Lawmakers in Hong Kong broke out in a scuffle Friday as they fought over who would take control of a committee.

The USS Montgomery and the USNS Cesar Chavez sailed into the South China Sea this week in support of the West Capella drill ship, according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has ordered two Sioux tribes to remove checkpoints designed to curb the coronavirus on tribal lands.

"Real Housewives of New York" star Tinsley Mortimer gave an update on her wedding plans amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Queen guitarist Brian May is recovering after tearing his gluteus maximus during a moment of "over-enthusiastic" gardening.

The Trump administration’s plan to create a "merit-based" U.S. immigration system, lessening the longstanding focus on family reunification in favor of more economic migrants, has met with a lackluster response from Democrats and Republicans alike. This Policy Beat article explores how the Trump proposal would reshape immigration to the United States, and how it compares to selection systems in other countries and past debates about changing the U.S. system.

The prolonged health and safety stressors of COVID-19 has many parents reaching out to mental health professionals with concern over their teenagers’ increased levels of anxiety. In the United States,...

I have a 15-year-old son who is on the autism spectrum. He is in his first year of high school. For the beginning part of the school year, before COVID-19,...

During a time when the world is focused on the current COVID-19 pandemic, a physical health crisis, and all those treating the physical symptoms of this pandemic, we must not...

i even got this from pro trans page that say they have laws banning men from women's room & trans aka GD was put into mad house, & even then there been alot of time where rapists &perverted freaks been using other Gender's bath room too doesn't make it right, they go to prison if they find out

*my legit questions

(I am in the USA). There was 8 Henry s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England

Oh would that 'less laws/more liberty/more state capital power' look anything like Mike Pence's Religious Freedom Restoration Act or in other words the 'we Conservative Republican Christians are such oppressed persecuted victims WAAAAA WAAAA' Bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIikqPmbgvI 

Over the past decade, state and local policymakers have increasingly stepped into the void left by Washington over legislative reform of the immigration system and have enacted their own policies, particularly in regard to illegal immigration. This article explores this trend of increased activism and examines whether restrictive state immigration laws have had an effect on the size of immigrant populations at the state level.

The failure of Geert Wilders’ right-wing, anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) to become the top vote-getter in the Dutch parliamentary elections is being hailed as proof of the limits of anti-Muslim rhetoric and even the “waning” of the appeal of right-wing populism. But as this commentary explores, a closer reading leads one to a more nuanced interpretation of the results and the recognition that Wilders will remain a major force.

On the frontlines of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic yet also more disproportionately affected by the virus and with reduced health care access, immigrants in the United States have largely found themselves blocked from federal economic relief. As states and philanthropic groups seek to plug the gap, this article examines conditions and changing policies around immigration and the coronavirus response.

Since the mid-1990s, Australia has moved away from a focus on family reunification to place greater emphasis on workers coming via temporary and permanent channels. The evolution of the country's points-based model for selecting economic migrants and move to a predominately employer-driven system offer lessons for other countries that seek to develop a tailored and targeted immigration selection system.

It is time for a fresh approach to the illness

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

One conversation could keep your kids safe

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

They don’t stand on one leg around just anybody but often prefer certain members of the flock.

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Office managers are under siege. They know that if they set the temperature to 74, they hear from the woman in human resources who says it is too cold. If they turn it up to 76, they hear from the man in marketing who wants to know why it is sweltering hot.

The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby last week gave Americans a chance to pick at the scab of what has become a favored obsession -- the debate over the motives of the Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

In Shakespeare's "King Lear," a powerful man comes to a tragic end because he surrounds himself with flatterers and banishes the friends who will not varnish the truth to please him.

The ambitious immigration overhaul package that Congress is studying has drawn criticism from conservatives who say it offers amnesty to lawbreakers, and from immigration advocates who say it will not do enough to bring millions of people out of the shadows.

There are two ways to think about the staggering amounts of money given by special interest groups to politicians -- the type of contributions that were detailed for the last quarter in reports filed yesterday by presidential candidates and members of Congress.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge . . . "Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been . . . "

Sen. John McCain's quest for the Republican presidential nomination was once seen as dead, but like those robots in the "Terminator" movies that reassemble themselves after being blown to smithereens, he came back. Five years ago, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) was a virtually unknown African American ...

Consider these scenarios. Scandal A: A prominent politician gets caught sleeping with a campaign aide and plunges himself into an ugly paternity dispute -- all while his cancer-stricken wife is fighting for her life.

After nearly two years of political jockeying for the presidency, hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising and wall-to-wall campaign coverage in the media, nearly half of all Americans eligible to cast ballots in the presidential election may not bother to vote. Turnout for primaries, as well...

Last year, as the financial meltdown was getting underway, a scientist named Yaneer Bar-Yam developed a computer model of the economy. Instead of the individuals, companies and brokers that populate the real economy, the model used virtual actors. The computer world allowed Bar-Yam to do what...

I have never watched Hidden Figures. Was that a bad way to start off an article concerning the late Katherine Johnson, the NASA legend whose persistence, precision, and proclivity for mathematics sent America to space in the 1960s? Maybe it was. … Continue reading →

During the 2015–16 migration crisis, European asylum systems were stretched to a breaking point. Yet many of the structural issues that contributed to failures to register newcomers, insufficient reception capacity, and growing backlogs of asylum cases existed before—and many remain unresolved. This report critically evaluates Common European Asylum System legal and operational shortcomings at a time when reform is on the table.

With pressure mounting on EU Member States to create and scale up refugee resettlement programs, many have turned to peers in other countries for information, advice, and operational support. This report maps the many forms resettlement-focused peer-support initiatives take and discusses common stumbling blocks and strategies for policymakers and program designers looking to make the most of these critical exchanges.

European countries have ramped up their investments in helping refugees find work and integrate into society. Yet little hard evidence exists of what programs and policies work best. This report proposes a new framework for thinking smartly about integration programming, using cost-benefit analysis to look beyond short-term, economic outcomes to also measure indirect benefits through a social-value concept.

One of the major challenges Canada faced during its extraordinary push to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees during a four-month period was to find housing for these newcomers. This report explores how the government, resettlement case workers, and private citizens tackled this challenge—balancing cost and location, access to services, and more—and how lessons learned can improve refugee housing practices for other countries going forward.

As the U.S. workforce ages and the economy becomes ever more knowledge-based, policymakers face a key question: Do workers have the skills to meet tomorrow's demands? This report examines how immigrants and their children—the primary source of future labor-market growth—fit into the discussion. The report offers a first-ever profile of the 30 million immigrant-origin adults without a postsecondary credential.

With immigrants and their U.S.-born children poised to be the main source of labor-force growth, these adults are an important target for efforts to build the skills of the U.S. workforce to meet the knowledge-based economy of tomorrow. This fact sheet and state data snapshots explore the characteristics of adults without an academic degree or professional credential, by immigrant generation, race/ethnicity, and more.

Over the last several years it has become clear that higher order assemblies on membranes, exemplified by signalosomes, are a paradigm for the regulation of many membrane signaling processes. We have recently combined two-color direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) with the (Clus-DoC) algorithm that combines cluster detection and colocalization analysis to observe the organization of 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) and 5-lipoxygenase–activating protein (FLAP) into higher order assemblies on the nuclear envelope of mast cells; these assemblies were linked to leukotriene (LT) C4 production. In this study we investigated whether higher order assemblies of 5-LO and FLAP included cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) and were linked to LTB4 production in murine neutrophils. Using two- and three-color dSTORM supported by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy we identified higher order assemblies containing 40 molecules (median) (IQR: 23, 87) of 5-LO, and 53 molecules (62, 156) of FLAP monomer. 98 (18, 154) molecules of cPLA2 were clustered with 5-LO, and 77 (33, 114) molecules of cPLA2 were associated with FLAP. These assemblies were tightly linked to LTB4 formation. The activation-dependent close associations of cPLA2, FLAP, and 5-LO in higher order assemblies on the nuclear envelope support a model in which arachidonic acid is generated by cPLA2 in apposition to FLAP, facilitating its transfer to 5-LO to initiate LT synthesis.

In Staphylococcus aureus–caused endocarditis, the pathogen secretes staphylocoagulase (SC), thereby activating human prothrombin (ProT) and evading immune clearance. A previous structural comparison of the SC(1–325) fragment bound to thrombin and its inactive precursor prethrombin 2 has indicated that SC activates ProT by inserting its N-terminal dipeptide Ile1-Val2 into the ProT Ile16 pocket, forming a salt bridge with ProT's Asp194, thereby stabilizing the active conformation. We hypothesized that these N-terminal SC residues modulate ProT binding and activation. Here, we generated labeled SC(1–246) as a probe for competitively defining the affinities of N-terminal SC(1–246) variants preselected by modeling. Using ProT(R155Q,R271Q,R284Q) (ProTQQQ), a variant refractory to prothrombinase- or thrombin-mediated cleavage, we observed variant affinities between ∼1 and 650 nm and activation potencies ranging from 1.8-fold that of WT SC(1–246) to complete loss of function. Substrate binding to ProTQQQ caused allosteric tightening of the affinity of most SC(1–246) variants, consistent with zymogen activation through occupation of the specificity pocket. Conservative changes at positions 1 and 2 were well-tolerated, with Val1-Val2, Ile1-Ala2, and Leu1-Val2 variants exhibiting ProTQQQ affinity and activation potency comparable with WT SC(1–246). Weaker binding variants typically had reduced activation rates, although at near-saturating ProTQQQ levels, several variants exhibited limiting rates similar to or higher than that of WT SC(1–246). The Ile16 pocket in ProTQQQ appears to favor nonpolar, nonaromatic residues at SC positions 1 and 2. Our results suggest that SC variants other than WT Ile1-Val2-Thr3 might emerge with similar ProT-activating efficiency.

BRUSSELS — While the European Union has called on Member States to expand channels for foreign workers as a way to meet labour market needs and potentially tackle spontaneous migration, they have struggled to deliver on this pledge. To date, policies have focused more on attracting high-skilled workers, but less attention has been paid to admission of low- or middle-skilled nationals. Policymakers would do well not to overestimate the potential of legal channels to reduce irregular migration.

Findings will be discussed during 25 February MPI Europe – SVR webinar

Brussels and Gütersloh, 05.03.2020 — Anticipated reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was high on the agenda as nearly 2 million asylum seekers arrived at Europe’s door in 2015-16, quickly fell victim to EU Member State competing views on what constitutes equal burden-sharing, domestic politics around migration and the urgency of first addressing overtaxed national asylum systems.

WASHINGTON — Six million immigrant workers are at the frontlines of keeping U.S. residents healthy, safe and fed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data issued today. While the foreign born represented 17 percent of the 156 million civilians working in 2018, they account for larger shares in pandemic-response frontline occupations: 29 percent of all physicians in the United States, 38 percent of home health aides and 23 percent of retail-store pharmacists, for example.

The U.S. economy is facing an uncertain future as an aging workforce, stagnating labor force participation, skill mismatches, and automation reshape the labor market. This issue brief explores these forces and the role that immigration could play in supporting future U.S. economic growth. It also examines how immigration affects workers already in the country, both native born and immigrant.

India is the world's largest source for immigrant physicians, and for Indian-trained doctors and nurses the allure of working abroad is strong despite an acute domestic shortage of health-care workers. Against this pull, the Indian government has enacted a number of policies to limit and regulate the emigration of health-care professionals, though these have been more ad hoc in nature and not part of a fully realized strategy.

A new take on that old favourite, potato salad. The sesame and miso adds interest, while the walnuts add taste and crunch. So substantial it could be a meal in itself.

This recipe was featured on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment with Raf Epstein on Drive, 774 ABC Melbourne, 3:30 PM, courtesy of Julie Goodwin. Julie's new book is "Homemade Takeaway."