When a famed Egyptian actor revealed his daughter had transitioned, the reaction was unconventional.

Justin Gaethje produces the best performance of his career to finish Tony Ferguson and win the UFC interim lightweight title at UFC 249.

Coronavirus reopening: more beaches and parks

A low-pressure trough pushing into Northern California from the Pacific will bring widespread showers to the part of the state most in need of rain.

Planning a little solo jaunt across the land? If this is your first time planning your virgin solo adventure, I understand completely how excited and nervous you are. I was once in your shoes.

Before you slap on your backpack and march out that door, here’s a small checklist of things you might want to do to ensure a better trip.

Research, Research, Research

It doesn’t matter if you’re headed into uncharted territory or a bustling metropolis, it only helps if you already know what to expect when you set foot in your destination. A quick google search should give you enough information on things like the local culture, geography, weather and political climate to start with. Oh, and do not forget to check out the local laws, either-written and unwritten. People have in the past gotten into trouble for using the wrong gesture or for looking the wrong person in the eye. Did you also know that shaking your head can be interpreted as ‘yes’ in India?

“Hi, would you like to buy some drugs?

– Nervously shakes head –

“Great! Here’s two kilograms of cocaine!”

Kuh-Myoo-Nick-Ashion

Learn a few words and phrases from the local language and the appropriate situations to use them in. You would be surprised at how much a ‘Yallah’ or a ‘Habibi’ can get people to warm up to you in the Middle East. Also, knowing the language makes ordering food that much easier. Just saying.

Who Ya’ Gonna Call?

It’s very useful to have in hand a bunch of contacts that you can get in touch with if-knock on wood- you should ever find yourself in trouble, eg: Your home country’s Embassy/Consulate(stolen passports are a thing in some countries you know?), local emergency numbers etc. If you have friends or relatives in the country/area, make sure you have their numbers as well. There’s no telling what kind of emergency you might encounter on the road.

Link Up With Other Travellers And Locals!

This is for many people, the single greatest reward of solo travel-meeting new people. There’s so much you discover from engaging with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Yes, I’m being captain obvious here, but it’s a point that just had to be reiterated.  Being alive in the internet age has its perks.

A slew of apps and websites have made it that much easier for travelers to get in touch with people at their destinations. It doesn’t matter if you’re just hanging out with your host from ‘AirBnB’ and ‘Couchsurfing’ or finding fellow travelers to share in your adventure from ‘Penroads’, you’re guaranteed to meet some cool people on your journey. As a matter of fact, Penroads is the best way for you to connect with international travellers coming in from all over the world, so it’s definitely a useful tool to have (It’s a shameless plug. I am so sorry. But it really works!).

Stay Healthy!

Last but never the least, take care of your body. Stay hydrated. It’s no good if your mind yells “Onward!” and your body groans “Hell no!”. Find out if you need to get vaccinated before setting off. Carry some basic medicines and bandages if you can, especially if you’re venturing into the wilderness. On occasion you might have to be careful about where and what you eat as well. Talk to someone who has travelled to India and you just might hear the story about how the delicious chicken Tikka from a street vendor gave them a bad case of ‘Delhi Belly’.

Happy tripping!

Parag Murali is the Marketing & Happiness Manager at penroads.com. He combines his love for travelling and people into a daily passion for bringing travellers together. You can contact him at parag@penroads.com for just about anything, so feel free!

 

Deaths and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 could increase dramatically in Montreal if social distancing measures are lifted, according to a new study.

Dynamo Dresden, who play in the second tier of German Football, have put their entire squad and coaching staff into two-week isolation after recording two new coronavirus cases.

Mail Merge for Gmail to help you send personalized emails.

Plans are being considered to resume a curtailed Pro14 season on 22 August following the coronavirus crisis.

Justin Gaethje produces the best performance of his career to finish Tony Ferguson and win the UFC interim lightweight title at UFC 249.

Dynamo Dresden, who play in the second tier of German Football, have put their entire squad and coaching staff into two-week isolation after recording two new coronavirus cases.

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

Traveling "home" this holiday season? Don't fall into your old routine. Your high school hangout may be an easy go-to, but if you don't live there anymore there's a good chance you're missing out on some great new local spots. (Plus, be honest: you already know what all your classmates are up to from Facebook.)

We turned to local writers to help you rediscover your hometown over Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. Each city guide features a great new restaurant to try while you're in town, a cool neighborhood that wasn't on the radar last year or a store where you can pick up a keepsake to bring your old home back to your new home. We'll also catch you up to speed on the hot topics of conversation in each city, so you'll come back savvy enough to join the local sports banter or eat your holiday weight in Cronuts.

Click your city below to learn what's new since the last time you went home:

Continue reading Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season

Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 25 Nov 2013 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, Canada, United States

So you've finished your Thanksgiving dinner and you're finally sick of turkey leftovers. It's time to get out there and hit the great new restaurant that just opened in your hometown or wherever you're spending the holidays. (FYI: Aol Travel knows the hot restaurants in cities around the U.S.)

Wherever you go, remember that there are appropriate ways to behave. And there are horrible ways to behave, as highlighted in this Montreal Gazette story by two Montreal-area restaurant servers. Among other things, they urge:

Continue reading Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season?

Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season? originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

Last night's live production of The Sound of Music on NBC got more flak than Maria did for being an unsolvable problem nun. The acting was bad, the costumes St. Pauli-esque and the mountains... gasp! They were fake!

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

But there was one winner in last night's performance: the city of Salzburg, Austria. Home of the Von Trapps, setting of the original movie and now site of thousands of Edelweiss-blasting tour buses and gazebo-worshipping 16-going-on-17-year-olds, Salzburg enjoyed a flurry of love last night.

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: North America, United States, Hotels and Accommodations

Top reasons to visit San Diego right now:

• it's warm and you're not
• former mayor Bob Filner is under house arrest, so there's less of a chance you'll get harassed
• you want to ice skate outside but don't like the cold

Continue reading Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate

Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: North America, United States

Two weeks ago, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it would began allowing travelers to apply for its PreCheck program, "an expedited screening process" through airport security.

Curiously though, the only airport in the country where travelers could complete the program's required background interview was Indianapolis International Airport. That changed today when TSA opened three enrollment centers in the Washington, DC area. Interestingly, none of them are at DC-area airports. Nor are any of them in DC itself.

Continue reading Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks

Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Europe, North America, France, United Kingdom, United States

The litany of year-end travel-related lists continues. Today, it's TripAdvisor, which unveiled its most reviewed cities. Leading the way: London, Rome and Paris, according to the Telegraph. The top U.S city was New York, which ranked fourth overall -- a stunning blow for American exceptionalism.

Continue reading London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List

London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

Traveling "home" this holiday season? Don't fall into your old routine. Your high school hangout may be an easy go-to, but if you don't live there anymore there's a good chance you're missing out on some great new local spots. (Plus, be honest: you already know what all your classmates are up to from Facebook.)

AOL Travel turned to local writers to help you rediscover your hometown over the winter holidays. Each city guide features a great new restaurant to try while you're in town, a cool neighborhood that wasn't on the radar last year or a store where you can pick up a keepsake to bring your old home back to your new home. AOL Travel also will catch you up to speed on the hot topics of conversation in each city, so you'll come back savvy enough to join the local sports banter or eat your holiday weight in Cronuts.

Click your city below to learn what's new since the last time you went home:

Continue reading Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season

Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 18 Dec 2013 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

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.

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

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.

A new, squeaky clean business venture is helping Calgary’s most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frank Soo, the first and only player of Asian heritage to represent England's national football team, has been honoured by Google.

The following article, Professor Who Mocked Barron Trump During Senate Hearings Gets Censorship Position at Facebook, was first published on 100PercentFedUp.com.

Facebook just announced a 20 person board of oversight that will assist with content moderation. One of the people selected for the board, a professor at Stanford Law School, was announced as a member of the board and is raising eyebrows because of her snarky comment about Barron Trump during Senate Impeachment Hearings. Pamela Karlan, […]

Continue reading: Professor Who Mocked Barron Trump During Senate Hearings Gets Censorship Position at Facebook ...

Members Event

Event participants

Parag Khanna, Author, Connectography: Mapping the Global Network Revolution

4 July 2016

Despite its dramatic rejection of the South China Sea arbitration case initiated by the Philippines, China is gearing up to play a much larger role in the evolution of the international legal system.

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Professor Philippe Sands QC, Barrister, Matrix Chambers
Chris Whomersley, Deputy Legal Adviser, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2002-14)
Professor Julia Xue, Academy Senior Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House
Chair: Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Distinguished Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House

14 July 2016

China’s sense of entitlement has collided with international law and, for the time being, lost. The way is open for a new regional understanding.

Hidden in the flash. posted a photo:

With a lockdown in place it is against the rules for me to go to places I like to shoot, so I though I would try to create a series called Isolated creativity. The series is not intended to be a diary but a way of documenting thoughts and emotions via photography.

I've felt a bit like Pink Rabbit over the passed few day. I'm not fed up and depressed by the lockdown but by the people who think that it's okay to break the rules. By the tabloid media that run stories that convince people it's okay to go out and about, when it Isn't. By the political points scoring that has started to appear in all forms of media.Lastly I fed up with second home owners that have turned up during lockdown and appear to be going out and about most days.

Just like Pink Rabbit I have the blues.

The investigation into the fatal shooting in Brunswick, Georgia, will also look at a neighbor of suspects Gregory and Travis McMichael who recorded video of the incident, authorities said.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem sent letters to two Sioux tribes demanding they remove COVID-19 checkpoints because they interfere with traffic.

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.

Immigration is a prominent part of the United States’ DNA, despite concerns about immigrants’ ability to integrate. An examination of recent immigrant inflows shows newcomers to the United States are integrating well, based on language proficiency, socioeconomic attainment, political participation, residential locale, and social interaction indicators.

Civil society provides a crucial link between governments and the communities they represent—infusing policy processes with grassroots knowledge to which governments may not otherwise have access. Looking at the European Union’s efforts to engage with civil society in its “neighborhood,” this report examines the benefits, challenges, and mechanisms to building dialogue and cooperation on migration and development.

Cavalier’s technical director, Rudolph Speid, says the recent positive ranking by CIES (International Centre for Sports Studies) Football Observatory, a research group based in Switzerland, is a reflection of the work the club is doing in trying to...

ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC): Well-travelled Barbadian umpire Gregory Brathwaite has been tipped to become the next Test umpire from the region. WEST INDIES Cricket Umpires Association secretary, Vivian Johnson, said the 50-year-old Brathwaite was...

THE LAST two months have been two of the worst in the life of former national netball star Nichala Gibson. She lives in New York City, the epicentre for the COVID-19 virus in the United States. Gibson and her sister suffered, then recovered from...

As daunting as this COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be, and as devastating as its impact is on people both here at home and around the world, we must stand together, united. We must all act with purpose, resolve, love and compassion because when we...

Almost five years ago, lawmakers on a bipartisan committee of Parliament agreed unanimously to amend the law to give the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) the power to arrest and prosecute cops. That proposed amendment, which was...

Education officials across the Caribbean and Latin America have asserted that teachers will be in need of psycho-social support for their return to the classroom, following the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 91,710 teachers and seven million...