Cycling campaigners have hit out at Lancashire County Council following an announcement about the Guild Wheel.
Last week the leader of the county council pledged to protect the popular 21-mile cycle route around the city.
However members of the Save Our Guild Wheel campaign and the Guild Wheel User have expressed their 'dismay and disbelief' at the council's plans.
In a statement released to Blog Preston they say: "We read the plans from Lancashire County Council to protect the award winning and popular Guild Wheel with dismay and disbelief.
"First the Council tried to play down the impact of the plans to direct more traffic including big construction lorries, onto the Guild Wheel along the narrow D'Urton Lane, which has not got a footpath to protect pedestrians.
"It was until now, deemed safe enough for children to cycle and walk unaccompanied to two local schools. It begs the question would those who sanctioned this junction be prepared to let their own children or grandchildren walk or cycle to school, along this Lane?
"The plans surprisingly fails to mention that there is not one hazardous junction being planned but up to eight which together will destroy the main safety and environmental qualities of the Wheel, bringing cars and lorries onto these quiet lanes.
"This is contrary to Preston City Council's planning committee who not long ago threw out the planned junctions as unsafe, won by a big majority of Councilors from all Party's.
"The Guild Wheel designers from the LCC, PCC staff, plus the Guild Wheel Users Group, including its Chairperson Peter Ward took years and spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to make the Wheel's road crossings safe.
The campaigners have called for the county council to meet with them to discuss the route and six key areas they feel the Wheel route is being threatened in the north east and north west of the city.
Lancashire County Council were approached to see if they wished to comment on the campaign group's response, but they said they felt their plans announced last week had addressed the Guild Wheel group's concerns.


Recruit4you has an outstanding opportunity available for an experienced and analytical Parts/Panel Operations Manager Grow panel sales -organic growth strategy formulation and execution Establish, enhance and optimize qualitative processes and work-flow in all aspects of Panel value chain Establish KPI's and the required reports to assess PANEL management performance - to be reported Weekly Control Environment improvement - monthly assessment and review Implement productivity and quality standards. The role will focus on growing the Panel Parts business and optimising processes across the value chain. Meets Panel financial objectives by forecasting requirements; preparing an annual budget; Scheduling expenditures, analysing variances and initiating corrective actions. Attend Quarterly meetings Panel Staff Management - recruitment, selection, orientation and developing employees. Recruit4you has an outstanding opportunity available for an experienced and analytical Parts/Panel Operations Manager Grow panel sales -organic growth strategy formulation and execution Establish, enhance and optimize qualitative processes and work-flow in all aspects of Panel value chain Establish KPI's and the required reports to assess PANEL management performance - to be reported Weekly Control Environment improvement - monthly assessment and review Implement productivity and quality standards. The role will focus on growing the Panel Parts business and optimising processes across the value chain. Meets Panel financial objectives by forecasting requirements; preparing an annual budget; Scheduling expenditures, analysing variances and initiating corrective actions. Attend Quarterly meetings Panel Staff Management - recruitment, selection, orientation and developing employees.
Introduction - Temp Accountant role immediately available in Kempton Park. Temporary assignment immediately available for an Accountant. Position requires a person with a completed National Diploma / Degree plus 3-5 years related experience. Recent SAP experience essential. Description - KPI's include: VAT returns, GL reconciliations, inter-company charge-outs; understanding of profit centres, month-end procedures and provisions and other accurals. Solid and recent SAP experience essential. Introduction - Temp Accountant role immediately available in Kempton Park. Temporary assignment immediately available for an Accountant. Position requires a person with a completed National Diploma / Degree plus 3-5 years related experience. Recent SAP experience essential. Description - KPI's include: VAT returns, GL reconciliations, inter-company charge-outs; understanding of profit centres, month-end procedures and provisions and other accurals. Solid and recent SAP experience essential.


text:
Home » Parliamentary Activity » takayna/Tarkine - Opening of Four-wheel Drive Tracks
takayna/Tarkine - Opening of Four-wheel Drive Tracks
Tags: takayna / Tarkine, Aboriginal Heritage, Arthur Pieman Conservation Area, 4WD Tracks, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre
Ms O'CONNOR question to MINISTER for ENVIRONMENT and PARKS, Ms ARCHER
Your Government's plan to re-open tracks through ancient, irreplaceable Aboriginal heritage in the takayna/Tarkine has been dealt a major blow with the federal environment department rejecting the state's proposed measures to mitigate the damage and initiating their own lengthy, further assessment of likely impacts. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is celebrating the decision saying it is a message to your Government that you cannot ignore the law and you cannot ignore Aboriginal people.
Can you confirm that, short of rejecting the state's application to allow off-road vehicles back onto those tracks, this is the worst possible result for the plan to re-open the tracks and they are almost certainly unlikely to be re-opened before the state election?
Mr Speaker, I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election today to the role of Speaker.
I thank the member for Denison, Ms O'Connor, for her question. I am glad about this question because celebrations are a little too early. This is part of normal process. When a referral is made to the federal government, it is more common than not that it comes back for further information. It has been termed as a controlled action and now there will be a public environment report done. It is par for the course; it is usual.
The Government's policy - and I have said it publicly - is to reopen recreational tracks 501, 503 and 601, the three tracks in the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area. That is clear. We took it to the last state election. We are delivering on our commitments and we remain 100 per cent committed to it.
I note the decision by the federal government that our plan to allow for off-road vehicle access in the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area is a controlled action and will now be assessed by a public environment report. I need to repeat that it is a normal part of the process. If members of this House do not understand legal process, I suggest they look it up.
We will work closely with the Australian Government. We will provide all the detail they need to assess and approve our proposal. I cannot give a time frame - that is entirely up to the process - but we will provide that information. We will work closely with the Australian Government. We will provide assistance as quickly as possible so that the assessment and approval can be provided as soon as possible.
takayna/Tarkine Still Under Threat
takanya, or Tarkine, is a place of deep cultural significance to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and recognised globally as a region of outstanding cultural value.
Taxpayer Money Wasted on Shameful Tarki...
The Liberals have shamelessly decided to reopen tracks in the Tarkine and allow off road vehicles back in to these sensitive archaeological sites.
Cassy O'Connor MP | Parliamentary Activity | 19 Sep 2016
Liberals Determined to Damage and Divid...
Cassy O'Connor MP | Media Release | 22 Mar 2016
Tarkine - Opening of Four-wheel Drive T...
Rocky Sainty this morning sent out a statement condemning the Premier's decision to seek Commonwealth approval to reopen tracks in the Tarkine.
Liberals Show Two Faces on Aboriginal H...
The bill tabled in Parliament today is both a lost opportunity and a clear sign that the Liberals wear two faces on Aboriginal heritage issues.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Roz Clarke divides her time between Bristol and London, and has recently completed a 2-year stint of corporate problem-solving, leaving her to focus fully on the important things in life: writing, gaming, the impending apocalypse, and bicycles. She is a graduate of Clarion West, and has had short fiction published in magazines including Black Static, as well as the Dark Spires anthology and Andy Bigwood's The Sixty. She's also a member of the BristolCon team. You can find her at www.firefew.com or on Twitter: @zora_db.


Eye-D helps visually impaired be location-aware, explore and navigate to nearby places of interest, evaluate surroundings with their smartphone camera and read printed text. Eye-D will serve as the true companion for most of your daily assistance needs.
Stuck in an alien town? Calm down, fire the Eye-D app and select "Around Me". Bingo!! You can now find ATM's, Banks, Bus stops Cinemas, Restaurants, Hospitals and Stores nearby at your fingertips.
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text:
Q: CSS Placing text next to image and making it mobile responsive I use this code: My Code

13/11/2019

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

 Learn More

13/11/2019

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

 Learn More

All I want to achieve is to be able to show the text next to the image like in picture 1 when you view the code from a PC / laptop / tablet. I need the text to be below the image on all mobile devices (Picture 2).
Is there a possible way to achieve this without media queries? Because some mobile phones have a width larger than 1080 pixels which is the same width with some old PCs.
I want to somehow determine that the user uses a mobile phone, so that i can implement different css if the user uses PC or mobile.
I share 2 photos in order for you to understand what I mean.
on PC (Picture 1)
on Mobile (Picture 2)
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A: you can use css media queries to adjust if the screen size changes.

* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
.item {
  display: inline-block;
}
/* on PC */
@media screen and (min-width: 550px) {
  .featured-image {
    float: left;
    width: 40%;
    padding-right: 15px;
  }
  .featured-image img {
    width: 100%;
  }
  .description {
    float: left;
    width: 60%;
  }
}
/* on Mobile */
@media screen and (max-width: 550px) {
  .featured-image {
    width: 100%;
  }
  .featured-image img {
    width: 100%;
  }
  .description {
    width: 100%;
  }
}

13/11/2019

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

 Learn More

13/11/2019

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

 Learn More

see on : CSS3 Media Queries - Examples

A: It should be something like this
just play around with the width of the elements on how you want it
css
.parent-container {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
}

html

EDIT:
You can add "media" attribute for the stylesheet link tags. You can define the device-width to that, like this
 <link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 2400px)' href='css/medium.css' />

 <link rel='stylesheet' media='screen and (max-width: 767px)' href='css/medium.css' />

You can also use jquery for this but i dont think its necessary to use jquery when you can do it with just html.

A: In case you would like to avoid media queries, my suggestion is that you look into implementing a user agent to determine if the user is on a mobile browser or not.
Here's a script solution that you can implement directly with your favorite language (works with javascript, jquery etc):
http://detectmobilebrowsers.com/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
#ifndef TIMESERVICECLIENTALARM_H_
#define TIMESERVICECLIENTALARM_H_

#include <alljoyn/Status.h>
#include <alljoyn/time/TimeServiceObjectIntrospector.h>
#include <alljoyn/time/TimeServiceConstants.h>
#include <alljoyn/time/TimeServiceSchedule.h>

namespace ajn {
namespace services {

class TimeServiceClientAlarm;

/**
 * Inherit from this class to handle alarmReached() events.
 */
class AlarmHandler {

  public:

    /**
     * Handle Alarm reached event, which was sent from the given TimeServiceClientAlarm
     *
     * @param alarm The TimeServiceClientAlarm that received the AlarmReached event.
     */
    virtual void handleAlarmReached(TimeServiceClientAlarm* alarm) = 0;
    virtual ~AlarmHandler() { }
};

/**
 * Time Service Alarm.
 * Use this class to communication with the server side Alarm object.
 */
class TimeServiceClientAlarm : public TimeServiceObjectIntrospector {

  public:

    /**
     * Constructor
     *
     * @param tsClient TimeServiceClient managing this TimeServiceClientAlarm object
     * @param objectPath Object path of the server side Alarm object
     */
    TimeServiceClientAlarm(const TimeServiceClient& tsClient, const qcc::String& objectPath);

    /**
     * Destructor
     */
    ~TimeServiceClientAlarm();

    /**
     * Release object resources
     */
    void release();

    /**
     * Retrieve Schedule from the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param schedule Out variable. Is populated with the retrieved Schedule.
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to retrieve Schedule
     */
    QStatus retrieveSchedule(TimeServiceSchedule* schedule);

    /**
     * Set Schedule to the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param schedule Schedule to be set
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to set the Schedule
     */
    QStatus setSchedule(const TimeServiceSchedule& schedule);

    /**
     * Retrieve Title from the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param title Out variable. Is populated with the retrieved Alarm title.
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to retrieve the Alarm title
     */
    QStatus retrieveTitle(qcc::String* title);

    /**
     * Set Title to the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param title Title to be set
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to set the Alarm title
     */
    QStatus setTitle(const qcc::String& title);

    /**
     * Retrieve IsEnabled from the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param isEnabled Out variable.
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to retrieve IsEnabled property
     */
    QStatus retrieveIsEnabled(bool* isEnabled);

    /**
     * Set IsEnabled status to the server Alarm object.
     *
     * @param isEnabled IsEnabled status to be set
     *
     * @return status ER_OK, or a failure status if failed to set IsEnabled property
     */
    QStatus setEnabled(bool isEnabled);

    /**
     * Register AlarmHandler to receive AlarmReached events.
     *
     * @param handler AlarmHandler
     *
     * @return status
     */
    QStatus registerAlarmHandler(AlarmHandler* handler);

    /**
     * Unregister AlarmHandler to stop receiving AlarmReached
     * events.
     */
    void unRegisterAlarmHandler();

    /**
     * Returns AlarmHandler that has been registered or NULL
     *
     * @return AlarmHandler that has been registered or NULL
     */
    AlarmHandler* getAlarmHandler();

  private:

    /**
     * Interface description of the Alarm interface
     */
    InterfaceDescription* m_AlarmIface;

    /**
     * Handler of the AlarmReached events
     */
    AlarmHandler* m_AlarmHandler;

};

} /* namespace services */
} /* namespace ajn */

#endif /* TIMESERVICECLIENTALARM_H_ */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The other capitalist Thanksgiving story: How trade saved the Pilgrims, and the U.S.
"The First Thanksgiving, 1621," by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.
By now the Pilgrims' disastrous experiment with collectivism in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is well-known, in free market circles if not among the young. The story has been printed and popularized – Rush Limbaugh even recites it annually on his radio program. However, trade and commerce played another, lesser-known role in the first Thanksgiving – and America's founding, history, and self-definition.
Public schools still teach the familiar history of Thanksgiving: that American Indians taught starving Pilgrims useful practices like fertilization. A grateful Governor William Bradford called Squanto – an English-speaking Christian emancipated from slavery by Catholic priests – "a spetiall instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation." But he also saw in him a potential trading partner with a desperately needed skill.
History – call it Providence if you wish – welded the two groups together on the firm basis of "self-interest on both sides." The Pilgrims were ill-fit to trap beavers. William Wood wrote in 1634 that "the English … seldom or never kills any of them, being not patient to lay a long siege or to be so often deceived by their cunning evasions, so that all the beaver which the English have comes first from the Indians, whose time and experience fits them for that employment." Meanwhile the Wampanoag tribe, decimated by sickness and outnumbered by the enemy Narragansett and Pequot tribes nearly 10-to-one, sought a military alliance with settlers owning superior weaponry.
The deal was struck. The Wampanoags provided pelts in exchange for grain, metal objects, and finished clothing; the Pilgrims then sold these to British traders. Bradford estimated the sale of pelts to England between 1631 and 1636 at £10,000. Each side pursued its comparative advantage and traded harmoniously to survive in an environment that threatened both. Their mutual defense and reciprocity pact assured peace for decades, proving out Bastiat's contention that "men's interests, when left to themselves, tend to form harmonious combinations and to work together for progress and the general good." Conversely, historians cite the desire to restrict the tribes' beaver trade as a trigger for later hostilities.
The mutually beneficial trade had a greater impact beyond avoiding conflict with the Wampanoags. It convinced others back home that trade could make North American colonies economically viable. This led to the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which, British author Nick Bunker explained, sought to expand this "business model" on a larger scale, beginning with the founding of New Boston in 1630. The more trade-friendly colony soon had three-times as many members as the older Plymouth colony.
When the Long Parliament of 1640 gave Puritans new power in England and stanched the flow of the Great Migration, Massachusetts responded by fully embracing commerce. "New Englanders did not abandon the entire notion of state oversight of the economy in the light of the experiences of the 1620s and 1630s," wrote Margaret Ellen Newell, a history professor at Ohio State University, in her book From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England. "Instead, they shifted the emphasis of government involvement from restriction to promotion of trade." Some of these reforms reduced government intervention. In the 1640s, Massachusetts repealed a law capping interest rates at eight percent, began enforcing contracts more strictly, and rescinded early consumer protection measures. Other measures, like state subsidies, made cronyism a persistent problem.
It could not "be imagined, that this Wilderness should turn a mart for Merchants in so short a space," Johnson wrote.
By the time the two colonies were combined as the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692, trade and commerce had created a durable colony, assuring the survival of the Pilgrim experiment. The Puritans' romanticized role in America's founding would give the nation the tradition of Thanksgiving and may be, at least in part, responsible for its status as the most religious nation in the West. And John Winthrop's description of the colony as "a shining city upon a hill," echoing down through the words of a patriotic (and Calvinist) president, continue to shape America's global image as an inviting beacon of liberty, faith, and human rights – the intangibles that underlie the prosperity we pause to celebrate every Thanksgiving.


A very small start-up approached us do a POC build of their core business product. They had no technical staff or infrastructure, and we needed to build something quickly and easy to hand off to a freelance technical team of the client's choosing.
That balance let us codify the deployment and hand it off to a freelance DevOps engineer to quickly bringing the site up in a live state. Just by providing a handful of Git repos and basic documentation, they were running in a weekend.
--Every DevOps talk, blog, and whitepaper.
There's a lot of pressure out there to automate, scale, and be infinitely flexible. There's also a lot of pressure to ship. Don't get tangled in trying to automate everything. If you don't have some frameworks in play, don't expect to have much automation bundled into your project. It takes time. Balance what is flexible vs what just needs to work, while insulating yourself from the long-term impact of any tempermanent solutions.
This is kind of microservices 101, but go ahead and separate front-end code early. They will deploy and scale differently. Segmenting also makes it easy to get truthful metrics about network traffic and system load.
Gitlab-CI's YAML job descriptions are really quick to implement and modify. Our job would build, test, push to repo, and call for the service to redeploy in 50 lightweight lines of YAML. The client was able to sign up for the base-level hosted Gitlab offering, and their engineer was able to drop in the repo and CI integration.
AWS Fargate has its place. IMHO that's for small green field projects, where there's a very basic need to run containers without persistent storage, and no other infrastructure to integrate. Our client's project met this criteria with flying colors. Ansible 2.7 has Fargate support, which further sweetened the proposition.
Rather than the front end forward API requests to the back end nodes, we let ALB rules route traffic to the appropriate front or back end target group based on URL. Service discovery was not needed since the balancer took care of routing to the different services. Deployments instantly become transparent because ALB's healthchecks will respond to a node's availability.
Since we were using Spring Boot, we had a lot of configuration methods to choose from. Due to the small scale of the application, we opted for 12-factor style config by setting environment variables for the JDBC path and credentials. It did not require any code changes to use. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store was a simple solution that could easily be extended for more configurations. To inject the configuration, a function was added to the Docker entrypoint shell script to extract the values from the parameter store and inject into the environment.
Although Terraform would likely be fewer lines of code and CloudFormation would be the most AWS native, we chose to use Ansible for our VPC build. Since the deployment code would be used by other people, we felt that Ansible code would be the easiest to read and modify. The role was a great time saver. We were able to build concurrent test environments by changing only a few configuration values.
Config driven and sane defaults provided.
Configures Load Balancer for target groups.
Don't worry about auto scaling out of the gate. Do assure that someone can easily launch additional nodes or replace nodes with larger instances. A properly defined ECS task will make it easy to launch additional nodes.
Have the pattern in place for secrets management, even if the preferred secrets provider isn't available. 12-factor style is a good place to start.
Preconfiguring network subnets, and security in the infrastructure deployment code can assure that safe practices for network security make it all the way through deployment. Having it codified also creates more visibility to help developers build with security in mind.
It takes time to build reliable infrastructure code. Identify your common design patterns and build flexible deployment code before you need it. We have been able to quickly re-use our Ansible Fargate VPC role for testing and prototyping.


text:
Items tagged with porsche
by Paul Lilly - Wed, Nov 17, 2021
Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Harnesses 493HP For A Top Speed Of Nearly 200MPH
Buckle up because the newly unveiled Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS brings an incredible amount of horsepower, grunt, and speed capabilities to the enthusiast driving scene. Porsche's latest mid-engine sports car made its debut at the Los Angeles auto show where it was billed as "the most thrilling and focused 718 yet,"... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Sat, Apr 04, 2020
Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup Goes Virtual For COVID-19 With iRacing-Based Series Featuring Real Pro Drivers
Sport events in all sorts of genres have been canceled due to the coronavirus and the inability for large groups of people to gather. This has driven some sporting events to go the way of eSports and be held online, particularly in the basketball and motorsports world. Porsche Motorsport is currently holding its PMSC... Read more...
2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S Launches With A Staggering 640HP, Rockets To 60MPH In 2.6 Seconds
A few weeks ago, we brought you leaked information regarding the 992 generation of the Porsche 911 Turbo S. Along with a general sense of how much horsepower the all-wheel-drive monster would put out, we also learned about its 8-speed Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK) dual-clutch transmission and saw some images of it in... Read more...
2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S (992) Leaks: Gorgeous 600+ HP German Rocket Sled With 8-Speed PDK
Porsche allegedly teased its upcoming 911 GT3 (992) in a Super Bowl commercial earlier this year, and it now looks as though the monstrous 2021 911 Turbo S has been leaked ahead of its expected debut at the Geneva Auto Show. Like the GT3, the Turbo is also based on the new 992 chassis that first went on sale in the... Read more...
by Paul Lilly - Tue, Jan 28, 2020
Did Porsche Just Tease Its Next Generation 911 GT3 Track Monster?
Ahead of the Super Bowl this weekend, Porsche posted an extended cut of "The Heist," an advertisement that will run during the big game. That itself is mildly interesting (some people tune into the Super Bowl just for the commercials), but even more intriguing is what it might reveal—a first look at the upcoming 2021... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Wed, Jan 15, 2020
Taycan For A Ride? Porsche Taycan Turbo S Ranks As Least Efficient EV Per EPA
The hits just keep coming for the Porsche Taycan, which was unveiled as the newest and most credible threat to the Tesla Model S. When the EV was unveiled in late 2019, Porsche promised a driving range approaching 300 miles while delivering performance that would put in supercar territory. While the latter... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Wed, Dec 11, 2019
Porsche EV Gets EPA Rated For Only 201 Miles, Were All The Good Batteries Taycan?
Porsche has been hyping up its EV called the Taycan for a while. Many already thought Porsche was questionable on the EV front since the Taycan Turbo/Turbo S doesn't even have a turbo. Many have also made fun of the name of the Porsche EV; we suspect all the good names were...Taycan. Silly name aside, the most... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Mon, Oct 14, 2019
Porsche Amps Up Cheaper Taycan 4S EV: 563 Horsepower And 0-60 In 3.5 Seconds
Porsche revealed its Taycan Turbo and Taycan Turbo S performance EVs early last month, and they are no doubt gorgeous, technology-laden track monsters. However, they are also prohibitively expensive. While the Tesla Model S Performance rings in at $99,990, the Turbo and Turbo S will set you back $152,000 and $186,000... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Tue, Sep 17, 2019
Tesla's 'Plaid' Model S Reportedly Smashed Porsche Taycan Nürburgring EV Lap Record
The EV wars are heating up, with both the Tesla Model S and the Porsche Taycan duking it out in the center ring. It all started late last month when the new Porsche Taycan set a Nürburgring lap record for a 4-door electric vehicle with a time of 7:42. Tesla CEO Elon Musk got a bit chippy at the Taycan record and... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Wed, Sep 04, 2019
Porsche Taycan Turbo S 750 Horsepower EV Monster Rips 0-60 in 2.6 Seconds And Costs $180,000
After months of teasers, Porsche has finally unveiled the production version of its first fully-electric vehicle: the Taycan. The sleek, 4-door sports car will be positioned against the Tesla Model S in the high-end segment of the EV market, and its performance/endurance will leave its primary competitor in its dust... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Mon, Aug 26, 2019
Porsche's Bodacious Taycan Nabs 4-Door EV Nürburgring Lap Record With Sub 8-Min Run
There's no doubt that when it comes to production performance vehicles, Porsche has a long and storied history dating back to the original 356, which later evolved into the 911. The German automaker is looking to make a similar leap with the Taycan, as its releases its first fully electric vehicle (EV). To show... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Fri, Aug 23, 2019
Porsche Teases Taycan EV's Futuristic Interior Fully Decked Out With Multiple Displays
At this point, Porsche is going a bit overboard with the teasers for its upcoming Taycan electric vehicle. The Taycan is being billed as the first credible competitor to the Tesla Model S from a legacy automaker, and Porsche is pulling out all the stops to ensure that it offers a winning combination of performance... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Tue, Aug 20, 2019
Porsche's 600HP Taycan Performance EV Amps Apple Music Integration To The Next Level
Porsche and Apple have announced a team-up that will bring integrated Apple Music streaming to the fast and cool Porsche Taycan EV sports car. The Taycan is the first fully electric Porsche and is set to launch in September, and it will have a touchscreen display in its dash as part of the Porsche Advanced... Read more...
Hackers Hit Citycomp With Ransomware Exposing Financial Data From Toshiba, VW, Oracle, Airbus
No information is safe in the Internet age. Citycomp, an Germany-based IT services company, reported that they had been hacked and blackmailed. Some of their clients include Oracle, Airbus, Toshiba, Volkswagen, Leica, and Porsche. Citycomp is an IT services company that provides items such as servers, storage, and... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Tue, Feb 26, 2019
Porsche's Best-Selling Macan Crossover Is Going Fully Electric For 2021
We already know that Porsche is fully committed to electrifying its vehicle lineup. The German automaker has dabbled with hybrid-electric performance vehicles for the past decade, and its first production electric car -- the Taycan -- is expected to be revealed in production form later this year. However, the company... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Mon, Jan 28, 2019
Porsche Taycan EV Owners Promised 3 Years Of Free Charging, Unmatched 350 kW Charge Performance
Porsche is set to reveal the production version of its highly anticipated Taycan EV later this year. The vehicle concept, which first bowed in 2015 as the Mission E -- is based on a new electric car platform and promises to deliver the thrills that Porsche is known for with the instant torque of electric... Read more...
by Paul Lilly - Wed, Jan 09, 2019
Porsche's 2020 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet Drops Its Top And Delivers Obscene Performance
It's been nearly four decades since Porsche rolled out its first open-top 911 variant, starting with a prototype it unveiled at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt in 1981, followed by a commercial release a year later. It's been a staple option ever since. Continuing that tradition, Porsche unveiled its... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Fri, Dec 14, 2018
BMW And Porsche Unveil 450 kW EV Charger That Provides 60 Miles Of Range In 3 Minutes
The move to electric vehicles seems inevitable, but we are slowly getting there as early adopters purchase vehicles like the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt. However, there are three primary negatives that make the buying public skeptical of EVs at the moment: cost, range anxiety, and the widespread... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Wed, Nov 28, 2018
All-New 2020 Porsche 911 (992) Hits 191 MPH With Bodacious 444 Horsepower Turbo Flat-Six
Of all the cars that Porsche makes, none of them say "Porsche" quite like the venerable 911. The 911 production run spans all the way back to 1964. Over its lifetime, the car has certainly changed significantly underneath, yet it has maintained very similar styling with a focus on driving engagement and performance... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Fri, Oct 19, 2018
Porsche Prices 600 Horsepower Taycan Performance EV At $92,500
The world is steadily moving towards electrified cars, and while some sports car manufacturers are fighting this trend, others are fully embracing it. One of the marques that is hip to electrification is Porsche, and it has priced its slick Taycan EV sports car at a cool $92,500 for starters. However, with the myriad... Read more...
by Shane McGlaun - Wed, Oct 03, 2018
2019 Porsche Macan Launches In Europe Packing 2.0L Turbo Four Power
Porsche is one of the most iconic sports car makers in the world with hyper exotics like the 918 Spyder to its credit along with the venerable 911. Porsche announced this week that the sleek and sexy 911 Speedster would go into production. As cool as that 911 Speedster is, if you want Porsche style and performance... Read more...
by Brandon Hill - Tue, Oct 02, 2018
Porsche's 911 Speedster Is A Drop Dead Sexy 500hp Farewell For 991 Chassis
While BMW is hitting all the right notes with its all-new G20 3-Series for the compact luxury sedan market, Porsche is going straight for performance glory (with gorgeous looks to match) via the new 911 Speedster. This 911 Speedster represents the swan song for the 991 chassis, which was first introduced in 2011. The... Read more...


The National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center has issued a Mesoscale Precipitation Discussion centering on strong convective shower/thunderstorm development over a good portion of the Chicago area late this afternoon into the evening hours including Chicago itself (see enclosed orange scalloped area on highlighted map).
Localized flash flooding could develop quickly in areas of heaviest rainfall – heavy rains falling at the rate of a half-inch to an inch per hour will continue into the evening hours over most of our area (check the latest radar weather mosaic below).
A warm front is oriented west-east through southern Illinois with widespread heavy rains to the north of the front almost all the way to the Illinois-Wisconsin state line. A line of severe thunderstorms is moving east through southern Illinois and a Severe Thunderstorm Watch is in effect until 10PM CDT for that area (see affected blue-shaded counties on map below).
Current Regional Weather Radar Mosaic….


August 21, 2018 – Morrison Cohen Partner Y. David Scharf was selected for a panel of judges representing expertise across commercial real estate disciplines to determine the Commercial Property Executive's 2018 Distinguished Achievement Awards. The awards recognize the commercial real estate industry's most noteworthy properties and transactions. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony and networking party in October, as well as featured in the November issue of Commercial Property Executive.


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a company over which another company or group has a holding equivalent to less than 50% of the capital but greater than 10%.
The ties between companies linked to one or more groups and the groups, upon which they depend, vary considerably in their closeness and complexity. There are many different variants. Even if most companies are subsidiaries of a single group, others are just affiliated to one or more groups, with a level of participation between 10% and 50%. In this case, the influence exercised by the group on an affiliated company is less strong than on a subsidiary. It depends on the percentage of the holding and the structure of the remaining share ownership. This influence will generally be limited to an option to block decisions. However, if there is a majority shareholder, the influence can be greater, as in the case of a position of strength created by a need for capital that the minority group may be capable of providing to the majority shareholder. Inversely, if there is not a majority shareholder, the influence exercised by the group on its affiliated company can potentially be endangered by a coalition of diffuse minority interests.
Business group
a group of companies placed under the authority of a single decision-making centre.
From a legal point of view, reference is made to the concept of a group via the law of 2 March 1989 regarding transparency, the royal decree of 30 January 2001 and the law of 2 August 2002 relating to the supervision of the financial sector and to financial services. In the royal decree, the control of a company is defined as the legal or factual power to exercise a decisive influence on the nomination of the majority of its directors or managers or on its management direction. Accounting law distinguishes different degrees of affiliation of a company to a group which are reflected in the way each company records its holdings in other companies and which it registers among the assets on its balance sheet under the item "Financial Assets". This section is subdivided into three items: subsidiaries, companies where a participating relationship exists and other financial assets. As far as the responsibility of groups with regard to third parties (shareholders, creditors, and employees) is concerned, groups enjoy a de facto rather than a legal existence, with the law only recognising the companies which make them up and their representatives. This de facto existence enables groups to escape, to a large extent, all attempts by public authorities to regulate them.
In CRISP's daily practice, a business group has come to mean a set of companies made up of legally separate entities between which there exists a network of links of a type which could place them, at least potentially, under the influence of the same decision-making centre. These links can often take the form of a network of financial holdings but can be reinforced or even replaced by personal, and, in particular, family links.
in a liberal economy, the basic organising principle of the market, aiming to prevent the abuse of dominant positions and which the public authorities ensure are respected.
Economic competition describes a situation in which several companies offering the same type of goods or services theoretically allow their potential customers – other companies or consumers – to choose their supplier freely and with full transparency, based on factors such as price or the quality of the product or service in question. According to economic theory, a market is said to be perfectly competitive when several conditions are respected, in particular: the atomicity of the buyers and sellers, the homogeneity of the products and perfect information. In reality, these conditions are only ever partially fulfilled.
That said, in a liberal economy, free competition is a basic organisational market principle which should be targeted. Public authorities try to ensure it is respected as effectively as possible. At a European level, competition policy (the limitation of monopolies, dumping practices, concentration in certain industries etc.) applies to all players in the internal market. Competition policy applies first of all to companies, in different ways depending on the industry. It involves anti-trust provisions regarding agreements, the decisions of business associations and concerted practices likely to reduce competition and also the abuses of dominant positions. It also aims to limit industry concentration at a European level, if companies merge which were formerly independent or in the case of direct or indirect acquisition. A second aspect of competition policy relates to state aid, normally forbidden but qualified by a broad range of exceptions. In Belgium, the Belgian competition authority promotes and attempts to ensure effective competition in Belgium and participates in the implementation of European competition policy. It applies the Belgian and European competition laws, examines restrictive competitive practices (price agreements, abuse of dominant power etc.), examines cases of economic concentration and can impose sanctions. Unfair competitive practices and acts that are contrary to honest commercial practice (loss-making sales, sales, public auctions, comparative advertising, distance contracts, liquidations) are the responsibility of the commercial courts.
These restrictive policies, which aim to encourage free competition, have a direct influence on company share ownership and its development.
distribution of economic power among a small number of players.
This term describes a situation, the distribution of economic power among a small number of players (in particular the number and the size of the companies depending on the industry, which tends to reduce free competition). In addition, it describes an evolution, which has been ongoing since the Industrial Revolution, whereby the economy evolves from a competitive one with small companies to a monopolistic one with large companies, in an increasingly international environment. The development of economic concentration is an important feature of contemporary industrial societies.
Economic concentration is perceived differently by the different players. For entrepreneurs, the first priority is to position themselves on the market that concerns them, in relation to their competitors, particularly the market leaders, in order to increase their own share. For this purpose, they try to organise their manufacturing better and to use existing legal structures in their own best interest. Company employees experience economic concentration via restructurings and site closures, linked potentially to the transfer of activities to a different location and via the transition of employee relations that are typical of a small or medium-sized company to relations characterised by remoteness from the decision-making centres. (Their point of contact is less likely to be the real decision-maker). For public authorities, economic concentration is linked to economic policy considerations, in particular relating to planning, sector development, pricing policy, employment policy etc.
Economic concentration takes different forms, the main one of which is the structuring in business groups, and it is developing globally. Finally, economic concentration leads to ambivalent relations between the private sector and public authorities who care about the implications it has for different social players.
a company that holds shares in the capital of other companies.
The holding company usually corresponds to the decision-making centre of the group and enables it to exercise influence or control over the strategy of the companies in which it holds shares. In addition, it provides them with the funds they need to grow. In this respect, it takes an intermediary role which is both financial and which redistributes funds within the group, depending on the development strategy and the cash requirements and surpluses of the subsidiaries or affiliates belonging to the group. It is compensated by the dividends it receives from the companies in which it holds shares. This form of company can sometimes be choosen for fiscal reasons.
Parent company (or "head of the group")
the company which houses the decision-making centre of the group to which it belongs.
In most cases, a group's parent company is the one which houses the decision-making centre at its heart. It is generally a holding company with a dual purpose: that of power centre and profit centre.
The parent company holds shares in the capital of other companies, with the latter also potentially holding shares in other companies in their own right. Linked to these shares is the power to vote at the companies' shareholder meetings. It enables it to exercise influence or control over the strategy of the companies in which it holds shares. In addition, it provides them with the funds they need to grow. In this respect, it takes an intermediary role which is both financial and which redistributes funds within the group, depending on the development strategy and the cash requirements and surpluses of the subsidiaries or affiliates belonging to the group. It is compensated by the dividends it receives from the companies in which it holds shares. It is ultimately at parent company level that the redistribution of potential profits takes place, even if the floods of financial holdings which originate from this parent company include intermediary levels of participation in power and profit collection.
For tax reasons and the opportunities which belonging to a large financial capital can bring, the parent company can be listed under a different nationality than the group to which it belongs.
group of owners (shareholders) of financial securities (shares) which make up a company's capital.
The shareholders of a commercial company are its co-owners: the fact that they own part of this company's capital gives them, as a group, a certain number of prerogatives with regard to this company. These prerogatives include patrimonial rights (the right to acquire, relinquish or pledge shares), a participation in the financial results of the company (dividends, distribution of the liquidating dividend) and a power of decision relating to the activities and strategy of the company and the appointment of its top management (for the exercise of which the shareholders have privileged access to information on the situation and progress of the company). They exercise these powers at the company shareholders meeting, with voting rights that are linked to their shares: generally, each share gives the right to one vote, but various mechanisms can allow additional voting rights to certain categories of shareholder. The objective of the shareholder meeting, which takes place at least once a year, is to approve the company's annual accounts as presented by the board of directors, the distribution of the dividend, and the appointment or termination of the management. Broadly speaking, all decisions leading to a change in the articles of association of the company, such as capital-related operations (increases and reductions, the issue of convertible bonds etc.) and operations that change the company itself (a change in the company purpose and its headquarters, a merger, a demerger, a transfer of assets etc.) are the domain of the extraordinary general meeting, at which qualified majority voting prevails.
The shareholders can be physical persons, potentially members of the same family (family share ownership); other companies such as banks, insurance companies, pension funds and mutual funds which are grouped together under the term "Institutional Shareholders"; not for profit organisations or foundations; public authorities (sovereign states or funds, regions, provinces, municipalities). In many cases, several types of shareholder, whose interests otherwise diverge, coexist within the share ownership of a particular company.
The influence exercised by a shareholder depends above all on the percentage of his or her participation. The majority shareholder (who holds more than 50% of the voting rights) can impose his or her opinions on everyday management, but the law foresees for important decisions (dealt with during extraordinary general meetings) the use of qualified majority voting in order to protect minority shareholders of a certain size. The blocking minority which results from this is 25% in Belgium (30% in France) (see parent company, subsidiary, affiliate). Some shareholders, particularly those who hold the smallest amount of shares, choose not to exercise their prerogatives and act more like investors. This is notoriously the case of small private investors or institutional investors that make up part of the share ownership of companies quoted on the stock exchange. Some companies involve their employees in share ownership, whether they are part of senior management (stock options) or larger groups of employees and, in some cases, the entire workforce (employee share ownership), with the dual objective of retaining their people and stabilising their share ownership. In most large companies, more or less formalised agreements bind the shareholders to each other (members of the same family, allied companies etc.), sometimes for a fixed period of time, to share the control over it.
Nevertheless, various factors affect the real influence exercised by the shareholder on decision-making in the company: the financial health of the group to which the shareholder belongs, the structure of the overall share ownership of the company, the existence or otherwise of disagreements among the different shareholders regarding the strategy to follow etc. A number of particular scenarios are possible: a dispersed share ownership can allow a minority shareholder, but one who is clearly bigger than the others, to control the company or lead to a situation of self-control (by senior management) of the company; the state shareholder can legally reinforce its shareholder power (golden share) or, on the contrary, grant a certain amount of autonomy to its participating companies (autonomous public undertakings); foreign shareholders (particularly following mergers or acquisitions) can grant, at least for a certain period, a substantial degree of autonomy to their foreign subsidiaries.
The database underpinning this website attempts to take into account all possible scenarios.
company over which another company or group exercises majority control.
Accounting law distinguishes different degrees of a company's affiliation to another company or group, which are reflected in the way that each company accounts for the shares that it holds in other companies.
If majority control is being exercised over a company, which translates into more than 50% of the capital and/or more than 50% of the voting power, the company being controlled is said to be a subsidiary of another company or group. In this case, the group to which it belongs will always exercise its influence as a last resort, even if the group's internal organisation, the type of business activities it is involved with, the financial profitability of the various subsidiaries can be reflected in a smaller or larger degree of management autonomy. As it holds more than 50% of the voting rights at the shareholders meeting, the group has the final say on the company's important decisions such as the selection of board members, the level of profitability expected from the company, the use of profits, the amount of dividends issued and, if its participation exceeds 75% (a qualified majority in Belgium), the mergers and acquisitions, new share issues, the change of status of the company etc.
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Tag Archives: Vaccines and the New Viral Strains
Another New COVID Strain Is in the US; Will Present Vaccines Work with these New Strains, Pandemic Strategies Including New Migrants and What Happened to Merck's Vaccine?
This has been an interesting few week and almost led me to close my office and retire. We had a patient come in the office and complete the questionnaire and "by-pass" our screening procedures, lying to us about his exposure to the COVID-19 virus. He just visited his brother the two days before the days office visit and lied to us, saying that he had no recent exposure, etc. However, a week later he called our office to allow notification that his COVID test was positive.
The thing that angered me and my staff more was that the patient waited a number of days to notify, besides lying to us about his exposure. This led us to close the office, cancel all patients until we could have a complete cleaning of the office and all get COVID tested.
Luckily, we all tested negative and all my staff and I had at least had our first vaccine doses. If we had tested positive, we would have to notify all the patients that were seen in the office between his visit and the day that we closed the office.
What an irresponsible set of actions and my fear is that this goes on in many situations because many of our patients, etc. are selfish and irresponsible and don't care about anyone else except themselves…and they think the virus is all a lie, util one of their family members or close friends dies. How totally stupid and disgusting!!
John Johnson wrote that the virus continues to mutate quickly. Anyone tracking the news is familiar with the new UK strain that is moving around the globe and threatens to become the dominant strain in the US soon. Now, health authorities in California have identified yet another strain that has popped up in about a dozen counties, reports the Los Angeles Times. Coverage on that and more:
California strain: The variant has been linked to large outbreaks in Santa Clara County and smaller outbreaks elsewhere. It's still too early to say whether the new strain is more contagious or more lethal than the first forms of COVID that emerged, but studies on that are being prioritized. Bottom line: "This virus continues to mutate and adapt, and we cannot let down our guard," says Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County health officer.
A lament: In a New York Times op-ed, Ezra Klein runs through the coming COVID changes under the Biden administration. They include plans to get vaccinations organized on a mass scale, along with expanded testing and contract tracing. It's all pretty basic stuff, he writes, which has him astonished that the Trump administration hasn't done these things yet. "That it is possible for Joe Biden and his team to release a plan this straightforward is the most damning indictment of the Trump administration's coronavirus response imaginable."
Hopeful trend: US deaths are about to pass 400,000, but one medical expert spies a positive trend in the new data as well. "Over the last four days for the first time in months, we've seen a steady decline … a thousand per day fewer hospitalizations in the United States," Dr. Jonathan Reiner of George Washington University tells CNN. "We've seen the same trend in new cases." The next two months will likely be brutal, he adds, "but there is a ray of sunshine" as vaccinations continue.
Hopeful, II: In "The Morning" newsletter at the Times, David Leonhardt is tired of the "they're only 95% effective" drumbeat, and he's not alone. "It's driving me a little bit crazy," Dr. Ashish Jha of the Brown School of Public Health tells Leonhardt. Dr. Aaron Richterman of the University of Pennsylvania adds, "We're underselling the vaccine." As Leonhardt explains and doctors emphasize, the vaccine will save your life, even if you're in that other 5%. To wit, of 32,000 people who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in trials, only one person suffered a severe COVID case.
Migrant caravan demands Biden administration 'honors its commitments'
Now, a real challenge for the new Biden administration. Adam Shaw noted that a migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border is calling on the incoming Biden administration to honor what it says are "commitments" to the migrants moving north, amid fears of a surge at the border when President-elect Joe Biden enters office.
More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering, The Associated Press reported. That is part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.
The outlet reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.
"We recognize the importance of the incoming Government of the United States having shown a strong commitment to migrants and asylum seekers, which presents an opportunity for the governments of Mexico and Central America to develop policies and a migration management that respect and promote the human rights of the population in mobility," the statement said. " We will advocate that the Biden government honors its commitments."
Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump's policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts migrants at risk.
Biden has also promised a pathway to citizenship for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants' group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.
"A new United States Government is an opportunity to work with the Mexican Government to develop a cooperation plan with Central America to address the causes of migration, together with civil society organizations, as well as an opportunity to increase regional cooperation regarding the persons in need of protection, and to dismantle illegal and inhuman programs such as Remain in Mexico, the United States' Asylum Cooperation Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as the Title 42 expulsions by the United States authorities," it said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) order that allows the U.S. to quickly remove migrants on public health grounds.
Biden officials, however, have been keen to send the message to migrants that it will not mean open borders overnight.
"Processing capacity at the border is not like a light that you can just switch on and off," incoming Biden domestic policy adviser Susan Rice told Spanish wire service EFE. "Migrants and asylum seekers absolutely should not believe those in the region peddling the idea that the border will suddenly be fully open to process everyone on Day 1. It will not."
"Our priority is to reopen asylum processing at the border consistent with the capacity to do so safely and to protect public health, especially in the context of COVID-19," she said. "This effort will begin immediately but it will take months to develop the capacity that we will need to reopen fully."
It is unclear how far the migrants will get, and Guatemalan and Mexican governments have indicated they intend to turn them back. But the caravan comes amid fears that the new outlook on immigration and asylum from the Biden administration will fuel a surge at the border.
Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan said on "America's News HQ" on Saturday that the caravan could include more than 5,000 migrants and blamed the tone from the incoming administration.
"We're looking at two groups that are well over five thousand. And one of those groups have already gotten through the Guatemala border. And they're on their way to El Rancho, which is about the located centrally in Guatemala," he said. "It's coming. It's already started, just as we promised and anticipated it would with this rhetoric from the new administration on the border."
President Trump warned this week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to "a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you've never seen before" and that there were already signs of increased flows.
"They're coming because they think that it's a gravy train at the end," he said. "It's going to be a gravy train. Change the name from the caravans, which I think we came up with, to the gravy train because that's what they're looking for — looking for the gravy."
Biden transition official tells migrant caravans: 'Now is not the time' to come to US
Yael Halon reported further on the migration noting that a migrant caravan moving from Honduras toward the U.S. border called on the incoming Biden administration to honor their "commitments" to the migrants moving north, citing the incoming administration's vow to ease Trump's restrictions on asylum.
But on Sunday, an unnamed Biden transition official said that migrants hoping to claim asylum in the U.S. during the first few weeks of the new administration "need to understand they're not going to be able to come into the United States immediately," NBC News reports.
More than 1,000 Honduran migrants moved into Guatemala on Friday without registering as part of a larger caravan that left a Honduran city earlier in the day.
The Associated Press reported that they are hoping for a warmer reception when they reach the U.S. border, and a statement issued by migrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, on behalf of the caravan, said it expects the Biden administration to take action.
The Biden transition official, however, warned migrants against coming to the U.S. during the early days of the new administration, telling NBC that while "there's help on the way," now "is not the time to make the journey."
"The situation at the border isn't going to be transformed overnight," the official told the outlet.
"We have to provide a message that health and hope is on the way, but coming right now does not make sense for their own safety…while we put into place processes that they may be able to access in the future," the official said.
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to reverse many of Trump's policies on border security and immigration. He has promised to end the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which keeps migrants in Mexico as they await their political asylum hearings. The Trump administration has said the program has helped end the pull factors that bring migrants north, but critics say it is cruel and puts them at risk.
Biden has also promised a pathway to legal permanent residency for those in the country illegally and a moratorium on deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The migrants' group also pointed to promises to end the asylum cooperative agreements the administration made with Northern Triangle countries.
President Trump warned last week that ending his policies and increasing incentives would lead to "a tidal wave of illegal immigration, a wave like you've never seen before," claiming that there were already signs of increased flows.
AMA President: Biden Team Must Create National Pandemic Strategy
Ken Terry stated that now that the campaign is over, that the incoming Biden administration must formulate an effective national strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic, said Susan R. Bailey, MD, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), in a speech delivered today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Bailey noted that America's fight against the pandemic is in a critical phase, as evidenced by the escalation in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in recent weeks. Emergency departments and ICUs are overwhelmed; many frontline clinicians are burned out; and the state- and local-level mechanisms for vaccine distribution have been slow and inconsistent, she said.
"The most important lesson for this moment, and for the year ahead, is that leaving state and local officials to shoulder this burden alone without adequate support from the federal government is not going to work," Bailey emphasized.
She called on the Biden administration, which takes over next week, to "provide states and local jurisdictions with additional resources, guidance, and support to enable rapid distribution and administration of vaccines."
In addition, she said, the incoming administration needs to develop a more robust, national strategy for continued COVID-19 testing and PPE production "by tapping into the full powers of the Defense Production Act."
Biden Vaccine Distribution Policy
In a question-and-answer period following her speech, however, Bailey said she opposed the president-elect's decision to release nearly all available vaccine supplies immediately, rather than hold back some doses for the second shots that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it plans to do the same thing.
"We're a little bit concerned about the announcement that [the Department of Health & Human Services] will not hold back vaccine doses to make sure that everyone who's gotten their first dose will have a second dose in reserve," Bailey said. "We don't have adequate data to tell us that one dose is sufficient — we don't think it is — and how long you can wait for the second dose without losing the benefits of the first dose."
She added that it's not recommended that people mix the two vaccines in the first and second doses. "Since the Pfizer vaccine has such rigid storage requirements, I want to make sure there's plenty of vaccine for frontline healthcare workers who got the Pfizer vaccine because it was the first one to come out in December. I want to make sure they get their second dose on time and [do] not have to wait."
Bailey said she hoped there will be plenty of vaccine supply. But she suggested that state and local health authorities be in communication with the federal government about whether there will be enough vaccine to guarantee people can get both doses.
Bolstering Public Health
In her speech, Bailey outlined five areas in which steps should be taken to improve the health system so that it isn't overwhelmed the next time the US has a public health crisis:
Restore trust in science and science-based decision making. Make sure that scientific institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are "free from political pressure, and that their actions are guided by the best available scientific evidence."
Ensure that the health system provides all Americans with affordable access to comprehensive healthcare. Bailey wasn't talking about Medicare for All; she suggested that perhaps there be a second enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act's individual insurance exchanges.
Work to remove healthcare inequities that have hurt communities of color, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. She referred to a recent AMA policy statement that recognized racism as a public health threat.
Improve public health domestically and globally. Among other things, she noted, the public health infrastructure needs to be revitalized after "decades of disinvestment and neglect," which has contributed to the slow vaccine rollout.
Recognize the global health community and restore America's leadership in global efforts to combat disease, which are critical to preventing future threats. She praised Biden for his promise that the US will rejoin the World Health Organization.
At several points in her presentation, Bailey rejected political interference with science and healthcare. Among other things, she said public health could be improved by protecting the doctor-patient relationship from political interference.
Answering a question about how to separate politics from the pandemic, she replied, "The key is in sticking to the science and listening to our public health authorities. They all have to deliver the same message. Also, leaders at all levels, including in our communities, our schools, churches and college campuses, should wear masks and socially distance. This isn't about anything other than the desire to get out of the pandemic and get our country on the right track again. Masks shouldn't be political. Going back to school shouldn't be political. Taking a certain medication or not shouldn't be political. We need to stick to the science and listen to our public health authorities. That's the quickest way out."
Asked when she thought that life might get back to normal again in the US, Bailey said a lot depends on the extent of vaccine uptake and how much self-discipline people exhibit in following public health advice. "I think we're looking at the end of this year. I'm hopeful that by fall, things will have opened up quite a bit as the Venn diagrams of those who've gotten vaccines grow larger."
Merck Ends Development of Two Potential COVID-19 Vaccines
Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer, pointed out that the drug maker, Merck, said Monday that it will focus instead on studying two possible treatments for the virus that also have yet to be approved by regulators. The company said its potential vaccines were well tolerated by patients, but they generated an inferior immune system response compared with other vaccines.
Merck was developing one of the potential vaccines with France's Pasteur Institute based on an existing measles vaccine. The French institute said it will keep working on two other vaccine projects using different methods.
Merck entered the race to fight COVID-19 later than other top drug makers.
It said last fall that it had started early-stage research in volunteers on potential vaccines that require only one dose. Vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna were already in late-stage research at that point.
The Food and Drug Administration allowed emergency use of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines late last year. Each requires two shots.
Five potential vaccines have reached late-stage testing in the United States, the final phase before a drug maker seeks approval from regulators. Results from a single-dose candidate developed by Johnson & Johnson are expected soon.
Since vaccinations began in December, nearly 22 million doses have been delivered to people nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 6% of the population has received at least one dose.
A total of 3.2 million people, or 1% of the population, have received both doses required for those vaccines.
More than 419,000 people in the United States and 2 million globally have died due to the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The government is paying Merck & Co. about $356 million to fast-track production of one of its potential treatments under Operation Warp Speed, a push to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The money will allow the Kenilworth, New Jersey, company to deliver up to 100,000 doses by June 30, if the FDA clears the treatment for emergency use.
The treatment, known as MK-7110, has the potential to minimize the damaging effects of an overactive immune response to COVID-19. This immune response can complicate the life-saving efforts of doctors and nurses.
Merck said early results from a late-stage study of that drug showed a more than 50% reduction in the risk of death or respiratory failure in patients hospitalized with moderate or severe COVID-19. The company expects full results from that study in the first quarter.
Merck's other potential treatment is an oral antiviral drug.
Merck said it will focus COVID-19 research and manufacturing efforts on two investigational medicines: MK-7110 and MK-4482, which it now calls molnupiravir. Molnupiravir, which is being developed in collaboration with Ridgeback Bio, is an oral antiviral being studied in both hospital and outpatient settings. If these oral antiviral drugs are effective this will be a real advancement in the treatment of COVID-19. Merck said a phase 2/3 trial of the drug is set to finish in May, but initial efficacy results are due in the first quarter and will be made public if clinically meaningful.
Merck said results from a phase 3 study of MK-7110, an immune modulator being studied as a treatment for patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19, are expected in the first quarter. In December, the company announced a deal to supply MK-7110 to the U.S. government for up to about $356 million. (Reporting by Deena Beasley Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Moderna Study: Vaccine Effective vs COVID Variants
With the weekly announcement of new mutant strains of the COVID virus we are all wondering whether the vaccine that are being administered will be effective against the new strains. Carolyn Crist noted that as mutated strains of the coronavirus represent new threats in the pandemic, vaccine makers are racing to respond.
Moderna, whose two-dose vaccine has been authorized for use in the U.S. since Dec. 18, said Monday that it is now investigating whether a third dose of the vaccine will work to prevent the spread of a variant first seen in South Africa, while it also tests a new vaccine formula for the same purpose.
"Out of an abundance of caution and leveraging the flexibility of our mRNA platform, we are advancing an emerging variant booster candidate against the variant first identified in the Republic of South Africa into the clinic to determine if it will be more effective … against this and potentially future variants," Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
Moderna on Monday also said its COVID-19 vaccine could protect against the U.K. strain but that it is less effective against the strain identified in South Africa.
Pfizer and BioNTech, whose vaccine were also authorized in December, announced last week that their COVID-19 vaccine creates antibodies that could protect vaccine recipients from the coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom.
"This is not a problem yet," Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNBC.
"Prepare for it. Sequence these viruses," he said. "Get ready just in case a variant emerges, which is resistant."
There were at least 195 confirmed cases of patients infected with the U.K. variant in the U.S. as of Friday, according to the CDC. No cases from the South African variant have been confirmed in the U.S. To try and prevent the variant from entering the country, President Joe Biden plans to ban travel from South Africa, except for American citizens and permanent residents.
The U.S. has reported more than 25 million total COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, marking another major milestone during the pandemic.
That means about 1 in 13 people in the U.S. have contracted the virus, or about 7.6% of the population.
"Twenty-five million cases is an incredible scale of tragedy," Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times. She called the pandemic one of the worst public health crises in history.
After the first U.S. case was reported in January 2020, it took more than 9 months to reach 10 million cases in early November. Numbers rose during the holidays, and 10 million more cases were reported by the end of the year. Following a major surge throughout January, with a peak of more than 300,000 daily cases on some days, the U.S. reached 25 million in about 3 weeks.
Hospitalizations also peaked in early January, with more than 132,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the country, according to the COVID Tracking Project. On Sunday, about 111,000 patients were hospitalized, which is the lowest since mid-December.
The U.S. has also reported nearly 420,000 deaths. As recently as last week, more than 4,400 deaths were reported in a single day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Deaths are beginning to drop but still remain above 3,000 daily deaths.
The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation released a new projection last week that said new cases would decline steadily in coming weeks. New COVID-19 cases have fallen about 21% in the last 2 weeks, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
"We've been saying since summer that we thought we'd see a peak in January, and I think that, at the national level, we're around the peak," Christopher J.L. Murray, MD, director of the institute, told the newspaper.
At the same time, public health officials are concerned that new coronavirus variants could lead to an increase again. Murray said the variants could "totally change the story." If the more transmissible strains spread quickly, cases and deaths will surge once more.
"We're definitely on a downward slope, but I'm worried that the new variants will throw us a curveball in late February or March," Rivers told the newspaper.
So, next, when we get vaccinated do we need to wear masks and continue social distancing?
We will explore that set of questions next.
This entry was posted in Corona Virus, Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 Variant, Flu vaccinations, Health Care, healthcare delivery, Joe Biden, Masks, Merck's strategies, Moderna vaccine, New Mutated Viral Strains, Oral Antiviral meds, Pandemic, Pfizer vaccine, This has been an interesting few week and almost led me to close my office and retire. We had a patient come in the office and complete the questionnaire and "by-pass" our screening procedures, ly, Uncategorized, Vaccinations, vaccines and tagged Biden, Biden Vaccine Distribution Policy, California Strain, COVID-19, Merck's Vaccine, Migrant Caravan, Moderna Vaccine and New Viral Strains, Mutated Viral Strains, New Migrants, Oral Anitvirals, Pandemic Strategies, Public Health, UK Strain, vaccines, Vaccines and the New Viral Strains on January 28, 2021 by raaorsini.


What's more New York than a bagel? If you're looking for some out of the box wedding favor ideas, is Bantam Bagels your answer! Bantam Bagels is a new kind of bagelry, serving mini bagel balls that are filled instead of topped. We all know the way to someone's heart is through their mouth, so what better way to thank your loved ones for being a part of your special day than giving them some delicious "wedding cake" flavored Bantam Bagels on their way out.


text:
Instant insight: asbestos comes naturally.
Harper M
Chem Sci 2008 Dec; 5(12):C93
https://doi.org/10.1039/B820262C
Recently, we have started to view the environment as a source of substances likely to be harmful to human health. A high-profile example of this 'natural pollution' is the contamination of groundwater by arsenic from natural sources in Bangladesh and India. Another, less well-known problem is asbestos that occurs naturally in rock. Naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) is the name given to the silicate minerals serpentine and amphibole that, in certain environmental conditions, form exceedingly thin crystals in parallel alignment - with the appearance of cotton or silk. The term NOA can also be used to describe different minerals that crystallise in a finely fibrous manner resembling asbestos, and minerals that can produce elongated particles when broken or crushed. The most significant risk from NOA is serious illness that may occur through exposure through inhalation. NOA is an issue of study, debate and concern within the affected areas of the US today, and also for some countries around the Mediterranean, such as Italy and Turkey, where NOA is relatively common. However, the widespread occurrence of these minerals suggests that this matter will become an issue for many other countries in the future.
Pollutants; Pollution; Asbestos-dust; Asbestos-fibers; Asbestosis; Environmental-contamination; Environmental-exposure; Environmental-factors; Environmental-hazards; Environmental-pollution; Minerals; Inhalation-studies; Respiratory-hypersensitivity; Respiratory-irritants; Public-health
Martin Harper, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Heath, 1095 Willowdale Road, Morgantown, WV 26505
Journal Article; Trade
Page last reviewed: October 16, 2020


Allows Sky Digibox to be watched and controlled remotely from a second location away from the Digibox.
A Sky Remote (NEW silver/grey model) with the original Sky TV Link (Magic Eye) enables you to operate all of the Sky Digibox functions from another location within the home.
Hi there, what cable do I need to connet my sky+HD box to your link? Which socket do I use on the back of my box?? As I can't see a RF2??
Hi no you need a basic coaxil cable to connect them.
Hi yes it will do.
I have Sky + HD. Will the above package work with the HD?
If I install the Sky Eye to my existing sky box in order to link to my TV's upstairs, can I get rid of my roof aerials as I have a Sky dish?
Hi yes you would then have Sky TV in your upstairs as well so there is no need for a TV aerial.
Hi no you need another Sky box for that.
Hi yes it would be fine to do that.


Search Kottayam to Trichur Trains - Approximately 38 trains running on Kottayam Trichur routes & covering a distance of 131 kms. Book Kottayam to Trichur train tickets online via ixigo and make your journey a hassle-free experience.
Q. How many trains run between Kottayam to Trichur everyday?
A. There are 38 trains that run between Kottayam to Trichur everyday.
Q. While travelling from Kottayam to Trichur by train, what is the distance between the two locations?
A. While travelling from Kottayam to Trichur by train, the distance between the two locations is 131 kms.
Q. How many railway stations does Kottayam have?
A. Kottayam has 3 railway stations.
Q. How many railway station does Trichur have?
A. Trichur has 3 railway stations.
Q. How many weekly trains are there to reach Trichur from Kottayam?
A. There are 38 weekly trains to reach Trichur from Kottayam.
Q. In order to travel from Kottayam to Trichur which is the fastest train?
A. To travel from Kottayam to Trichur Jan Shatabdi is the fastest train.
Q. Suggest the travel time by train between Kottayam to Trichur?
A. Travel time by train between Kottayam to Trichur is 2hr 18min.
Q. In case of Tatkal tickets, how many days prior can the reservation be done? The journey route is from Kottayam to Trichur.
A. In case of Tatkal tickets, reservation can be done one day prior. The journey route is from Kottayam to Trichur.
Q. Can the PNR status be checked online? The journey route is from Kottayam to Trichur.
A. For the journey route from Kottayam to Trichur, the PNR status enquiry for waitlisted tickets can be checked online at ixigo to get up-to-date information.
Q. Suggest the time and name of the first train that departs from Kottayam?
A. The first train that departs from Kottayam is 16349 Rajya Rani Exp at 00:15:00.
Q. Suggest the name and timing of the last departing train from Kottayam?
A. The name of the last departing train from Kottayam is 16347 Mangalore Exp and its timing is at 23:53:00.
Q. While travelling from Kottayam to Trichur which train takes minimum time?
A. While travelling from Kottayam to Trichur 12082 Jan Shatabdi takes minimum time. Covering a distance of 131 kms, the departure and arrival timings of the train are 17:30:00 and 19:48:00 respectively.
Q. Which is the slowest train running between Kottayam to Trichur? Provide details.
A. 56362 Ers Nil Passenger is the slowest train running between Kottayam to Trichur. Covering a distance of 131 kms, the departure and arrival timings of the train are 05:20:00 and 08:58:00 respectively.
Q. For travelling between Kottayam to Trichur which train tickets cost the lowest? Please suggest.
A. For travelling between Kottayam to Trichur 16302 Venad Express has lowest cost tickets which is INR 75. It covers a distance of 131 kms.
Q. The journey starts from Kottayam to Trichur. How to get latest online information about where is your train?
A. The latest online information about where is your train for Kottayam to Trichur can be checked through ixigo's website or train app.
Q. My train journey starts from Kottayam to Trichur. Is it possible to know where is my train via NTES?
A. Yes, you can check NTES live status at ixigo app for Kottayam to Trichur.
Q. How to get latest online information about train berth availability, from Kottayam to Trichur?
A. Ixigo.com is a great platform for checking online information about train berth availability, from Kottayam to Trichur.
Q. What all identification documents do I require to book IRCTC Trains e-Tickets from Kottayam to Trichur?
A. Identification documents are not required when you're trying to book IRCTC Trains e-Tickets from Kottayam to Trichur.


The OnCenter Municipal Parking Garage Project is located to the east of the historic OnCenter/War Memorial Arena. The OnCenter is home to countless entertainment attractions for local, regional and national audiences. Since 1992, the OnCenter has been the premiere convention location for the region.
Rain gardens were constructed on the existing landscape surrounding the garage. This new bioretention feature captures and infiltrates the stormwater runoff from the roof leaders and pipe/downspout infrastructure of the parking garage facility. Disconnecting this existing infrastructure from the conventional sewer system resulted in an annual runoff reduction of approximately 1.3 million gallons of stormwater per year.


First up, Language Bites from RTE Choice in Ireland. Language Bites is a series of 1-minute programs exploring the origins of popular phrases in the English language. It's presented by Colette Kinsella and sound designed by Lochlainn Harte. This episode is about the origin of the word "storey" (or in American English "story") when used to refer to a level of a building. There are 80 episodes in the series and I just adore them. They are in heavy rotation on the radio stream/station I curate for PRX called Public Radio Remix.
Our second selection is from Nate Dimeo's brilliant show, the memory palace. Each episode of the memory palace features pointedly short, surprising stories about the past. It's sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, and often a wonderful mix of both. It was also a huge inspiration in the creation of 99% Invisible. This episode is about the beautiful sculpture and star map commemorating the Hoover Dam.
the memory palace is being produced monthly as the newest member of the Maximum Fun podcast family. Go get every episode; you'll love it. While we're on the subject of MaxFun, I also can't live without Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, Judge John Hodgman, and My Brother, My Brother and Me. Try them out, too!