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Princeton reaffirms climate pledge

Princeton University has reaffirmed a statement it made in 2015 expressing the hope that the then-upcoming U.N. Climate Negotiations in Paris would “lead to significant progress in promoting clean energy and other positive actions to address the environmental impacts of climate change.”




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Reinvent, smartly: A Gates Foundation-led rethink of New York public schools has promise and risks

A state full of parents who, having been suddenly forced to help homeschool youngsters, have by the millions grown more appreciative of the work of professional teachers in actual classrooms, had reason to worry when they heard how Gov. Cuomo trotted out plans for a Gates Foundation reinvention of public education statewide.




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US Space Force Releases First Recruitment Video, Acknowledges Netflix Comedy 'Space Force'

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.




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Messi or Ronaldo? Your best Ballon d'Or winner of Premier League era revealed

In the latest MOTD podcast the experts discussed the top 10 Ballon d'Or winners of the Premier League era - and here's how you ranked them.




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The 1957 flu that killed one million people

In 1957 a new strain of flu emerged in East Asia and quickly spread around the world, killing a million people.




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Motorcyclist killed in crash, police looking for witnesses

A man is dead after a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in southeast Calgary.




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Sharp-tailed Sandpiper


I photographed this Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (Calidris acuminata) today near Stanhope in Victoria.




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Blue-billed Duck


A male Blue-billed Duck (Oxyura australis), photographed today near Stanhope in Victoria.




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Ousted health official dismisses Trump's claim he is disgruntled: 'I am frustrated at a lack of leadership'

Ousted vaccine expert Rick Bright said he is "frustrated at our inability to be heard as scientists."





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Top Republican Lawmaker Disclosed Stock in Chinese Company He Labeled a Nat Sec Threat

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





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As many as 75,000 could die from "deaths of despair" as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. One expert says economic turmoil has always led to an increase in suicides.

"I think it's always important to think about suicide as individual vulnerabilities and context," Eric Caine said.





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South Dakota illegally placed disabled people in nursing homes, federal investigation finds




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CRIPPLED - Several St Catherine businesses hobbling as lockdown jitters linger

At least 10 stores inside the Portmore Mall have fallen casualty to the economic chokehold brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, with several others struggling to stay afloat as St Catherine businesses grapple with revenue losses. And with a 14-day...




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Cedric Stephens | Business interruption insurance debate unsettled

RISKS...




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Still an Hourglass?: Immigrant Workers in Middle-Skilled Jobs

Report release on the immigrant workforce and skills with the U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education; the Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce; and report authors.




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Immigration Policy and Less-Skilled Workers in the United States: Reflections on Future Directions for Reform

Notwithstanding the broad consensus on the benefits of highly skilled immigration, the economic role of less-skilled immigrants is one of the more controversial questions in the immigration debate. While less-skilled immigrants bring economic benefits for U.S. consumers, employers, and skilled workers, they impose some costs on U.S. workers competing for similar jobs.




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Does Low-Skilled Immigration Hurt the U.S. Economy? Assessing the Evidence

In a report by MPI's Labor Markets Initiative, noted economist and Georgetown University Public Policy Institute Professor Harry J. Holzer examines the economic reasoning and research on these questions and looks at the policy options that shape the impact of less-skilled immigration on the economy. The discussion is on what policy reform would best serve native-born American workers, consumers, and employers, as well as the overall U.S. economy.




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Legal Immigration Policies for Low-Skilled Foreign Workers

The current U.S. legal immigration system includes few visas for low-skilled workers, and employers have relied heavily on an unauthorized workforce in many low-skilled occupations. This issue brief explains the questions that policymakers must grapple with when designing programs for admission of low-skill workers, for temporary as well as permanent entry. The brief focuses in part on the recent agreement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO regarding admission of future low-skilled workers.




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[ Other - Games & Recreation ] Open Question : A dnd session where the party killed a manticore and decided to bring the corpse back to town to sell. How much money should this give them?




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Moving Up or Standing Still? Access to Middle-Skilled Work for Newly Arrived Migrants in the European Union

The global economic crisis and changing migration patterns in Europe bring up questions about how well immigrants are able to find employment and progress into better jobs over time. This overview report caps a series of six country case studies evaluating the employment outcomes for foreign-born workers during their first decade in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.




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Turning a Corner? How Spain Can Help Immigrants Find Middle-Skilled Work

The economic crisis of 2008 hit Spain with a disproportionate effect on those in temporary work, revealing underlying gaps in the policy framework meant to support the inclusion of both immigrants and other vulnerable individuals in the Spanish labor market. This report assesses how well recent reforms are filling these gaps and helping immigrants and other disadvantaged workers move into middle-skilled jobs.




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Aiming Higher: Policies to Get Immigrants into Middle-Skilled Work in Europe

This report is the final one in an MPI-International Labour Office series that examines the employment prospects of migrants in the EU (focusing on the case-study countries of the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), as well as the effectiveness of integration and workforce development policies in helping these workers overcome barriers and ascend out of low-skilled work.




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Healed eyes

During an outreach God used the MDT team to intervene for a young girl who went away praising God.




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Led by the Spirit

Used by God beyond her skills as a dentist, an outreach participant shares the gospel with a disabled woman, whose life is forever changed.




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Milestones and called off engagements

The Good News II School in Mpulungu, Zambia, has grown from 20 students to over 180. Students have grown from the values they learnt.




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Discipled, equipped and transformed

A young woman's life is transformed by the love of Jesus shared and displayed through Tabitha Skills Training in Zambia.




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From troubled teen to disciple

The journey of a young Albanian girl from the Roma and Gypsy community who went from being a troubled teenager to excitedly following Jesus!