pack

Beer could be $30 a six-pack soon, and that might be a good thing

Barley doesn't like rising temperatures, and neither will beer lovers.




pack

First wolf pack in 200 years is roaming wild in Denmark

Denmark’s last wolf was killed in 1813, but after a female travels 340 miles from Germany and meets some males, cubs are expected soon.




pack

THE BOX could eliminate cardboard and plastic packaging waste

It's a lot more than just a box, it's packaging as a service.




pack

Photo: Pelican packs itself up like a pro

Our photo of the day is a lesson in efficiency.




pack

Flat-packed emergency shelter sets up in 2 hours, resists Category 5 hurricane winds

Lightweight shelters might be an affordable and quick option for emergency housing, but they are also susceptible to damage from high winds. This prototype could be a better solution.




pack

Tiny flat-packed off-grid homes aim to be bridge between renting and owning

The Big World Homes project aims to be a new model of affordable housing, and its modular mobile design could make it a good fit for 'pop-up' communities on unused land.




pack

10 ethically made, eco-friendly backpacks

These lovely packs are made from upycled waste materials, biodegradable natural fabrics, recycled polyester, and more.




pack

Elate Cosmetics now offers 'Perfectly Imperfect' packaging

The bamboo palettes and compacts have minor flaws that, in a way, make them even more special.




pack

Flat pack Bait Hive attracts bee swarms inside for safer & easier relocation (Video)

This simple, foldable bee box attracts roaming bee swarms with a pheromone lure, and helps beekeepers safely relocate bees.




pack

Portable micro wind turbine prototype weighs 2 lbs and packs down to the size of an umbrella

Lightweight, collapsible, and quick to deploy, this little wind generator might be a viable off-grid portable power source in places where solar isn't appropriate.




pack

Suspected poacher eaten by pack of lions in South Africa

The moral of the story is: Don't go out and try to shoot lions.




pack

Colorado's Browns Canyon: Good things come in a small package

This beautiful area near Salida, Colorado, could become the next national monument, with your help.




pack

Edible, plastic-free packaging is created with fermentation, like kombucha (Video)

Using the same fermentation and bacterial and yeast culture that creates kombucha, this packaging is edible and compostable.




pack

Shellworks creates sustainable packaging with seafood shells (Video)

This alternative to single-use plastics uses a range of custom-designed machines to create a recyclable and compostable bioplastic, sourced from discarded crustacean shells.




pack

Edible six pack ring for beers is made out of brewing byproducts (Video)

A Florida craft brewery is now offering its six-packs with these biodegradable, compostable and edible packing rings that are made with wheat and barley.




pack

What I packed for 2 weeks in Sri Lanka

Everything fit into my carry-on backpack, and I still ended up with extras.




pack

These tasty backpacker meals are zero-waste

Fernweh Food Co. packages its plant-based, dehydrated food in glass jars and muslin bags.




pack

Tiny home packs a lot in 280 square feet

But where do you put it?




pack

Flat-Pack Christmas Tree Made of Corrugated Cardboard is a Keeper

This Christmas tree by Giles Miller will keep on going, year after year.




pack

Multi Purpose, Flat Pack Aluminium Christmas Tree for the Ultimate Minimalist

Created by Argentine designer José Manuel Rebert Alarcon, the sleek alternative to a dead tree allows other uses during the year.




pack

A guide to sustainable packaging labels

Consumers are choosing brands they think are better for the planet, so it’s important they know what they’re getting.




pack

8 makeup brands that are fighting plastic packaging

The beauty industry has a long way to go, but these companies prove that change is in the air.




pack

Here's an incredibly simple solution to plastic packaging waste

Remove the water.




pack

Plastic- and packaging-free frozen foods spotted at Czech grocery

Feast your eyes on the frozen foods available with no waste at the Globus Hypermarket in the Czech Republic




pack

700 chocolate bars could reduce packaging on delicious treats

Testing shows just how much packaging is required to keep the yum in, and reveals some dirty little secrets on the way




pack

These backpacks are made from upcycled car seat belts & airbags

Airpaq's one-of-a-kind rucksacks are putting used car safety components back to work to help protect and haul your gear.




pack

Treat the trails with respect. Ride (and hike) with a Bikepack

Steven M. Johnson is at it again.




pack

San Diego Padres And Mercury Insurance Host Second Annual Event To Assemble 1,000 Care Packages For Marines And Sailors Overseas - Mercury Packing Party for Troops

Mercury Packing Party for Troops




pack

Hate your job? Pack it up, pack it in - it's time to head out West - Monster and Brandwatch break down exactly how Americans are feeling about their jobs

Monster and Brandwatch break down exactly how Americans are feeling about their jobs.




pack

Garlock Bankruptcy Affects Individuals Who Worked Around Gaskets or Packing Containing Asbestos - Garlock Bankruptcy Overview Video

Garlock Bankruptcy Overview Video




pack

Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to meet next week on embattled Trump nominee Pack

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is planning on holding a meeting next week on President Donald Trump's controversial nomination to lead a federal media organization.




pack

Can I Afford It? Backpacking trip

Jessie, who's 48, asks Suze if she can afford to spend $6,000 to take her family backpacking in South America.




pack

Beyond Meat CEO looks to 'win consumers' over during meat supply shortage with 'value packs'

"We view this as a massive opportunity for us to drive trial and win consumers over into our segment," Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said in a "Mad Money" interview.




pack

Stimulus package grants student loan borrowers a six-month break

The historic stimulus Congress passed grants the millions of Americans with student debt a break from their payments for at least six months.




pack

Trump: No rush to negotiate phase four stimulus package

CNBC's Kayla Tausche and Michelle Meyer, Bank of America, join 'Closing Bell' to discuss President Trump's comments that he is not in a hurry to expedite the fourth phase of the stimulus package.








pack

A Pack Of Scammer Lies


Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

How do scammers entrap unwary writers? The other day, an especially egregious example came across my desk, in the form of this "proposal" shared with me by an author who really, really wanted to believe it was real (I've redacted the author's name and book title to protect their privacy).


Not to beat a horse, dead or otherwise, but if you'll glance at the sidebar, you'll see that Alpha Books United is on Writer Beware's big list of Philippines-based Author Solutions copycat publishing and marketing scams. (When I got hold of this proposal, on September 26, Alpha Books' website was working fine, but when I checked it today it refused to load. "Mr. Ken Davis", however, has not stopped emailing and calling the author who contacted me.)

(UPDATE: Just a few hours later, Alpha Books' website is back online. Check out its specifics-free About Us page, on which it tells the following lie: "Once you’re earmarked, we open the possibility for you to be eligible for a non-contributory agreement with us.")

Here's the bait. Author empowerment! Amazing expertise! Commitment! Relationships! Sounds good, right? (Other than the complete lack of any verifiable specifics, of course.) Like most scammers, Alpha Books is counting on establishing a direct line to the author's deepest hopes, dreams, and ego.

Note that there's no mention of money. The initial phone calls and emails sent by "Ken Davis" didn't mention money, either.


Here are the "PUBLISHING Inclusions" supposedly on offer (only "if needed", of course!). Kind of bare bones basic, right? But for an author who isn't all that savvy about what goes into design and production, it hits the high spots: cover design, print and ebook format, and the all-important "content evaluation," which Alpha Books is hoping the author will wrongly interpret as "editing".

Again: no mention of money. That will come later, after the author has responded with interest to what they may believe is an amazing offer, especially if it's accompanied by flattery about how their book has been "discovered" or "recommended" by "book scouts" or "literary agents". These scams are successful in part because they solicit so relentlessly, but also because they have an acute grasp of author psychology. They know that it's easier to hook victims if you first get the victims to hook themselves.


And here is the pack of lies. Well, pretty much everything the scammers offer is a lie, but these are mostly slant lies: they could be true (it's just that they aren't). Alpha Books, on the other hand, distinguishes itself by going well beyond the usual obfuscations and half-truths with a great big alternative fact: guess what, we have access to Penguin Random House! Which will pay you $40,000!

If Alpha Books' previous phone calls and emails haven't convinced the potential victim, this magic name surely will. It's an especially sneaky tactic because there really is an Alpha Books associated with PRH: it's under the umbrella of the DK imprint, and publishes, among other things, the popular Idiots Guides series.

Of course, to anyone who knows a little bit about publishing, Alpha Books' claims about PRH are laughable:


The author who received this pitch nearly fell for it. Only when "Ken Davis" told them they'd have to pay $7,000 for this wonderful opportunity (the "true" cost being $19,000, of which Alpha Books would supposedly defray the bulk) did they start to balk. At that point, this happened:


As brazen as most of these scams are, this is just about the worst I've seen.

Fortunately the author contacted me, and I was able to convince them they were being scammed. (It wasn't the first time: they'd originally published with one of the Author Solutions imprints, and had previously been solicited by scammers Bookwhip, Stonewall Press, and True Media Creatives.)

I'm guessing that at least a few of my readers will be thinking "Well, if someone is that naive/ignorant/unwary, they deserve what they get." Believe me, I get frustrated too with writers' gullibility, and in particular with how many writers fail to educate themselves about publishing and self-publishing before trying to publish. But no one, no matter what, deserves to be deceived and ripped off by a pack of con artists.

That's why I keep doing what I do. Suck it, scammers.




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npm's CTO: So Long, and Thanks for All The Packages

#334 — April 16, 2020

Read on the Web

Node Weekly

npm Has Now (Actually) Joined GitHub — We announced GitHub’s acquisition of npm a month ago but now the process is complete. Not much real news here but the plan is to now focus on community engagement and improving registry infrastructure.

Jeremy Epling (GitHub)

Node v13.13.0 (Current) Releasedfs.readv is a new function to sequentially read from an array of ArrayBufferViews, util.inspect now lets you specify a maximum length for printed strings, the default maximum HTTP header size has been increased to 16KB, there are three new collaborators, and more.

Michaël Zasso

Get Better Insight into Redis with RedisGreen — Modern hosting and monitoring services include memory usage maps, seamless scaling, key size tracking, and more.

RedisGreen sponsor

▶  Watch the Live Coding of a New Feature for Node.js — This is not something for novices, but if the idea of watching ‘over the shoulder’ of a Node.js collaborator implementing a new feature directly into Node itself interests you.. this could be a valuable hour spent.

Vladimir de Turckheim

node-libcurl 2.1: libcurl Bindings for Nodelibcurl is a very powerful and well established way to fetch data from URLs across numerous protocols. node-libcurl 2.1.0 brings support for the latest version of libcurl (7.69.1) to us in the Node world.

Jonathan Cardoso Machado

npm's CTO: 'So Long, and Thanks for All The Packages!' — Ahmad Nassri was npm’s CTO but has now left. Here, he reflects on the past ten years of npm, the repo, the company, and the achievements of both.

Ahmad Nassri

???? Jobs

Find a Job Through Vettery — Vettery specializes in tech roles and is completely free for job seekers. Create a profile to get started.

Vettery

Node.js Developer at X-Team (Remote) — Join X-Team and work on projects for companies like Riot Games, FOX, Coinbase, and more. Work from anywhere.

X-Team

▶️ Get ready for your next role: Pluralsight is free for the entire month of April. Stay Home. Skill Up. #FreeApril — SPONSORED

???? Tutorials

Working With AWS Route 53 from Node — Route 53 is Amazon Web Services’ suite of DNS-related services. Like every AWS service, you can control it via an API, and here’s how to manipulate hosted zones from Node.

Valeri Karpov

Best Practices Learnt Running Express.js in Production for 4 Years — There’s a lot of stuff packed in here focused around middleware, testing, logging, and general concerns around scaling and keeping apps running in production.

Adnan Rahić

The Node.js Security Handbook — Improve the security of your Node.js app with the Node.js security handbook made for developers.

Sqreen sponsor

How To Set Up an Express API Backend Project with PostgreSQL — A pretty extensive walkthrough of creating an HTTP API using Express with Node.js and Postgres on the backend, then deploying it all on Heroku.

Chidi Orji

Porting to TypeScript Solved Our API Woes — From the guy behind the (in)famous Wat video comes a tale of porting a backend from Ruby to TypeScript.

Gary Bernhardt

How to Mass Rename Files in Node

Flavio Copes

▶  Let's Build a Digital Circuit Simulator In JavaScript — A special episode of the Low Level JavaScript series takes us on a brief journey into the world of digital logic.

Low Level JavaScript

The Story of How I Created a Way to Port Windows Apps to Linux — We mentioned ElectronCGI recently as a way to let .NET and Node.js code depend upon each other, but here its creator explains more about the how and why.

Rui Figueiredo

How to Create an Alexa Skill with Node — Implementing a custom ‘skill’ for Amazon Alexa by using Node and AWS Lambda.

Xavier Portilla Edo

???? Tools, Resources and Libraries

Node v10.20.1 (LTS) Released — If you’re still using Node 10, don’t use v10.20.0, use this, due to a bug in the .0 release.

Bethany Nicolle Griggs

emoji-regex: A Regular Expression to Match All Emoji-Only Symbols

Mathias Bynens

ip-num: A Library to Work with ASN, IPv4, and IPv6 Numbers — Happy in both Node and the browser.

dadepo

Optimize Node.js Performance with Distributed Tracing in Datadog

Datadog APM sponsor

verify-json: Verify JSON Using a Lightweight Schema — A lighter weight alternative to something like JSON Schema.

Yusuf Bhabhrawala

middle-manager: A Lightweight 'No BS' Presentation Tool — A bit of humor, really. It turns Markdown into basic presentations but then the magic is it detects your ‘BS’ business language so you can remove it ????

Anders




pack

React Router & Webpack in Production

I’ve been working on a pretty large react-router codebase at work. Currently it has around 50~ code splits, which as you can imagine, is a lot of routes. This is going to be a post on the things I’ve learned throughout building out my development / production config and how we are using webpack in production.

###Initial Setup

Before I really dive into how my webpack config is setup and the problems I’ve found, I’ll quickly go over how this app is setup. Currently, there’s one entry point and it looks like this:

import React from 'react'
import { render } from 'react-dom'
import { match, Router, browserHistory } from 'react-router'
import AsyncProps from 'async-props'
import routes from '../routes/index'
/* globals document, window */

const { pathname, search, hash } = window.location
const location = `${pathname}${search}${hash}`

match({ routes, location }, () => {
  render(
    <Router
      render={props => <AsyncProps {...props}/>}
      routes={routes}
      history={browserHistory}
    />,
    document.getElementById('app')
  )
})

It looks like a standard react-router setup, except a couple things are different. For one, there’s way too many routes to have them all in this file, so we are importing the main route object into this file. Second, we are using match on the client side. Without matching first, the client side would try to render before the splits were downloaded causing an error. You can read a little more about match on the client here.

Next, we are using Ryan Florence’s awesome async-props library for loading data into components. It allows me to load data from an api before the server renders components. It will pass the data down to the client for the client-side render, and then data will load as you navigate to new pages automatically.

###Routes

Our main routes file looks like this:


export default {
  component: 'div',
  path: '/',
  indexRoute: require('./index'),
  childRoutes: [
    require('./login'),
    require('./account'),
    ...
  ]
}

There’s a lot more require’s in our app of course. And these are nested pretty deep. The files referenced in the root file have more child routes, and those use require.ensure which you can read about in the webpack docs on code splitting. It tells webpack to make a new bundle, and then load that bundle when require.ensure is called on the client. Here’s an example:

if(typeof require.ensure !== "function") require.ensure = function(d, c) { c(require) }

module.exports = {
  path: 'account',
  getComponent(location, cb) {
    require.ensure([], (require) => {
      cb(null, require('../../views/master/index.jsx'))
    })
  },
  childRoutes: [
    require('./settings'),
  ]
}

There’s a few things going on here. First, we have a function at the top that will polyfill require.ensure. Why? Well, on this project we are server rendering our whole site as well, which I would rather not do, but due to the type of site we are building: we have to. The next thing is the relative require path. I’m using this awesome babel resolver plugin along with webpack’s resolve paths so that I can import files like this:

import Header from '../../master/header'
//becomes
import Header from 'master/header'

Why do I have to use a babel plugin AND webpack’s resolve feature? Once again, doing a server rendered app, the code is ran on the server and also through webpack. In this particular app, I haven’t had time to experiment with webpacking the server. Anyways, if I didn’t use the babel plugin, errors would be thrown on the server, but webpack would work fine. This is one of the common things I have ran into while building this app.

Realizing some things need to be done slightly different on the server or client. You may still be wondering why I am referencing the component as a relative path in the above route example, and that’s because the babel plugin I’m using only works with import and not require. My route objects are the one place that I have these “nasty” looking paths.

##Webpack

I was prompted to make this article after tweeting this out:

A couple people wanted a better explanation as to what’s happening here. When I was first building my production webpack config, even after using all of these plugins:

new webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin('vendor', 'vendor.js'),
new webpack.optimize.OccurenceOrderPlugin(),
new webpack.optimize.DedupePlugin(),
new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
  compress: { warnings: false },
  comments: false,
  sourceMap: false,
  mangle: true,
  minimize: true
}),

My bundle looked like this:

That’s pretty huge if you think about it. And I’m not talking about the amount of bundles. I’m talking about the file size. After searching everywhere for a solution to get the bundle size down further, I found webpack’s AggressiveMergingPlugin. This thing is a life saver. As you may have seen from the tweet, the output turns into this:

Just having the main, vendor, and one other bundle brings the whole site under 1MB. I’m using the plugin to only merge files if the size reduction is more than 50%, which is the default.

People talk about code splitting in webpack and think it’s really amazing to load the JS for the page you’re on and nothing more. It sounds great. The problem is that the file size is immensely bigger. If someone more familiar with webpack has a better idea as to why this is, I’d like a better explanation. It isn’t feasable to keep the splits instead of merging them. This site is pretty large, with a lot of routes as you can tell from the screenshots. Codesplitting without merging would cause way more waiting on the client side every time you navigate to a new page. Even if the JS was heavily cached, the first time you hit these pages it will have to load a 300kb bundle for some of them.

##Caching

That takes us to caching. We are about a month away from publicly launching this site, so we haven’t setup the workflow for pushing updates through a cdn, but that will be the end result. For now, in my webpack config, my output object looks like this:

output: {
  path: __dirname + '/public/assets/js/[hash]/',
  filename: '[name].js',
  chunkFilename: '[id].js',
  publicPath: '/assets/js/[hash]/'
},

This is in the production config of course. This way I can cache the files and when I update the code, the hash will change and the browser won’t be caching the old code. I pass in the hash as an env variable at runtime to that the server has the correct path to the assets folder.

##Problems

There were a few big problems I came across while building out a server rendered app with dynamic routes. The first was page titles. How am I supposed to have the right title on the client and on the initial server render? Thankfully, Ryan has yet another solution. react-title-component solves this perfectly.

The next was, how do I hit an api, wait for the response on server render, load new data on route changes, and of course, do this at the component level. As I mentioned before, async-props solves this problem too. It will give you route info so that you can make requests based on things in the url.

The next problem is one that I haven’t fully solved. Webpack is getting really slow. It takes around 20 seconds on a maxed out macbook 15” to build code in production. On the server, it takes more like a minute! If I’m in development mode, it takes around 10 seconds to make the initial build, and sometimes it lags on building the splits on code change. If anyone has insight into this I would love to hear it.

This one goes along with the webpack one, and it is reloading the server. I haven’t tried to webpack the server but I hear doing so works great for this. I don’t think it would fix the problem with webpack being slow though, and in fact it would probably make it even slower.

##Folder structure

I almost forgot to throw this one in here! I’m really happy with the structure of this project. I have a views folder that has all of the same folders and file names as the routes folder. It makes it really easy to find things. These also correspond with the URL to the page. /account/settings will be in views/account/settings.jsx and routes/account/settings.js. The same is true for my tests folder.

##Conclusion

I hope this gave you a good glimpse at how webpack and react router work at a larger scale than you see most blog posts cover. If you have any questions or things that you would like me to talk about that I haven’t already, please leave a comment below and I will update this post! I’m sure that I forgot a few problems and tips writing this. I was thinking this would be a short post but it blew up on me!




pack

Four remain as holders pack their bags




pack

Back pack hostel in Bandra is the new talent hub in Mumbai

It is easy to feel like a tourist in your own city. We know we feel that way when we reach Ranwar village on Bandra's Chapel Road — because we're wandering around staring at house numbers, until we finally find number 43. The space is called Cohostel — a hostel for backpackers that's around six months old.

The managers Ashu and Shekhar welcome us in, through a passage where doors on either side are named after Bandra's villages — Malla, Waroda, Ranwar, Boran, Pali, and others. "Our visitors are always curious when they observe the name plate, and ask us about Bandra's history. Some of the villages aren't even seen anymore but we thought it was important to at least put it out there," Ashu tells us. But there's a space beyond the standard dorm rooms, too. A rooftop area that plays host to comedy gigs by new collectives such as The Squibhouse Comedy that will host one called Knocktale Night tonight.


Managers Ashu (extreme left) and Shekhar (extreme right) interact with tourists

"Other venues tend to be more professional so they charge for the entry, equipment, etc. Our events are complimentary for the guests and for outsiders, we have a small cover fee for pizza and soft drinks. The comedians are also from small groups and we give an opportunity to anyone who wants to showcase their talents. It's an intimate setting," he says, while a backpacker from Iceland enters the room to check out.
Prashant Nihalani, who helms the hostel with his father and partner, tells us that the idea was to create a social space with cheap accommodation. "The rooftop setting is so fluid that when we host a movie screening, we just move the chairs by the kitchen to create a theatre setting. We wanted this to feel like home and not intimidate anyone as even travellers want to make friends." In addition to stand-up and screenings, the venue will continue to host storytelling and poetry performances.


The doors of each room are named after Bandra's villages — Malla, Pali and Boran among others. Pics/Atul Kamble

For comedians like Prasad Mathkar, who will perform tonight along with nine others, the hostel provides a diverse audience that you wouldn't get to meet at other mainstream venues. "It is fun to perform for an international audience. You have to try to get where they are from and tailor your set accordingly. This is the fourth time that I'm performing here and the audience has always been very receptive because they treat this like their own homes," he shares.


Prasad Mathkar

For Rs 800 a night, visitors get stay and breakfast, but they are free to order what they like or cook in the kitchen on the rooftop. Books and magazines are also stacked in a shelf and the managers, who have moved to the city from Varanasi, interact with guests as if they've known them for a long time — and that's perhaps what it means to be home away from home.

ON Tonight, 7.30 pm to 10 pm
AT Cohostel, 43, Chapel Road, Ranwar village, Bandra West.
CALL 9856564545
LOG ON TO www.eventshigh.com
Cost Rs 200

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates





pack

Departing migrants packed like sardines on bus to LTT

All looked well-organised for the 1,111 passengers of the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (Kurla)-Basti, Uttar Pradesh train that departed on Friday evening. However, chaos erupted amid delays as migrants were hurriedly packed like sardines into buses and transported to LTT, with social distancing forgotten.

The train transporting migrants from Meghwadi and Jogeshwari was the first to leave from the city. Sources said that of the originally 40 buses planned, just a few seemed to be pressed into service.

According to eyewitnesses, in the beginning, every bus had only 30 passengers and eight such buses arrived at LTT. But the process became tedious with just a handful of buses, which then had to make multiple trips to Jogeshwari.

The buses that came after 3:30 pm did not follow social distancing, with some people standing and some sitting on the footboard.

"We woke up at 5 am and were waiting with our kids and luggage. We expected to be taken to CSMT. But at the last minute, after the medical check-ups, we were packed into buses and brought to LTT. The confusion and chaos drained us, but finally, here we are on the train, going back home," a happy Dinesh Jaiswal, group leader of 13 people from Sonwara village said.

"We had filled forms five to six days ago at the local police station and were told last night that we would be taken to CSMT," said Shakil Ahmed, a tailor and painter, and group leader of 27 people from Gonda village.

Another resident, Manish Yadav, said that at the village they will at least stay with their family and struggle along with other villagers. "Mumbai is where we came to earn, but our roots are in the village. We stay well in the village where needs are minimal. With no sight of when the lockdown will lift, we cannot afford to stay in Mumbai at the mercy of free food," Yadav added.

"After they were brought to the railway station, group leaders were given tickets, which cost about R685 per head and then they were lined up and sent to respective coaches. Only two persons were allowed to sit in one bay. The train will reach Basti district on May 9," a railway official said.

Speaking on the last-minute chaos caused due to the change from CSMT to Kurla, Central Railway's chief spokesperson Shivaji Sutar said special trains are being run only on request of state governments. "We run trains if sending and receiving states agree. As per their request, we kept a train ready at LTT Kurla station," he said.

While nodal officer in-charge of the operation Dinesh Desai did not respond to calls, another official said that it would have been difficult to monitor every stage of the operation and these passengers all had a medical check up before embarking on the bus journey, so it was safe for them to be around each other.

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news




pack

Did Aamir Khan distribute money with wheat flour packets in Delhi?

A video about Aamir Khan's unique donation to those hit hard by the lockdown has surfaced online. It claims that on April 23, a truck arrived in an underprivileged area in Delhi. The vehicle was loaded with one-kilo packets of wheat flour. Many felt the quantity was too meagre and would hardly serve any purpose, so some refused to take it. But the slum-dwellers who took it were in for a huge surprise.

There was Rs 15,000 in every pack. It is unconfirmed but fans believe that it was Khan's idea to ensure that the money reaches those who need it. The authenticity of the video is yet to be ascertained. But the star is one of those who believe that when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets.

Many Bollywood celebrities have been doing their bit in their way by making contributions. Speaking about the same, a source close to the actor tells us that the actor has already made his contributions to PM Cares fund, Chief minister's relief fund- COVID 19, film workers' association and a few NGOs along with extending support to the daily wage workers of his next film, Laal Singh Chaddha during this lockdown.

There are very few people who mark their donations without any posts on social media, and one such actor is Aamir Khan. Time and again, when the nation has needed help, Aamir has been at the forefront to extend his support by all means.

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also, download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news




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Bobby Deol on younger son Dharam: He has a six-pack already and keeps challenging me to try new things

Bobby Deol is not only a brooder but also one of the youngest-looking fathers in Bollywood. He looks way younger than his actual age and doesn't really look like a father of two boys- Aryaman and Dharam. He spilled the beans on them in a recent interview with Mumbai Mirror and got candid.

Talking about Dharam first, he said, "Dharam is completely into fitness. He learns new techniques online and teaches me. I wish I had the access he does at his age. He has a six-pack already and keeps challenging Tanya and me to try new things. I have to tell him I'm not that flexible anymore." Well, if the kid has indeed built six-packs, we would love to see them soon. Here's hoping Deol posts a picture of his ripped body on social media.

And then talking about Aryaman and how they both were able to meet luckily before the lockdown was announced. "Luckily, Aryaman came home a day before Holi without hassles or travel restrictions." The duo celebrated the actor's 51st birthday in the U.S earlier this year in January. Deol will be completing 25 years in Bollywood this year, having started off his career in 1995 with Barsaat.

He went on to deliver hits like Gupt, Soldier, Ajnabee, and Humraaz in his career. After a slump, he jumped back with two massive films in 2018 and 2019- Race 3 and Housefull 4. He now has Netflix and Red Chillies Entertainment's Class of 83 coming up soon.

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Tax-News.com: Philippines' Senate Approves Latest Tax Reform Package

The Philippines' Senate on November 28 approved its version of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) bill, which is expected to exempt 6.8 million workers from paying income taxes.




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From hygienic packaging to food, here's how MEET PALAN is helping poor, needy for the fight against COVID-19

While checking our bank accounts and our stocked fridges this week, have felt a moment of gratitude for the economic security nets that we have, that will help us tide over the next 21 days untill 30th of April 2020, as announced by the Indian government for breaking down the chain of COVID-19 i.e Coronavirus.

But there are also many who don’t have this net, and now do not have the option of stepping out to earn their daily wage and henceforth they are needy.

Some organisations & Individuals are helping the fortunate former reach out to help the latter. Meet Palan if one of the individual helping the poor society during the lockdown.

To help you aid these initiatives, Volunteers for Meet's team has put together a list of verified Non-Government Organizations, charities and institutions, which are working towards this cause in Rajkot, Gujarat.

For instance, Meet's & his team has successfully called for contributions and have donated more than 270 kilograms of rice with more than 235 kilograms of dal which is the basic staple food in india. Congratulations to Mr Meet Palan and all the best to him for his good deeds.

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IBF petitions I&B minister for relief and rehabilitation package

The Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) on Monday petitioned information & broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar for a relief and rehabilitation package for the broadcasting sector.

The industry sought regulatory moratorium for 18 months, phased resumption of production activities, extension of moratorium period for GST payment and for the government to mandate digital payments of subscription and advertising dues to broadcasters. It also said the Centre should issue an advisory to DPOs to release payments of subscription fees up to February-end.

Seeking a stimulus package from the government so that broadcasters can get back on track, IBF president N P Singh, said, "IBF has submitted a standard operating procedure (SOP) on prevention/ safety measures for organised, safe and sustainable restart of content production, media operations, transmission and general office operations in the TV broadcast sector to PMO, Niti Aayog and I&B ministry. The SOP will help the sector to move quickly towards normalcy and we certainly hope that the government would consider it favourably."

Apart from emphasising that the government should urgently settle all outstanding dues to the broadcasting industry, IBF also demanded waiver of processing fee and temporary live uplinking fee for live sporting events for a period of one year from the resumption of normal business activities, increase in time period of 1-2 years for operationalising new channels that are granted permission, and the suspension of requirement of performance bank guarantees for channels that are to be launched, for one year.

IBF also asked the government to defer payments due to Prasar Bharati for free dish carriage until July 2020 and said all pending refunds exceeding Rs 5 lakh should be urgently processed. It added that the government should extend the existing stay on demand for income tax for the next six months, and not seek any new hearings.

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