The 'I Believe I Can Fly' singer vows to be on his best behavior if he is released on bond and placed on house arrest while awaiting trial for sex charges.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred efforts to control the spread of the virus through development of innovative digital contact tracing tools. In Singapore, Israel and India there is already an app for that. In Europe there’s debate between two competing frameworks, which have names that sound like Star Wars’ droids: PEPP-PT and DT-3T. And in the US, Apple and Google recently announced collaboration on a contact tracing feature that will eventually be integrated with updates to the mobile device operating system. Although providing promising solutions, these technologies are not without problems. First, the privacy protections for such systems need to be carefully scrutinized. The US currently does not have a general data protection law, like the EU's GDPR, that would permit government oversight and review of these contact tracing solutions. Second, contact tracing only works when a significant number of users opt-in and agree to use the technology. But there is no guarantee that

Host Ethan Elkind sits down with sujatha baliga, director of the R estorative Justice Project at Oakland-based Impact Justice. sujatha is one of recipients of the 2019 MacArthur "genius" grants and joins us to discuss her work expanding access to survivor-centered restorative justice strategies.

The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas ’ upcoming season promises to be their best yet, honoring Beethoven’s 250 th birthday with “bucket list pieces” such as “Carmina Burana” and “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Paul Hass, SoNA's music director, credits the orchestra’s success to its familial atmosphere. “It’s so exciting to be a part of something like this that’s constantly growing,” Haas says. “It really is like a family—we all care about each other. This is something special; not every community has this.” SoNA’s upcoming season will feature multiple collaborations including the SoNA singers for “Carmina Burana” and violinist Jennifer Frautschi for “Beethoven’s Violin Concerto”. SoNA will also perform a premiere of Haas’ new composition, Angelique . Listen to the full interview between Haas and Of Note’s Katy Henriksen with the streaming link above.

We are told to keep promises and vows, but what if you've made a big mistake when making that vow? God forgives sins!

When I heard the news of John Prine's hospitalization on March 30, I was, of course, saddened. His music has meant so much to me over the decades. On that day, I recorded this cover of one of my favorites from Prine's early output, a political song cleverly disguised as a broken-hearted love ballad. There's a video I posted to YouTube of this very same performance, which also includes some spoken introduction, about how I was feeling upon getting the news of John's contracting the coronavirus, and so forth. So, if you'd like to hear that, and see the song performed, it's here. I did a little bit of work on the audio for this MeFiMu upload, though, so I think it might sound a little better here than on the video. Anyway, rest in peace, John Prine, rest in peace.

We are told to keep promises and vows, but what if you've made a big mistake when making that vow? God forgives sins!

Washington state and the city of Seattle have both made far-reaching promises to cover college tuition costs for many students. Despite the economic downturn, they say they will keep those promises.

The Racing Commission had a long and open discussion but again cleared the Cherokee Nation's belated application for a casino permit in Pope County. A Mississippi casino operator says it will sue if the Cherokees win the permit.

The post Arkansas Racing Commission sticks with competition for Pope County casino; Mississippi operators promise lawsuit if they don’t win appeared first on Arkansas Times.

Eyewear giant Specsavers has admitted that the personal information of some clients in Queensland is missing and may have been stolen.

The Landgate deal represents a sizeable change in position by WA Labor, a party that spent years fighting tooth and nail against privatisations but just locked in one of the state's biggest-ever deals with the private sector, writes Jacob Kagi.

Whether Australia or India wins the final, this T20 World Cup almost promised too much but has delivered even more. If fans #FillTheG on Sunday it will give this tournament the conclusion it deserves, writes Richard Hinds.

The Holmes family will continue staying home even after COVID-19 lockdown rules are relaxed — with good reason.

Three years after shutting down and shedding more than 30 local jobs, Binnaway's abattoir is reopening, offering a much-needed boost.

Climate protesters who brought the streets of Melbourne to a standstill are vowing to make a comeback in autumn as police reveal the cost of overtime for controlling the protests would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kari Gislason concedes it would have been very easy to write a sad memoir about his relationship with his dad - but he made a concerted effort not to go down that track.

In 2009 we were promised a fast National Broadband Network with optical fibre cables direct to most homes and businesses. Instead, we've ended up with a mix of technologies including optical fibre, copper wires, Hybrid Fibre Coaxial, fixed wireless and satellite.

An Interview With Helen Gammons, Program Director For The New MBA In The Music Industry, Henley Business School, London, England

Outrage is spreading over a shooting of a black man that led to murder charges more than two months later against a white father and son, but "all that matters is what the facts tell us,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds said Friday.

He says he’ll send the rapper’s mother to an awards show.

Approximately half of the world’s population is infected with the stomach pathogen Helicobacter pylori. Infection with H. pylori is the main risk factor for distal gastric cancer. Bacterial virulence factors, such as the oncoprotein CagA, augment cancer risk. Yet despite high infection rates, only a fraction of H. pylori–infected individuals develop gastric cancer. This raises the question of defining the specific host and bacterial factors responsible for gastric tumorigenesis. To investigate the tumorigenic determinants, we analyzed gastric tissues from human subjects and animals infected with H. pylori bacteria harboring different CagA status. For laboratory studies, well-defined H. pylori strain B128 and its cancerogenic derivative strain 7.13, as well as various bacterial isogenic mutants were employed. We found that H. pylori compromises key tumor suppressor mechanisms: the host stress and apoptotic responses. Our studies showed that CagA induces phosphorylation of XIAP E3 ubiquitin ligase, which enhances ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of the host proapoptotic factor Siva1. This process is mediated by the PI3K/Akt pathway. Inhibition of Siva1 by H. pylori increases survival of human cells with damaged DNA. It occurs in a strain-specific manner and is associated with the ability to induce gastric tumor.

An Offer in Compromise is an agreement between the taxpayer and the government that settles a tax liability for payment of less than the full amount owed. The Internal Revenue Service will generally accept an Offer in Compromise when it … Continue reading →

One-shot between Harry and Ginny a day before his Auror-training began. Canon, R&R

With the the 52nd annual Idaho Potato Conference and Ag Expo in Pocatello serving as a backdrop, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, U.S.

From flooding to Benefits Street, the rise of Ukip to the Apple Watch, the year was filled with huge, grim events. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas

So 2014’s almost done, and unless you got married, or had your firstborn, or won a Subaru filled with Maltesers in a radio phone-in, it’s unlikely to be a year you’ll remember fondly. It was filled with huge, grim events. So is every year, of course, but in 2014 it seemed there were fewer light moments to offset the enveloping dread. And everyone seemed angry, all the time. A whole planet, gritting its teeth. Hundreds protesting. Thousands marching. Millions waiting to attach their internalised rage to a hashtag at a moment’s notice. We could all use a lie-down over Christmas.

The year started badly for Britain when the sky decided to waterboard the lot of us. It rained incessantly throughout early January; big grey raindrops the size of cupboards. The government issued snorkels to anyone under 5ft 4in, while areas of Devon were submerged for so long the residents evolved gills and blowholes.

Carranza made an early exit from a community meeting in Bayside last week after two parents demanded answers about violent incidents at Marie Curie Middle School. “I in no way want to show disrespect to any parent that wants to be heard, and I apologize because as a parent myself, I can only imagine the pain parents are feeling when their children have been hurt,” he said.

Flushing High School junior Arialis Guzman said she “just didn’t get treated right" while police held her and a friend for more than a day in the aftermath of an after school altercation. The teens spent the night of Wednesday, Feb. 12 and much of the next day, Feb. 13, handcuffed to a bench in a Queens police precinct.

The next opportunity to take the test is Aug. 29, and the College Board will offer an additional chance to take the test in September if students are able to return to school.

Since being drafted by the Angels in the second round out of UCLA in 2017, Griffin Canning has been viewed as a potential front-line starter for his hometown team.

A preliminary report on patients infected with the coronavirus suggests the drug remdesivir may lower the risk of death in those with severe cases of COVID-19.

Low-income L.A. families are struggling to get students connected to the internet even with promises of help from phone and cable providers. A survey found 16% still unconnected.

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) recently published new preliminary figures for aid in 2013.

It showed official development assistance (ODA) aid from wealthy governments had increased to just under $135 billion in 2013 (at constant 2012 prices). This is roughly 0.3% of GNI (Gross National Income) of the donor nations.

Yet, over 40 years ago nations promised to reach 0.7% of their GNI by the mid-1970s. While each year the amount of aid falls quite short of that 0.7% target (less than half of that target), the quality and effectiveness of that aid is often questionable, sometimes benefiting the donor more than the recipient due to the types of conditions attached to this aid.

This update includes a number of new and updated charts and graphs.

Read full article: Foreign Aid for Development Assistance

Ontario’s minister of long-term care has announced that the provincial government will conduct a review of the long-term care system once the COVID-19 pandemic settles.

Keeping him in office prevents the left from destroying America with their socialistic ideology, a letter to the editor says.

I am just back from the Capitol, and talking to people at a Tea Party rally. Their view might be summed up as "bring it on!" They were chanting "Shut it down!" Several made the point that if non-essential parts of the government shut down, they'd be quite happy. If it's not essential, the view is, then the government shouldn't be doing it anyway.

I suspect there will be a deal. There is too much for both sides to lose in the blame game that would follow. But the strength of the Tea Party has already made it hard for their leadership to compromise, and will make selling any deal tough. President Barack Obama and the Democrats don't have quite the same problem but the cuts he has accepted have already upset supporters.

Compromise is a peculiar business, I reflected as I started reading a book called At the Edge of the Precipice, by Robert Remini, the former historian of the US House of Representatives. It is about the 1850 compromise over slavery. He writes that the man at the centre of this, Henry Clay, "understood the importance of compromise... each side must feel that it has gained something that is essential to its interest as the result of the compromise. To achieve that goal each side must surrender something important to the opposing side. Both sides can then claim victory."

His contention is that compromise prevented an early civil war that the North would have lost, having neither leadership nor material to win at that stage. The argument is that it prevented the splitting of the US into two nations and thus was a good move. All history is hindsight, but I am uncertain about praising an agreement on the grounds that it turned out that it came unstuck later with better results. It was hardly the argument at the time. And compromises depend who is at the table. The compromise was between white gentlemen, while the slaves themselves had no say. Perhaps they might have had some thoughts about the value of compromise.

What's this got to do with today's politics? Simply that like Mr Remini, most Americans admire politicians who can behave with dignity and find a way through a difficult problem, by giving and taking. Bipartisanship is one of the highest ideals of US politics. But many of the politicians might question the morality of this. Enough of them might see the matters of practicality and principle at stake as too important to allow the other side to claim any sort of victory.

The tax plan has benefited the wealthy while ballooning the deficit.

With the working class resorting to online vouchers for groceries and the poor eating less bread than before, is it not impractical for the president to expect ordinary citizens to tighten their belts when MPs, Ministers and government officials' well-fed bellies belie the trouble the economy is in?

Ironic toxic masculinity is in fashion! The Duke Cannon Naval Supremacy Big Brick of Bar Soap for Men [Amazon] promises that those thusly-soaped will smell of "naval supremacy", "productivity" or other humorously-abstract scents. (More traditionally "manly" odors such as tobacco, leather, burned vegetation, etc. are also available).

The veil of humor is threadbare -- "get clean and smell good without using feminine shower gels and accessories" -- but I'll admit that I do bathe in warm turpentine and it really helps.

Are you ready for images of the best “soap but for MEN” product you’ve ever seen? pic.twitter.com/kVAWb57UlF

— Shayna Moon, Unity Lich (@qorquiq) May 8, 2020

UPDATE: Here's a balding treatment called "Lethal Uprising", spotted by Greg Sideyr.

I'll see your Naval Supremacy, and raise you pic.twitter.com/UJE9wxeRvp

— ????Greg | Applied Eschatology ???? (@Greg_Sideyr) May 8, 2020

Looking forward to Internecine Violence Toothpaste, Shambolic Venezeulan Coup Ice Cream, and Silently Endure Prison Abuse Hemmorhoid Cream with Aloe Vera. Read the rest

Research Event

Research Event

Healthcare insiders explain their hopes and fears for the government's plan to create a new AI lab within NHSX

Purpose: To determine the effect of smooth filter and partial volume correction (PVC) method on measured prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) activity in small metastatic lesions and to determine the impact of these changes on the molecular imaging (mi) PSMA scoring. Materials & Methods: Men with biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer with negative CT and bone scintigraphy were referred for ¹⁸F-DCFPyL PET/CT. Examinations were performed on one of 2 PET/CT scanners (GE Discovery 610 or Siemens mCT40). All suspected tumor sites were manually contoured on co-registered CT and PET images, and each was assigned a miPSMA score as per the PROMISE criteria. The PVC factors were calculated for every lesion using the anatomical CT and then applied to the unsmoothed PET images. The miPSMA scores, with and without the corrections, were compared, and a simplified "rule of thumb" (RoT) correction factor (CF) was derived for lesions at various sizes (<4mm, 4-7mm, 7-9mm, 9-12mm). This was then applied to the original dataset and miPSMA scores obtained using the RoT CF were compared to those found using the actual corrections. Results: There were 75 men (median age, 69 years; median serum PSA of 3.69 ug/L) with 232 metastatic nodes < 12 mm in diameter (mean lesion volume of 313.5 ± 309.6 mm³). Mean SUV_max before and after correction was 11.0 ± 9.3 and 28.5 ± 22.8, respectively (p<0.00001). The mean CF for lesions <4mm (n = 22), 4-7mm (n = 140), 7-9mm (n = 50), 9-12 mm (n = 20) was 4 (range: 2.5-6.4), 2.8 (range: 1.6-4.9), 2.3 (range: 1.6-3.3) and 1.8 (range 1.4-2.4), respectively. Overall miPSMA scores were concordant between the corrected dataset and RoT in 205/232 lesions (88.4%). Conclusion: There is a significant effect of smooth filter and partial volume correction on measured PSMA activity in small nodal metastases, impacting the miPSMA score.

4 December 2019

Research Event

Event participants

Hon. Manuel José Nunes Júnior, Minister of State for Economic Coordination, Republic of Angola
Chair: Dr Alex Vines OBE, Managing Director, Ethics, Risk & Resilience; Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House

Research Event

Inga Nilsson
Mar 10, 2020; 0:jlr.RA120000654v1-jlr.RA120000654
Research Articles