The House has passed a defense policy bill that authorizes the biggest pay raise for troops in more than two decades. Supporters overcame objections from some conservatives concerned it didn’t do enough on cultural issues, such as restricting the Pentagon’s diversity initiatives and gender-affirming health care for transgender service members. The Senate had already overwhelmingly passed the bill on Wednesday, so now it goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. One of the most divisive aspects of the bill is a short-term extension of a surveillance program aimed at preventing terrorism and catching spies. Opponents of the extension wanted changes designed to boost privacy protections for Americans.

The post Big pay raise for troops in defense bill sent to Biden. Conservatives stymied on cultural issues first appeared on Federal News Network.

Location: Electronic Resource- 

SwipBox International A/S is currently testing a digital labelling solution, which will facilitate the introduction of reusable packaging, in close collaboration with logistics provider dao and e-retailer BEAUTYCOS.

The Tesla and SpaceX leader's beef with OpenAI flared up again after Apple unveiled its plans to use ChatGPT to support some of its AI features. Apple said privacy is a key component of its entry into the space.

Not wearing hearing aids could lead to increased risks of social isolation and Alzheimer's Disease.

The right has been spreading outrageous lies, claiming that kids are going to school as one gender and coming home as another after "impromptu surgeries." The writer points out how absurd this idea is: surgeries, especially gender-affirming ones, aren’t done in schools, don’t happen on a whim, and certainly aren’t performed on minors without extensive parental involvement. It’s a scare tactic with no basis in reality. by Vivian McCall

Lately, Donald Trump has been spreading a ridiculous lie that kids are going to school one gender and arriving home another.

I wanted to explain how a person doesn’t have to know anything about transgender people, schools, or medicine to know this isn’t true. A little boy isn’t going to come skipping home from school a little girl after an impromptu genital gender-affirmation surgery because gender-affirmation surgeries are not impromptu, are rarely performed on minors, and are never performed on minors without parental consent. They’re not performed in schools at all because schools don’t have operating rooms. Even if there was enough time in a school day to rush a kid to the hospital, this is not a check-up. Nobody waltzes out of the hospital after a major surgery. Think for one second and it makes no fucking sense.

Then I heard Trump say that the Democrats want gender surgeries for “almost everyone in the world” because they’re evil. Suddenly, it felt kind of futile and stupid to write a sarcastic, reasonable explanation of the facts because the floor for what Trump is willing to say about transgender people is a chasm. 

By his telling, the people cheer him on when he mentions “transgender” at his rallies, and he’ll do anything for the applause. This fervor is also why the hundreds of failed anti-trans bills—or polling that shows Americans by and large don’t really give a shit about trans issues and would rather talk about the economy—won’t dissuade Republicans from launching more anti-trans campaigns and introducing hundreds more bills restricting LGBTQ civil rights. During the World Series, viewers were subjected to anti-trans and anti-abortion ads so graphic that networks issued content warnings explaining that legally they have to air anything a qualified political candidate pays for.

We’re not having a rational conversation about trans issues in this country, we’re watching a panic attack about the threat trans people supposedly pose to the concept of gender and the nuclear family.

My better angels want me to tell conservatives about the trans people who want children with their spouses, or still love the ones they had before coming out. But if someone believes Big Gender is an evil enterprise, it’ll take someone they love coming out for them to recognize the groomer talk as the manipulative fiction it is. It will always be easier to hate some blue-haired apparition lurking in the shadows of your mind than your childhood buddy Jim when she tells you to call her Linda.

For obvious reasons, the possibility of a Trump victory is freaking out people in the queer community, even here in Washington, with our protective laws and Democrat-dominated Legislature. Because what Trump says and does are often different things, they’re unsure of the implications for their health care, their families, their marriages, and their futures. 

What We Can and Should Worry About at the Federal Level

In 2023, Penny Nance, CEO of the Christian nonprofit Concerned Women for America, asked Donald Trump to sign a pledge that if he won in 2024, he’d direct all federal agencies to uphold that a person’s “gender identity” doesn’t overrule their “sex.” Pledge or no pledge, nothing Trump did as president or has said during this campaign indicates he wouldn’t.

While in power, Trump appointed a slate of anti-LGBTQ judges. He banned transgender people from serving in the military and weakened their already tenuous access to gender-affirming care. How much farther he could go is another question. The man’s mind is an enigma. No matter who wins, the courts will remain a chaotic x-factor for us all.

By the time Trump took office in 2017, federal courts had recognized existing civil rights laws banning sex-discrimination protected gay and trans people, reasoning that anti-LGBTQ discrimination was, at its core, a reaction to people deviating from the norms of their sex. But the words “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” are not in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or Title IX, a 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education, or Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (the ACA, also known as Obamacare) outlining groups protected from discrimination.

Those rights exist, but they’re not codified. Their existence depends on a broader legal interpretation of what sex discrimination even means. 

Trump’s administration rejected that interpretation. It rolled back Obama-era non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people and plotted to erase the word “sex” from federal civil rights laws. In 2019, the House passed the Equality Act, a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “ “gender identity” to the Civil Rights Act, on a bi-partisan vote, but the Senate didn’t take up the bill after Trump said he wouldn’t sign it. The bill passed the House again with only three Republican supporters, but did not survive a Senate filibuster. 

Then at the end of Trump’s presidency, the conservative US Supreme Court delivered a stunning 6-3 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County that found Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protected gay and trans people from employment discrimination. As Trump’s handpicked appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion, “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Trump, whose White House filed two briefs urging the court to rule the other way, admitted to reporters it was a “very powerful decision, actually.” Not that its “power” changed his thinking. 

Yipee! All solved, right? Gay people have rights forever? Gorsuch is competing in International Mr. Leather next year and drinking with us at the Stonewall Inn? Right? 

Not quite. 

Bostock laid an important legal precedent and textualist argument that’s been cited in hundreds of sex-discrimination cases around the country.  The ruling prompted President Joe Biden to issue an executive order on his first day in office that directed all federal agencies to consider policies banning sex discrimination to apply to gay and trans people. It remains at the core of its interpretations of Title IX, the Violence Against Women Act, the ACA and the federal Fair Housing Act.

But Bostock did not end the fight, and its narrow scope leaves some rights potentially vulnerable should Trump take control. Say he’s elected and makes good on his pledge to Nance. The Supreme Court was clear on workplace protections, but Trump’s lackeys could say their ruling doesn’t apply to housing, healthcare, access to public accommodations, and education.

Mirroring Biden’s executive order to federal agencies, Trump said he’d reverse Title IX protections for trans students on day one of his presidency. He’s also vowed to ban gender-affirming care for minors, which he’s called child mutilation, and cut federal funding for schools that push “gender ideology.” His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, introduced five anti-trans bills between 2023 and 2024, which included criminalizing healthcare for trans kids. Saving his most deranged takes for the race’s photo finish, Vance appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and suggested middle- and upper-class white kids become trans to get into good schools, so they can, I guess, piss their pants in the lecture hall if a state revokes their bathroom access. As CNN pointed out, trans kids are actually a lot less likely to get into good schools because all the bullying, harassment, and dark thoughts tend to bring down the ol’ grade point average.

Harris, Harris, Harris, Harris, Harris. In the 2019 primary, she said she supported gender-affirming surgeries for trans migrants in custody. She’s not special for that–federal law requires the government to provide necessary medical care to inmates, and documents show Trump’s Federal Bureau of Prisons acknowledged that law–but people have made a lot of her apparent lack of support this cycle. When asked about transgender rights, Harris’s canned answer is that she’ll “follow the law.” Without a crystal ball or Ouija board handy, I’d hazard to guess she’d likely follow in Biden’s footsteps and his “follow the law” line is a dodge —perhaps part of her plan to nab all the Republican-leaning voters who can’t stand Trump but may not get trans issues. After all, trans issues have been a fruitful wedge issue precisely because people don’t understand them – and people fear what they don’t understand.

That said, laws are not virtues, and trans people are pissed about her lack of commitment. They’re scared because they’ve been pilloried in this election, and following the law in certain states means they don’t have civil rights. Plenty have fled those laws. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has one of the best records on gay and trans rights of any Democratic governor, from his time as a football coach sponsoring a Gay-Straight Alliance in a small town to signing an executive order to make Minnesota a “trans refugee state.” I don’t trust politicians as a rule, but Walz has been an ally much longer than it’s been cool or even acceptable.

Now for the part that made me go uh-oh out loud.

No matter who wins, these anti-discrimination protections are up against federal courts stacked with conservative appointees, and conservative think tanks have the money, the time, and the zealous devotion to launch sophisticated attacks to invalidate LGBTQ rights and restrict the legal definition of sex in perpetuity.

Jaelynn Scott, Executive Director of the Lavender Rights Project, a Seattle-based LGBTQ legal advocacy organization, is convinced the broad interpretation of Title VII will face continual legal challenges until lawmakers amend the Civil Rights Act to include “gender identity” or pass the Equality Act.

Federal judges have already blocked Biden’s Bostock-backed interpretations of Title XI and the ACA’s non-discrimination protections. The same Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of Bostock also blocked the administration's Title IX rules. The court’s recent decision on Chevron Deference compounds the problem. It not only weakened the power of federal agencies to enact new rules that comply with often vague laws from Congress, but it also made challenging federal regulations much easier and shows we can’t count on the Justices to adhere to binding legal precedent, which sucks because this all may come down to if or when the Supreme Court sets limits on Bostock. 

We know it will soon decide if laws restricting gender-affirming care violate the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. On December 4, the Court will hear US v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors.

The case is important because it could determine what level of protection trans people have under the Equal Protection Clause. Elana Redfield, Federal Policy Director at the Williams Institute, a LGBTQ public-policy research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, says the issue at the heart of this case is whether it is unlawful for the state to ban these treatments in the way that it did. 

Recent cases show the state might be able to legally prove no sex discrimination took place. The first is Dobbs, the case that struck down abortion. In the Dobbs decision, the court cited an old case called Geduldig v. Aiello, which found a state could legally deny insurance coverage for medical complications during pregnancy, even though it would have almost entirely burdened cis women, to say states could prohibit abortion. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals applied Geduldig to Adams, a case that upheld a state’s right to enact trans bathroom bans. In Skrmetti, The Sixth Court of Appeals again applied the same exact legal reasoning to gender-affirming care. It ruled the Bostock decision applied only to workplace discrimination and lawmakers had the right to regulate medical procedures as long as they did so without discriminatory intent. 

“I know, it's pretty in the weeds, but it is also important,” Redfield said in an email. “In part because it provides a pathway for courts to avoid finding sex discrimination, and in part because they are citing back to cases decided before “intermediate scrutiny” for sex discrimination was even established.”

It’s not all bad news. This April, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed lower court decisions that North Carolina’s and West Virginia's bans on gender-affirming care were unconstitutional. 

Trump’s focus on trans people has obscured his position on gay rights, which enjoy broader support from the American electorate than trans rights.

But would a party more aligned with the religious and extreme right than ever abandon the positions they’ve consolidated power over for decades, just like that? The supposedly “softer” Republican platform that claims the party will leave abortion to the states has not convinced millions of women across the country. Omitting a direct reference to same-sex marriage in that same platform, while still invoking its “sanctity,” shouldn’t convince gays, either. 

A second Trump administration would be filled with pre-vetted loyalists. The aides, staff, bureaucracy, and institutions that inhibited his most destructive impulses during his first turn have been foxed out of the henhouse. If Trump follows the plan outlined in Project 2025, he’ll reconstitute the administrative state as a faithful engine of Trumpism. If decisions from the Washington Post’s and Los Angeles Times’s billionaire owners are any indication, institutions may be folding in advance. Trump is promising to throw his political enemies in jail, for God’s sake. When have gay people ever emerged from a regime like that unscathed?

Um, What About Washington?

Even if everything goes to hell and Trump or the courts change how the government interprets sex-based anti-discrimination protections, Washington State will probably remain a good place to be gay and trans, legally speaking. Though there’s always uncertainty in the brackish waters between federal and state law, we're pretty Trump-proofed.

The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) broadly guards against anti-gay and anti-trans discrimination in housing, places of public accommodation, employment, credit transactions, healthcare, and other areas. 

Meaning you should be able to sign a new lease, take out a massive home loan, celebrate with fine dining and heavy drinking, stumbling and falling on your way out the door, breaking your arm, calling an ambulance, arriving at the hospital, and having a qualified medical professional examine you without anyone throwing your gay or trans ass into the street.

The WLAD also guarantees access to gender-affirming care and requires insurers to cover it, a protection the Gender Affirming Treatment Act (GATA) strengthened in 2022.

The state also allows those born here to change the gender marker on their birth certificate from M to F, F to M, or from either to X. In 2023, Governor Jay Inslee signed laws that sealed name changes for transgender people and protected trans runaways in the shelter system. He also signed a shield law that protects people who seek gender-affirming care and abortions in Washington from the authorities in states that have banned or criminalized their healthcare.

Even if the Supreme Court struck down Obergefell v. Hodges, gay marriage would remain legal in Washington, save the Supreme Court losing its mind and allowing for a federal prohibition on same-sex unions, another can of worms that would be litigated to hell along the lines of states rights. Gay couples would still be able to adopt, too. Lesbian couples could count on the law to protect access and insurance coverage for fertility treatments.

Adrien Leavitt, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Washington, says in many regards our state constitution is also more protective than the US constitution, that we have a strong State Supreme Court, and that our lawmakers have shown an ongoing commitment to upholding and strengthening protections for LGBTQ people.

Our Democratic lawmakers did let the right take one victory on LGBTQ issues this year, however, when it passed Let’s Go Washington’s legally ambiguous, but dog-whistle-y Parents Bill of Rights ballot initiative I-2081.

Concerned the law may allow parents to access their child’s counseling records, the ACLU of Washington, QLaw and Legal Voice filed suit. A King County Superior Court Judge later blocked that provision. But passing the law might have been a political calculation in Olympia. HadDemocrats let it go to voters, and it passed, the Legislature couldn’t amend it next session.

We still don’t have all the answers. Rebekah Gardea, QLaw’s director of community advocacy and outreach, raised I-2081 as an example in a pattern of attacks on LGBTQ rights across the country able to infiltrate even a progressive state like Washington. Even if advocacy groups can be fairly confident laws banning gender-affirming care would die in committee here in Washington, the right can always introduce an initiative if there’s the money and motivation to do so. In the event of a second Trump presidency, Gardea says her organization is concerned about how our shield law would hold against a federal investigation, or what potential data privacy gaps the state may have. It’s a question the Legislature may have to answer next session.

“There’s a lot of unknowns that we’re still looking into,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out how we strengthen those protections as soon as possible so there’s really no room for interpretation.”

Should the storm come, the best thing Washington could do is adopt the position that it will live up to its progressive values by vigorously defending them against outside actors, including a federal government that imposed restrictions on LGBTQ rights. Bob Ferguson, the Attorney General and Democratic frontrunner for the governor’s race, said in a statement he’d be ready on “day one” to combat a Trump presidency.

That’s all well and good for us, but sanctuary state thinking is a trap. Your civil rights are tenuous if they can disappear at the state line.  

These progressive state laws do not regulate hate and intimidation, and if the federal government goes screwball, there’s no telling how that would change the social dynamics in this country. They’ve already changed so much in a short period of time.

Eight years ago in 2016, lawmakers nationwide had only introduced 55 anti-trans bills nationwide. That same year, North Carolina's passage of a single anti-trans bathroom bill prompted the NCAA to ban college sports championships in the state, PayPal to cancel plans for a new office and Beatle Ringo Starr to cancel a massive concert. The Associated Press determined the state stood to lose $3.76 billion dollars over the bathroom policy, which is why lawmakers repealed it the next year. In the last two years, we’ve seen between 1,000 and 1,200 bills. Most fail, but plenty are passing. Where are those boycotts now? The only transgender-related social contagion in this country is ignorance. When it comes to hate, state borders are astoundingly porous.

I’m very confident Washington won’t pass a gender-affirming care ban in the next five years, or even the next 10 years. But 15? A lot can change. Fifteen years ago, Donald Trump was hosting Season 8 of The Celebrity Apprentice. 

The world changes and complacency is one way to speed up that change. There’s a snide attitude in blue states about red states, like the only reason regressive laws get passed is because all the people there are stupid and backward enough to let it happen. I hear variations of this contemptuous position in gay bars and on gay couches at parties all the time, and it totally ignores decades of disenfranchisement and manipulation that have tilted the balance of power in red states. 

So the next time you think something to the effect of, “at least I’m safe,” think about the woman going septic in the hospital parking lot, or the trans kid weighing suicide in their bedroom. If you’re not for them, you’re not for anything at all.

Start 2021 on the right foot with a Run of the Mill Challenge.

Vernon’s Song - a Christmas anthem for the homeless.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is convening a Central Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting on November 7-8. The meeting will address concerns regarding food safety on e-commerce platforms and strategize ways to enhance food product surveillance and testing across states.

It can be expensive to install rooftop solar panels, but they do pay for themselves over time. Not only does it save on energy costs, but a new University of Michigan study says the value of rooftop solar panels will continue to increase. It will also be vital as the climate continues to warm, and we will need more energy to keep cool. WEMU's David Fair was joined by U-M Energy Systems Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Craig to learn more about the research.

The Ann Arbor Public Schools' innovative Environmental Education program is 55 years old now and, throughout that time, has connected students to the natural environment. For 38 of those years, Dave Szczygiel has worked as a teacher and, for over two decades, as Environmental Education Consultant in the district. Now, he is retiring. He looks back and looks at what’s to come with WEMU's David Fair.

The popular Potawatomi Trail is about to get an environmental facelift. The hiking and biking trail connects Washtenaw and Livingston Counties and is about to get about $500,000 in upgrades. WEMU's David Fair spoke with Pinckney Recreation Area park manager, Chuck Dennison, to learn what that is going to look like.

The Michigan fuel tax is no longer sufficient to fund needed road repairs and maintenance. As more electric vehicles hit the streets, the tax will raise less money, but the need for road and bridge revenue will only increase. Conversations are underway about alternative possibilities. WEMU's David Fair talks about what that might look like with Denise Donohue, CEO of the County Road Association of Michigan.

Ann Arbor officials says some of the trees in the city are dying, and they attribute it to leaks in the DTE Energy natural gas infrastructure. The utility says it is not the problem. The city is asking DTE to conduct necessary repairs, while the utility argues it would be cost prohibitive to contract an arborist to evaluate potential methane damage to trees. What comes next? WEMU's David Fair discussed it with Ann Arbor Sustainability and Innovations Director, Missy Stults.

It’s that time of year, but each year, it seems to come a little earlier. Toxic algae blooms are starting to cover Lake Erie earlier than usual this summer. This year’s blooms are also expected to be bigger than last summer. WEMU's David Fair takes a look at the impacts of climate change on the blooms in Lake Erie with Dr. Richard Stumpf from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

PFAS contamination has already been a significant concern. Now, there may be reason to add to the worry. A study funded by the Ann Arbor-based Ecology Center finds there is an array of PFAS chemical profiles in rainwater falling over Ann Arbor and Southeast Michigan. WEMU's David Fair spoke with the center’s Erica Bloom about the findings and what it means to the environment and public health.

Washtenaw County put three ballot issues before voters in Tuesday's primary elections. All three touch on components of our environment. All three passed by a wide margin. WEMU's David Fair discusses the results and future impacts with Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi.

We all know that air pollution is bad for the environment and our health. A new study out of the University of Michigan now shows that it is contributing to a loss of independence among older adults. The study also shows that the economic impact of that loss comes in at an estimate of over $11 billion. WEMU's David Fair spoke with the lead author of the study, Dr. Sara Adar, about the findings.

America sure loves its electronics! The technologies continue to improve and there can be no question; it has made life more convenient. However, these items contain a number of contaminants and are an environmental hazard. WEMU's David Fair talked with Washtenaw County’s Director of Public Works, Theo Eggermont about increased efforts to recycle used electronics.

You may not have noticed, but the Ann Arbor Climate Corps has been quietly working this year to combat the affects of climate change and help the city achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. The program is designed to increase the Ann Arbor Office of Sustainability’s outreach capacity and help residents take action toward that end. WEMU's David Fair talked it over with Ann Arbor Climate Corps program manager, Maggie Halpern.

The Ann Arbor School District is transitioning away from the use of fossil fuels. The district was the first to sign up for DTE Energy’s MIGreen Power Program to get to 100% use of renewable energy, and the district will add four more all-electric school buses this academic year. WEMU's David Fair spoke with the Ann Arbor Schools' Director of Capital Programs, Jason Bing, about where the district is today and where it’s headed.

The first frost of the season probably isn’t too far away. Properly preparing the agricultural soil for next spring and summer is a matter of timing. Getting the cover crops in place is essential before a hard freeze occurs. The Washtenaw County Conservation District is working to make it convenient and effective for local farmers. Conservation technician Matt Dejonge explained it all in his conversation with WEMU's David Fair.

It's time to talk some trash! The 3rd annual Trash Talk Tour in Washtenaw County is right around the corner. Trash Talk Tour co-organizer and zerowaste.org executive director Samuel McMullen joined WEMU's David Fair with a special brand of "trash talk."

Some of Ann Arbor's streetlights can be distractingly bright. New LED lighting is helping with the city’s A2Zero Climate Action plan, but some worry over increased light pollution. WEMU's David Fair talked with Ann Arbor City Council member Dharma Akmon about how the city can move forward while addressing sustainability and accommodating public concern.

The world population is going up, and human-wildlife overlap is increasing. That can lead to negative outcomes, including spread of disease and species extinction. There can be benefits, too, but it will require some planning. That's the focus of a new study out of the University of Michigan. WEMU's David Fair spoke with Associate Professor in Conservation Science Dr. Neil Carter about the study and what can be done right here in Washtenaw County.

Over the summer, the Huron River Watershed Council conducted an extensive survey of freshwater mussels in the Huron River to determine potential impacts when the Peninsular Paper Dam is removed. It found that removing the Pen Dam could release sediment, potentially smothering downstream mussel populations. Once the dam is removed, though, the river will return to a more natural state, benefiting mussel species over time. WEMU's David Fair looked at the research and its implications with Huron River Watershed Council Ecologist Dr. Paul Steen.

Tree Town is looking to find new and productive ways to avoid wasting wood. The City of Ann Arbor is partnering with the company “Urban Ashes” to repurpose storm-damaged and diseased trees. We often discuss the ecological benefits of planting and maintaining trees but rarely look at the environmental impact wood can have once it’s down. Urban Ashes CEO Paul Hickman joined WEMU's David Fair to look at the partnership, how it will work and the benefits it can provide.

The University of Michigan is forging ahead and working towards being a leader in generative artificial intelligence with its U-M-GPT program. As it does, there are environmental concerns to be addressed. The initiative is part of Michigan’s broader effort to integrate AI into its academic and administrative infrastructure, enhancing learning, teaching, and research. But, AI consumes a great deal of energy. WEMU's David Fair spoke with the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at U-M, Dr. Ravi Pendse, about how U-M is dealing with the environmental ramifications of AI.

Washtenaw County has elected its next Water Resources Commissioner. Evan Pratt decided against running for re-election after serving four terms. Former Saline Mayor and State Representative Gretchen Driskell won the race. She joined WEMU's David Fair to discuss the priorities and challenges of the new job.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

It's more than fair to criticize the Rockies about how they have spent their money.

Noting that we are in hurricane season, the Ministry of Public Works said they are “issuing a timely tree trimming reminder for residents” as “it is aware of the current overgrowth of vegetation and tree branches, which have encroached into the island’s sidewalks and roadways.” A Ministry spokesperson said, “While the Ministry has worked tirelessly […]

Intel has announced that it will address the performance issues plaguing its recently launched Core Ultra 200S series, particularly in gaming. The company acknowledged that the launch did not meet expectations and plans to roll out updates by the end of November or early December to rectify the situation.

The post Intel Promises Fix for Arrow Lake Performance Issues Within a Month appeared first on ThinkComputers.org.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has released security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities impacting Aruba Networking Access Point products, including two critical bugs that could result in unauthenticated command execution. The flaws affect Access Points running Instant AOS-8 and AOS-10 - AOS-10.4.x.x: 10.4.1.4 and below Instant AOS-8.12.x.x: 8.12.0.2 and below Instant AOS-8.10.x.x:

Decision informed by report of the CPUC Committee on Naming.

Dear RSS Ground users, Due to the recent changes in LinkedIn developers documentation and specifications, some of the remote LinkedIn account management options require a substantial update. For this reason and at this moment RSS Ground LinkedIn Poster can only make posts to your personal feed. Posting to specific company pages is not currently available. However, […]

The post LinkedIn Poster issues appeared first on RSSground.com.

I am proud to announce that globalissues.org now also carries stories from UN News.

UN News recently reached out to engage in a partnership program whereby I am permitted to reproduce their news stories on globalissues.org. Together with IPS News, whose news stories I already carry, both are sources of important quality news global news. I hope you like them.

And many apologies for the lack of messages in recent years. I am still overcoming some personal challenges, but I have been keeping the site going behind the scenes. I hope to resume write my own content soon.

It is an embarrassing critique for Hamas, which has used religious arguments to justify its actions.

A fair number of Mac users have discovered that Spotlight Search is not working well in MacOS Sequoia, either missing files, apps, and sometimes not working at all to find any local file. For some users the issues with Spotlight happens right after they update to MacOS Seqouia, and for others it may happen later ... Read More

Samsung Electronics issued a rare apology and acknowledged on Tuesday it was facing a "crisis" over its technological competitiveness, reflected in a disappointing profit guidance, despite a global AI boom.

The following article, Steve Bannon Issues 90-Second WARNING To Deep State At Trump Victory Party (Video), was first published on Conservative Firing Line.

(Natural News) Steve Bannon, one of Donald Trump’s most fired-up supporters and allies all throughout the former president’s tumultuous political career, delivered a powerful speech after Trump’s victory warning the deep state that justice is coming. Fresh out of federal prison for his involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Bannon took the stage to deliver …

Continue reading Steve Bannon Issues 90-Second WARNING To Deep State At Trump Victory Party (Video) ...

20th CCP National Congress: Five issues to watch Expert comment LJefferson 13 October 2022

Interpreters of the Chinese Communist Party’s tea leaves will be paying close attention to the issues that will shape China’s trajectory for the next five years.

Xi Jinping’s expected anointment for an unprecedented third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is likely to generate global headlines when the party’s five-yearly National Congress begins on 16 October.

But with that outcome so widely forecast, interpreters of the CCP’s tea leaves will be paying closer attention to a range of more contested – and sometimes byzantine – issues that will shape China’s trajectory for the next five years, and reverberate around the world.

These are five key issues to watch out for during Xi’s political report, a dry but authoritative account of the CCP’s policy priorities for the next five years, and the subsequent deliberations over personnel appointments.

1. From market economy to ‘common prosperity’

As the world grapples with the economic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese economy is entering particularly choppy waters. China is forecast to grow at a slower rate than the rest of Asia for the first time in more than 30 years, according to the World Bank, as the impact of Xi’s COVID zero policies compounds a growing list of structural and cyclical challenges.

Xi is under pressure to offer some new prescriptions for the world’s second biggest economy, and he is likely to signal further shifts away from the market economics that propelled Chinese growth for decades toward his vision of ‘common prosperity’.

His ambition is to redefine progress, not in terms of producing double-digit growth, but in tackling long-standing challenges such as demographic decline, social inequality and high property prices – thereby meeting ‘people’s ever-growing needs for a better life’.

China’s leader may have arrived at the right diagnosis, but he has so far failed to find measures that deliver common prosperity. He will use the Party Congress to redesign some policy measures, likely putting a stronger focus on the development of rural areas to promote economic dynamism and generate employment opportunities.

2. COVID zero to endure?

While most of the world has opened up and learned to live with COVID-19, China is still pursuing a COVID zero policy that requires frequent lockdowns, stringent movement controls and closed borders. This approach has intensified economic pressures, exacerbated high youth unemployment, and is testing the patience of China’s upwardly mobile middle classes.

Those not employed by the state have been particularly hard hit and it is difficult to see how China’s economy can start to crank up again until Beijing reduces internal restrictions and reconnects with the world.

Xi has championed the COVID zero policy, which Beijing continues to insist is vital to protect vulnerable people and support economic and social stability. So, observers will be playing close attention to his political report for any signs of a possible softening or indications of alternative future pathways for managing the pandemic. But a wholesale shift does not appear to be on the cards.

3. Xi Jinping’s team

Sinologists’ enthusiasm for predicting leadership changes in the CCP is not matched by their ability to do so. The party’s roots as a secret organization ensure that it keeps a tight lid on information about top leaders.

Observers will be closely following appointments to the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power for the CCP and China’s supreme decision-making body. These choices will shape China’s future policy trajectory and give some signals about the extent of Xi’s concentration of power and his future plans.

Names to watch for possible promotion include Xi allies such as He Lifeng, currently head of the National Development Reform Commission, a key economic planning entity, and Zhang Qingwei, currently the party secretary of Hunan, an important and populous province.

As Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, the only woman on the Politburo, reaches the retirement age, there is also likely to be a slot open for her replacement, with Shan Yiqin, the party secretary of Guizhou, one potential option.

Tracking the fate of key Xi allies will also indicate how far he has managed to overturn the collective leadership system he inherited in 2012 and how comprehensively the CCP endorses this more centralized approach to governing China.

4. Taiwan

After the escalating tensions of the last few months, analysts will be looking for any possible change in tone when Xi speaks about Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as a renegade province. During the past five years, Xi has approached the outside world with a mix of high-octane rhetoric with pragmatism and patience.

Roland Bruderer
May 1, 2015; 14:1400-1410
Research

Mathias Uhlén
Dec 1, 2005; 4:1920-1932
Research

Colin T. McDowell
Nov 24, 2020; 0:RA120.002256v1-mcp.RA120.002256
Research

If the OBSMARGINS= or OM= option is specified in an LSMEANS, LSMESTIMATE, or SLICE statement and a user-defined format is applied to any of the effect variables in the OM-data-set , PROC PLM incorrectly stops proce

Bile acids (BAs) have been established as ubiquitous regulatory molecules implicated in a large variety of healthy and pathological processes. However, the scope of BA heterogeneity is often underrepresented in current literature. This is due in part to inadequate detection methods, which fail to distinguish the individual constituents of the BA pool. Thus, the primary aim of this study was to develop a method that would allow the simultaneous analysis of specific C24 BA species, and to apply that method to biological systems of interest. Herein, we describe the generation and validation of an LC-MS/MS assay for quantification of numerous BAs in a variety of cell systems and relevant biofluids and tissue. These studies included the first baseline level assessment for planar BAs, including allocholic acid, in cell lines, biofluids, and tissue in a nonhuman primate (NHP) laboratory animal, Macaca mulatta, in healthy conditions. These results indicate that immortalized cell lines make poor models for the study of BA synthesis and metabolism, whereas human primary hepatocytes represent a promising alternative model system. We also characterized the BA pool of M. mulatta in detail. Our results support the use of NHP models for the study of BA metabolism and pathology in lieu of murine models. Moreover, the method developed here can be applied to the study of common and planar C24 BA species in other systems.

The early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a complex clinical obstacle yet is key to improving the overall likelihood of patient survival. Current and prospective carbohydrate biomarkers CA19-9 and sTRA are sufficient for surveilling disease progression yet are not approved for delineating PDAC from other abdominal cancers and non-cancerous pancreatic pathologies. To further understand these glycan epitopes, an imaging mass spectrometry approach was utilized to assess the N-glycome of the human pancreas and pancreatic cancer in a cohort of PDAC patients represented by tissue microarrays and whole tissue sections. Orthogonally, these same tissues were characterized by multi-round immunofluorescence which defined expression of CA19-9 and sTRA as well as other lectins towards carbohydrate epitopes with the potential to improve PDAC diagnosis. These analyses revealed distinct differences not only in N-glycan spatial localization across both healthy and diseased tissues but importantly between different biomarker-categorized tissue samples. Unique sulfated bi-antennary N-glycans were detected specifically in normal pancreatic islets. N-glycans from CA19-9 expressing tissues tended to be bi-, tri- and tetra-antennary structures with both core and terminal fucose residues and bisecting N-acetylglucosamines. These N-glycans were detected in less abundance in sTRA-expressing tumor tissues, which favored tri- and tetra-antennary structures with polylactosamine extensions. Increased sialylation of N-glycans was detected in all tumor tissues. A candidate new biomarker derived from IMS was further explored by fluorescence staining with selected lectins on the same tissues. The lectins confirmed the expression of the epitopes in cancer cells and revealed different tumor-associated staining patterns between glycans with bisecting GlcNAc and those with terminal GlcNAc. Thus, the combination of lectin-IHC and IMS techniques produces more complete information for tumor classification than the individual analyses alone. These findings potentiate the development of early assessment technologies to rapidly and specifically identify PDAC in the clinic that may directly impact patient outcomes.

Exploring Public International Law Issues with Chinese Scholars – Part Four Other resource sysadmin 30 October 2018

As part of a roundtable series, Chatham House and the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) held a two-day roundtable in Beijing on emerging issues of public international law.

The specific objectives were to:

• create a platform for Chinese international law academics working on international human rights law issues to present their thinking and exchange ideas with counterparts from outside China;
• build stronger understanding within the wider international law community of intellectual debates taking place in China about the international human rights system and China’s role within it;
• support networking between Chinese and non-Chinese academics working on international human rights and related areas of international law.

The roundtable forms part of a wider Chatham House project exploring China’s impact on the international human rights system and was inspired by early discussions with a burgeoning community of Chinese academics thinking, writing (mainly in Chinese) and teaching about international human rights law.

For CUPL, one of the largest and most prestigious law schools in China and perhaps the only university in the world with an entire faculty of international law, the initiative is part of a drive to forge partnerships beyond China in the international law field.

The meeting was co-hosted with CUPL and involved 28 participants, consisting of 19 Chinese participants (from six leading research institutions in Beijing and Shanghai) and nine nonChinese participants (from eight leading research institutions in Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, Switzerland, Canada and Singapore).

To ensure continuity while also expanding the expert network being built, the fifth meeting included a mix of participants from the previous meetings and some new participants.

All discussions were held in English under the Chatham House Rule.