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Capping two days of action on gun control, the House has passed legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearms purchases. |
Democrats led approval Thursday, 228-198, with a handful of defections and scant Republican support. The bill stems from the 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, where nine black worshippers died in 2015 at the hands of a white supremacist. A faulty background check allowed the gunman’s firearm purchase after the required three-day review period expired. |
On Wednesday, the House passed bipartisan legislation requiring federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers. |
The bills are expected to languish in the Republican-controlled Senate. The White House has threatened a veto. |
The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2018, The Price of Free was released globally on November, 27, and has already gained over 2.5mn views. The film also received terrific response at Ajyal Film Festival, with Satyarthi celebrating its success with over 550 young Ajyal Jurors. |
“Ajyal Film Festival is quite unique and I applaud this initiative as it creates an unprecedented space for raising the vital issues of the world at one place engaging young people,” said Satyarthi. “Change begins with consciousness and if you are able to ignite the minds of the people, especially young people, nobody can stop the transformation of the society. I am very hopeful that the film will help create positive consciousness, empower citizens, build responsibility among businesses and promote ethical consumerism,” he added. |
Documenting the noble and selfless mission of Satyarthi, who exposes the plight of young children who are trafficked for forced labour, the 87-minute documentary has live raid operations conducted by him and the relentless work of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, founded by Satyarthi to protect the rights of the most marginalised children. |
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey unveiled legislation yesterday that would require the government to promise to pay its interest on its debt, send out Social Security checks and pay active duty military if Congress cannot reach a deal on raising the debt-ceiling by August 2nd. |
The bill, called Ensuring the Full Faith and Credit of the U.S., has 31 cosponsors in the Senate and comes at a time when lawmakers are becoming increasingly concerned that a deal will not be reached by next week's deadline. |
Today on American Morning, Senator Toomey tells Ali Velshi how he would prioritize spending, offering his take on Speaker Boehner's plan to increase the federal debt-ceiling. |
* Kumaraswamy, the third son of JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, will be administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Vajubhai Vala at 4:30 pm in front of the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the government in Bengaluru. |
* Government officials and sources in the JD(S) said Congress president Rahul Gandhi, his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, N Chandrababu Naidu, Arvind Kejriwal and Pinarayi Vijayan, her counterparts in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Kerala respectively, are among those likely to be present. |
* CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, one of the most vocal votaries of an anti-BJP alliance, Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Makkal Needhi Maiam chief Kamal Haasan and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah are also expected to be present at the ceremony. |
* BSP chief Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, who had formed an alliance during by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, would also attend the ceremony. |
* DMK leader M K Stalin, who was also expected to be present in order to show the burgeoning opposition consolidation against the BJP, has cancelled his Bengaluru visit and would instead head for Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu, where nine people were killed in police firing yesterday. |
* Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao extended his greetings to Kumaraswamy and said that he will not be attending the ceremony as he has Collector's conference in Hyderabad today. |
* Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, too, offered his wishes and expressed his inability to attend the ceremony as all his party leaders are busy in Palghar Lok Sabha by-elections. |
* However, the BJP has dubbed the Congress-JD(S) alliance as "unholy" and claimed that the government will not complete its full term. The saffron party has decided to boycott the oath-taking ceremony and will observe "Anti-People's Mandate Day" to protest the formation of the coalition government. |
* A huge stage has been erected in front of the majestic stone building for the ceremony where a host of national and regional leaders are expected to be present to send a message across to the BJP over the shape of things to come in 2019. |
* Karnataka Congress president G Parameshwara will be sworn-in as the deputy chief minister, AICC general secretary in-charge of the state K C Venugopal said. |
* Congress's Ramesh Kumar, a former minister, will be the next Assembly speaker, while the deputy speaker's post will go to the JD(S), Venugopal told PTI. |
* The Congress would have 22 ministers and JD(S) 12, he said, adding that they would be sworn-in after the floor test slated for Friday. |
Scientists have found that a secluded region in the Pyrenees mountains - previously considered pristine wilderness - is covered with airborne microplastics. |
A team from Strathclyde and Toulouse universities spent five months in the area, which straddles France and Spain. |
They estimate that each day an average of 365 tiny plastic fragments or fibres settled on every square metre of land. |
The nearest major city - Toulouse - is about 75 miles away. |
Researchers collected samples from what they considered to be an uncontaminated area in south west France, about four miles from the nearest village. |
Samples from monitoring devices were analysed to identify whether the tiny plastic pieces, invisible to the naked eye and less than five millimetres long, were present in the mountain range. |
It is not known the distance microplastics can travel, but the paper, published in the Nature Geoscience journal, suggests fragments are regularly travelling distances of nearly 60 miles. |
Steve Allen, a researcher from Strathclyde University, said the research suggested microplastics were being transported by the wind. |
He said: "It's astounding and worrying that so many particles were found in the Pyrenees field site. |
"It opens up the possibility that it's not only in the cities you are breathing this in, but it can travel quite some distance from the sources. |
"Plastic litter is an increasing global issue and one of the key environmental challenges we face on global scale." |
Mr Allen said that researchers had yet to determine the full impact of microplastics, but that other experiments had suggested they could lead to changes in feeding and mating habits in some species. |
Microplastics, which are completely invisible to the naked eye, have also been detected in the oceans and aquatic life. |
They have been found in tap water around the world and in some of the most remote places on earth, with studies showing they have even reached Antarctica. |
BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday defended her government's decision to phase out nuclear power and switch to renewable energies within a decade, but acknowledged the need to overhaul and speed up the transition plan. |
Business leaders have criticized the way the switchover has been managed, saying the costs are spiraling and hurting some companies. |
"We have achieved a lot but we are far from being where we should stand," Merkel told a gathering of the German Employers Association. |
The country's grid operators this week said a surcharge on households' electricity prices financing the expansion of renewable energies will increase by 47 percent on the year in January. A typical family of four will have to pay about €250 ($324) per year on top of their bill, but many large companies are exempt from the surcharge to safeguard their competitiveness. |
The surcharge is used to guarantee producers of wind, solar or biomass power a long-term above-market rate for their electricity output, making sure their investments are profitable. |
Merkel acknowledged there is "urgent need to reform" the system because renewable energies' rapid expansion has led to sharply rising costs. She warned, however, that the changes won't be easy as they have been opposed by an increasing number of producers of alternative energies. |
"When a great number of people benefit from a law then it of course gets always more difficult to override that law by democratic means," she said. |
Environment Minister Peter Altmaier presented a roadmap toward overhauling the transition program last week, but warned it was unlikely to be implemented before the general election expected next September. |
The employers association's chairman, Dieter Hundt, strongly criticized Merkel's government for failing to live up to the ambitious challenge of reforming the energy sector within a decade, saying it must act faster and end "the madness of subsidies" for renewable energies because they threaten the nation's companies' competitiveness. |
"In light of the hesitant implementation of the energy switchover and the exploding energy prices must we not reconsider the decisions and time frames?" wondered Hundt. |
Merkel, however, ruled out changing track. |
She said that if Germany successfully manages the energy switchover, "then Germany will be a model for many countries around the world in how one can achieve a sustainable energy supply." It will also help exports as German companies produce alternative energy technologies. |
Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy, aims to boost renewable energies' share in electricity production from the current 25 percent to 40 percent by 2022, and successively to 80 percent by 2050. |
In his book Revolution In Judea: Jesus And The Jewish Resistance (1980), Hyam Maccoby, who has died aged 80, responded to Christian denigration of the Pharisees by depicting Jesus Christ as a progressive, Torah-observant Pharisee. An Orthodox Jew, he argued that Jesus opposed not Judaism but the Roman oppressors and their Saducee quislings. For him, Jesus lived, preached and died wholly within the Jewish tradition - a view that discomfited many Jews and Christians. |
Traditional Christianity also posits Judas Iscariot as an arch-villain, but Maccoby viewed him as a caricatured concoction, symbolising the eternal guilt that Jews supposedly bore for killing Christ. In Judas Iscariot And The Myth Of Jewish Evil (1992), Maccoby traced a thread linking the New Testament to Auschwitz. |
The central thesis of another work, The Mythmaker: Paul And The Invention Of Christianity (1986), was that St Paul, not Jesus, created Christianity, being an adventurer who undermined the disciples who had actually known the living Jesus. It was Paul, said Maccoby, who turned Jesus into God and transformed the early Jewish Christian sect into a Gnostic mystery cult imbued with "Hellenistic schizophrenia". |
In Paul And Hellenism (1991), Maccoby wrote that a politically savvy Paul deliberately recast the gospels to exculpate Rome from the charge of deicide. Then, "by stigmatising the Jews as the rejecters of Jesus, [Paul] planted the seeds to anti-semitism in the Christian tradition". |
Maccoby made ancient history and theology come alive. He wrote and lectured on rabbinical literature and Jewish humour, and loved to draw parallels between cultures. In Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice And The Legacy Of Guilt (1983), he compared the Greek legend of Iphigenia, Aztec rituals and the Levantine myth of the murdered and resurrected god Attis to the sacrifice of Isaac and Jesus's execution. |
Maccoby argued that the Christian veneration of the crucifixion marked its regression to primitive human sacrifice. Witness his description of the communion, the symbolic eating of Christ's flesh and blood: "Jesus would have been appalled to know of the pagan interpretation later put on the simple kiddush, or blessing over wine and bread, with which he began the Last Supper." |
Some rabbis were equally distressed to see the Torah apparently reduced to a series of myths, shorn of divine authorship, and Maccoby certainly refused to gloss over the schisms that divide the sister faiths. Judaism On Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations In The Middle Ages (1981) studied those bizarre mock-trials, which pitted Jewish scholars against Christian theologians. Yet it would be crass to call Maccoby an anti-Christian firebrand. His play, The Disputation (1996), commissioned by Channel 4 and expanded for the London stage, showed James, King Of Aragon, insisting that the learned rabbi, Nachmanides, have his say. |
Maccoby was born in Sunderland, the son of a mathematics tutor, who taught him biblical Hebrew and talmudic Aramaic from the age of four. He may have inherited his rhetorical prowess from his grandfather, who had arrived in Britain in 1890 having been the maggid (or itinerant religious preacher) of Kamenets, his home village in Poland. |
Maccoby was educated at Bede grammar school, and read classics, and then English, at Balliol College, Oxford. From 1942 and 1946, he served in the Royal Signals, based at the decoding centre at Bletchley Park. He was then, for some 20 years, an English master at Chiswick school, west London. |
In 1975, he was appointed librarian and tutor at Leo Baeck College, London, where Reform and Liberal rabbis train. A stream of books followed, including The Day God Laughed: Sayings, Fables And Entertainments Of The Jewish Sages (with Wolf Mankowitz, 1978), Judaism In The First Century (1989), A Pariah People: Anthropology Of Anti-Semitism (1996), Ritual And Morality (1999), The Philosophy Of The Talmud (2002), Jesus The Pharisee (2003) and, earlier this year, Anti-Semitism And Modernity. |
In 1998, Maccoby joined the Centre for Jewish Studies at Leeds University, as visiting, and then research, professor. His numerous television appearances included one on Howard Jacobson's audacious documentary, Sorry, Judas (1993). |
He is survived by his wife Cynthia, two daughters and a son. Colleagues and friends cherished his prodigious scholarship and kindness. |
Are you a DT Teacher looking for an exciting new challenge in an exciting inner-London secondary school? |
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This is an opportunity for an experienced DT Teacher or a DT NQT to join a secondary school that offers outstanding support. The school has recently appointed a new Headteacher and as such has some exciting changes. This Headteacher believes in creativity and fun in the classroom, whilst obtaining high results and as such allows you to bring your own methods of teaching into the classroom, which in turn allows you to develop further as a teacher. |
This mixed mainstream secondary school is in Southwark, London and caters to a cohort of 1100 student’s aged 11-18. This is an opportunity for an DT Teacher to join a school that offers great support for NQT’s as well as new members of staff. This school is close to public transport links and within 8 minutes walking distance from the train station; they also have parking on site for members of staff that are looking to drive to work. |
For more information about this DT Teacher role, click apply or contact Adam at Qualiteach Ltd. |
(Host) A top official with the Douglas administration says Vermont Yankee still hasn’t made the case for its proposed power upgrade. |
(Dillon) Hearings start Monday on Yankee’s plan to retrofit the reactor in order to produce 20% more electricity. |
But Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien says he questions whether the power plan is good for the state. O’Brien, who heads the state agency that represents ratepayers, says he’s concerned that the plant could be forced into lengthy shutdowns during the power upgrade. |
(Dillon) The Yankee plan must be approved by the Public Service Board. O’Brien says his staff will tell the board about the state’s concerns. |
(Dillon) But O’Brien held out the possibility that the state could eventually endorse the Yankee proposal. He says if the reactor owners address the state’s concerns, then his department may back the plan. |
Gorgeous home overlooking the 6th green on Ironwood Ridge golf course. Two story entry and great room fill this home with an abundance of natural light. Kitchen is a chef's dream remodeled in 2011 including granite, cherry wood cabinets, double ovens and induction cooktop. ALL NEW carpeting and paint throughout!! Home also features reverse osmosis system. The master bathroom is a sanctuary to relax in including zero entry shower, built in cabinets and two walk in closets. Large home theater room, bar and wine cellar in basement as well as 5th bedroom and full bath. Professional landscape(gorgeous in spring) and irrigation system . Home is in award winning Hamilton County school district. Don't miss an opportunity to check this out! |
So hi. Apologies to disappear, constant readers – I was mired in the last revise of a big magazine story (which will be out in two months and will be very exciting). Back now, and catching up. Here's something that caught my eye yesterday, on a topic that I haven't looked at since this blog was at its former home: the issue of ethanol-manufacturing leftovers, and whether they contribute to antibiotic resistance in the animals they are fed to. |
When the process is scaled up, it's common for the ethanol mash to become contaminated with Lactobacilli, which compete with the yeast for the sugars in the mash but, instead of producing alcohol, leave behind lactic acid. That lowers the ethanol yield from a batch, sometimes as much as 5 percent – a lot, for an industry whose profit margins are thin – and so ethanol producers routinely inoculate the mash with antibiotics to control the competition. |
This would not be important, except that selling the leftover mash is a key contribution to making ethanol profitable. The mash is renamed "distillers' grains" and is sold as feed for beef and dairy cattle and for chickens. |
Perhaps you begin to perceive the problem: If antibiotics were used in the mash, the possibility exists that some low dose of antibiotics will remain in the grains, and will be consumed by the livestock. That makes the distillers' grains functionally similar to standard feed containing low doses of antibiotics for growth promotion/feed efficiency, a practice blamed for promoting the development of antibiotic-resistant organisms. |
Which brings us to the new news. Researchers from the University of Minnesota have announced an analysis of antibiotic residues in distillers' grains. The results haven't brought much clarity, though; in fact, what you see in them seems to be determined by where you stand on this issue from the start. |
Devan Paulus, a graduate student working with Jerry Shurson, swine nutritionist at the University of Minnesota, collected 20 distiller’s (wet) grains with solubles (DGS) samples and 20 distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS) samples from various ethanol plants throughout the United States. The samples, collected quarterly for a year, were analyzed for virginiamycin, erythromycin, penicillin, tetracycline and tylosin residues. Further testing on E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes sentinel bacteria revealed whether the residues were active. |
While all of the 117 samples tested to date contained antibiotic residues, only one sample was found to have an antibiotic residue active enough to inhibit E. coli growth. The residue concentrations in the distillers’ grains are much lower than minimum-approved Food & Drug Administration (FDA) feed levels for finishing swine. “Extremely low concentrations of penicillin (less than 0.2 ppm), erythromycin (less than 1 ppm), tetracycline (less than 0.008 ppm) and tylosin (less than 0.02 ppm) residues were detected in wet and dried distillers’ co-products,” Shurson explains. “Only two of the 117 samples contained low, but detectable, concentrations (0.5 and 0.6 ppm) of virginiamycin residues, but this level is well below the 1 ppm FDA GRAS approval level,” Shurson explains. |
National Hog Farmer's take on the results is captured in its headline: "Co-Product Antibiotic Levels Nearly Nil." |
[L]ow-level antibiotic activity is a pathway to antibiotic resistance, as the antibiotics kill off susceptible bacteria leaving the “superbugs” to thrive. Even one sample in 117 testing positive for antibiotic residue is an indication that we don’t know the fate of these antibiotics or if they’re contributing to the antibiotic resistance epidemic. |
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this issue is that these antibiotics are not necessary. Effective non-antibiotic antimicrobials are readily available to producers and used successfully by many producers, including POET, the largest producer in the country. According to POET, the switch to antibiotic-free distillers’ grains offered a market advantage: antibiotic residues are not permitted in layer hen feed. |
Clearly some substantial hard data is needed – and might be on the way. Following those 2008 tests, the FDA actually started a project sampling distillers' grains from around the United States. And in itsplanned actions for this year, the agency has included a "draft guidance" specifically on the antibiotic-residue problem. Maybe some clarity is coming. |
Dear Editor: The planet has been cooling since 1998. With 2002 as a reference point, the Earth's average temperature has plateaued. CO2 is increasing, but average temperatures are stable. These inconvenient facts are acknowledged by the head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Whatever global warming trend we had (1 degree C. in the last 100 years), stopped a decade ago. |
All four global temperature tracking outlets show global temperatures have dropped precipitously (.065-.075 degrees C) over the past year, erasing nearly all of the global warming of the last 100 years. |
Climate models assume that warming caused by additional CO2 increases water vapor, thereby escalating the greenhouse effect (positive feedback). But NASA's Aqua satellite, launched in 2002, finds that additional CO2 reduces water vapor (negative feedback), significantly mitigating the greenhouse effect. The Aqua satellite focuses on cloud formations and water vapor, two crucial factors that climate models ignore. |
This winter has offered an abundance of evidence that the planet is cooling: China has had its coldest winter in 100 years; North America has had more snow cover than in the last 50 years; Antarctica has record levels of ice; record cold occurred in the U.S., Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina and Chile; glaciers are advancing worldwide; and Arctic ice is normal, recovering in record time during October �07. |
The cooling is attributed to reduced solar activity, which is projected by scientists to further decrease in the future giving us unusually cool conditions starting in 2020. |
JEFFERSON CITY � U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton has launched a military campaign for Congress. |
The west-central Missouri Democrat, now in his 34th year in Washington, is seeking re-election against Republican Vicky Hartzler by emphasizing his commitment to military troops and veterans. |
It might seem an odd tactic this year, considering most candidates around the country are focused on the economy or issues such as federal spending, deficits, bailouts, health care and energy policies. |
But Skelton�s early campaign theme reveals a perceived path toward victory in an election year that otherwise appears to favor Republicans. Skelton, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, wants to keep the political battle on his own turf, over issues on which he has expertise. |
Skelton faces a more difficult contest if Hartzler is successful in casting the race as a referendum on the Democratic-led Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the national economy. |
Missouri�s Fourth Congressional District could be one of the dozens of races nationally that determine whether Democrats can keep control of the House. Although the National Republican Congressional Committee is not targeting Skelton with its first wave of TV ad buys, Missouri GOP Executive Director Lloyd Smith said he expects it will do so during its next round of ads. |
Until then, Skelton has been laying a foundation for the race with his own TV ads. |
His first two ads both featured testimonials � one from the mother of a Marine, the other from an Army veteran � about how much they appreciate Skelton�s defense of the troops. The third ad, which began airing Aug. 18, questions Hartzler�s support of the military. |
Over roughly the past month, Skelton�s congressional and political offices have put out more than a dozen news releases, columns and statements highlighting his work on behalf of the military. Even the announcement of a coalition of �Small Business Owners for Ike� was framed in the context of them appreciating his support for Whiteman Air Force Base and Fort Leonard Wood. |
�I�m downright proud of our young men and young women in uniform. I do my best to look after them, and I want people to know that,� Skelton explained in a recent interview when asked about his military-centric campaign. |
Having spent considerable money to win the Aug. 3 Republican primary, Hartzler hasn�t yet run TV ads in the general election. But her preferred campaign theme already is evident. A news release Friday accused Skelton of �sticking like glue to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.� In fact, Hartzler�s campaign linked Skelton to Pelosi with news releases nearly every day this past week. On the one day it didn�t, the Missouri Republican Party did so for her. |
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