first take a step back and take a wider look at the retort packaging scene.

Lightweight, compact, and heat-resistant retort pouches are ideal for preserving food products like baby food, ready-to-eat meals, and pet food through retort sterilization, ensuring longer shelf lives. However, there are limited recyclable options for retort pouches in the market.

Allpax, a ProMach brand, recently delivered a new high-speed automated pouch loading and unloading system to a customer to feed an existing bank of Allpax retorts.

The bio-based medical-grade PVC compounds utilize resins and plasticizers manufactured with renewable energy and bio-attributed classification. 

The 500 ml D-PAK™ carton is made with paperboard from responsibly managed forests and is fully recyclable, as well as carbon neutral.

In this episode with Lee Coffey of Rockwell Automation, we delve into the results of a recent survey conducted by Rockwell regarding smart manufacturing in CPG.

This reusable and fully recyclable plastic packaging is available in three colors and is suitable for all caps.

The refillable aluminum line pairs with Cleancult’s game-changing 100% recyclable paper-based refill cartons to remove 90% of plastic waste from cleaning rituals.

Founded in Chicago in 1959 by the late Charles Colbert, the company has grown organically and through acquisition, and remains an independent, family-owned business.

In this year’s research by Industrial Physics, 47% of packaging professionals surveyed shared that they’ve had to delay innovation while they search for an external packaging and material testing expert. 

Company will highlight its exclusive Continuous Sterilizer technology, which allows simultaneous processing of various package types and sizes – including cans, jars, and pouches – in the same equipment.

Meet Dana Austin, General Manager for IWK North America.