Daily Archives: September 12, 2021

LIHUE Educating tourists on local culture, improving traffic and fixing a frayed relationship between residents and the visitor industry are among the top priorities listed in the 2021-2023 Kauai Destination Management Plan.

A progress report for the strategy, which is helmed by the Hawaii Tourism Authority in partnership with a slew of county, state and federal agencies, nonprofits and the visitor industry, was published on Wednesday.

Thirty-six Phase One actions were slated for implementation under the Kauai DMAP in 2021. Twenty-two, or 61% of the total actions, were in progress as of July 30, in addition to two Phase Two actions initiated ahead of schedule.

Ongoing efforts include the propagation of educational videos on appropriate behavior toward endangered species like the Hawaiian monk seal, honu and others. Multiple reports of visitors harassing such animals occurred throughout the summer, sparking outrage among Hawaii residents.

HTA has already posted the videos on social media and is working to play the videos on flights, in the airport and on hotel TV channels.

The management plan also calls for measures to address overtourism on Kauai by keeping track of visitor statistics and enacting reservation systems at so-called visitor hotspots.

Both the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and HTA are in the midst of establishing such reservation systems, according to the progress report.

Other DMAP initiatives cover the promotion and accurate representation of Kauai cultural practices, values and products.

Kauai County has published Tips from Aunty Lani: How to travel with Aloha online, and a Kauai 101 curriculum for visitors and new residents is under consideration. A brick-and-mortar retail and networking space for Kauai products, funded by HTA, is anticipated to open on Rice Street in Lihue sometime this fall.

Scott Yunker, general assignment reporter, can be reached at 245-0437 or syunker@thegardenisland.com.

Original post:

Progress made on tourism initiatives - The Garden Island

PROGRESS Wrestling Chapter 121: In 20 Years There Will Be In Orange was available on Saturday on Peacock and Demand Progress.

There were three title matches during todays event.

Nick Riley & Charlie Sterling defeated Kid Lykos and Kid Lykos III to become the new PROGRESS Tag Team Champions.

Gisele Shaw successfully defended the PROGRESS Womens title against Alexxis Falcon.

The PROGRESS World Championship Iron Match between PROGRESS Champion Cara Noir and Chris Ridgeway went to a draw.

Below are the results:

Doug Williams defeated Danny Black

The Sunshine Machine (Chuck Mambo and TK Cooper) defeated Elijah and Charles Crowley

Luke Jacobs defeated Spike Trivet via disqualification

PROGRESS Tag Team Championship Match:

Smokin Aces (Nick Riley and Charlie Sterling) defeated Lykos Gym (Kid Lykos and Kid Lykos II) (c)

PROGRESS Womens Championship Match:

Gisele Shaw (c) defeated Alexxis Falcon

PROGRESS World Championship 30-Minute Iron-Man Match

Cara Noir (c) and Chris Ridgeway went to a 3-3 draw

See the article here:

PROGRESS Wrestling Results (9/11): New Tag Team Champions, Cara Noir Defends World Title - Wrestling Inc.

The 2021 Farm Progress Show made the most of gorgeous weather in Decatur, Ill., last week during its three-day run from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

It was exceptional to have the industry gather together and create a live event everyone from farmers and exhibitors to politicians, says Matt Jungmann, national events director for Farm Progress.

Exhibitors say farmers turned out in droves, ready to make deals and see equipment in action.

The feedback that Im getting in the weekfollowing the show is that farmers were just eager to be back together at a live event. They were glad we were able to have a show, Jungmann adds.

And the weather? While the Decatur event is often known for high temperatures, that wasnt the case in 2021. After the fog burned off Tuesday morning, the entire rest of the show enjoyed fair skies, moderate temperatures and cool breezes.

The weather was great. The crowd was great. The show was great, Jungmann says. Its hard to beat that combination.

Corn harvest demonstrations ran each day of the show, with early moisture coming in at 24% and dropping to 18% by Thursday. That early corn sucks it out fast, Jungmann notes, adding that yield was pushing 200 bushels. Not bad on 87-day corn in Macon County, Ill.

Jungmann has pushed on to his next event: Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island, Neb., will be held next week, Sept. 14-16. Combines are already rolling there, too.

Go here to read the rest:

Picture this: 2021 Farm Progress Show - Farm Progress

The open beta for Amazon Games upcoming MMORPG, New World, is now live. For the next four days, players will have the chance to test out New World for free before the game officially launches later this month.

Starting today, players will be able to level through New World and make as much progress as they can before the open beta testing period comes to a close. Dont get too attached to whatever character you create during the games open beta, however, because theyll get deleted completely when the servers shut down on Sept. 13 at 1:59am CT.

Although you can theoretically reach the endgame in the open beta of New World, you wont have the chance to start there on the same character once the game fully releases. At the end of the open beta testing period, all progress you make with your characters will be completely wiped.

Over the course of the four-day testing period, youll have the chance to explore nearly all of Aeternum before the servers shut down. Many of the games zones, expeditions, invasions, and professions will be available to test. And while you wont have much time to make real, permanent progress, youll be able to get as far as you wish before having to do it all over again later this month. Thanks to the open betas character wipe, youll have to start the leveling process from the beginning again when the game is fully released on Sept. 28.

If anything, you should view the open beta testing period as a chance to quickly try out the various weapons and playstyles that New World has to offer, so youre more comfortable with making preemptive decisions for your permanent character once the game is released.

The New World open beta is available to play for free now on the games official Steam page. New World will be released on Sept. 28.

Read more from the original source:

Will progress be wiped at the end of the New World open beta? - Dot Esports

In an important recent Nature article, Friedman et al.1 modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards education-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They found that most countries are on track to achieve near-universal primary education by 2030 and schooling gender gaps are closing, but parts of sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East still lag far behind. Progress in secondary education is less promising, with only 10% of adolescents in poorer countries completing 12 schooling grades. An Editorial on the paper (Education must fix its data deficit)2 notes that data on disparities have played substantial roles in driving gains achieved to date1. It calls for more data to identify which groups of children need most help, and urges further progress in tracking what children learn in addition to their completed schooling grades.

SDG 4s goal is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Friedman et al.s1 paper addresses two SDG 4 targets: 4.1 (free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education) and part of 4.3 (ensuring that men and women have equal access to affordable and quality tertiary education). However, their paper entirely overlooks Target 4.2, which states that by 2030, all girls and boys should have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education. As we enter the last decade of the SDG agenda, it is crucial that we hold the world accountable for achieving this target because it is foundational to all learning and the achievement of SDG 4 in totality. SDG 4.2 can only be achieved by collecting and analysing data to track progress and disparities in early-life education, and highlighting governmental actions to accelerate progress by addressing gaps.

The 1990 Jomtien World Declaration on Education for All3 stated that Learning begins at birth, and the importance of child development in preschool years has been included in all international declarations since, including the 2000 Dakar Framework for Action: Education for All4, the Millennium Development Goals and the SDGs. Given strong evidence that foundations for adolescent and adult human capital are established in the early years, we can no longer consider education to begin when children start primary school. It is critical to bear in mind the long-term importance of the enormous learning that occursor does not occurfrom before birth to when children walk into their first-grade classrooms. Inequalities are evident from the start and generally very large by the time children enter formal schooling systems.

Promoting early learning outcomes and mitigating inequities requires tracking childrens progress or development from their very first years of life. SDG 4.2 indicators focus on the proportion of children aged 2459 months who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial wellbeing, by sex (4.2.1) and participation rates in organized learning (1 year before the official primary entry age), by sex (4.2.2)5. The 2020 UN Secretary Generals Report6, based on 74 countries with comparable 20112019 data, states that ~70% of children 34 years of age are on track developmentally in at least three of the following domains: literacy-numeracy, physical development, social-emotional development and learning. Participation in organized learning programmes 1 year before the official age of primary school entry grew steadily from 62% in 2010 to 67% in 2018. Variation among countries remains wide7, with values ranging from 9% to nearly 100%. Of 16 countries with trend data since 2010, the largest progress was observed in Iraq, Laos and Sierra Leone, but no progress or even reduced coverage in Cameroon, Chad or Swaziland7. Further, large socioeconomic and rural-urban within-country disparities are found for preschool children8.

The evidence is incontrovertible: learning begins at and even before birth. Brain development is extremely rapid and learning takes place as children interact with adults who facilitate, name and interpret their experiences. Childrens brain volumes double during their first year and reach 8090% of their adult sizes by age 39, and learning progresses rapidly across all modalities10,11. For example, foetuses and newborns distinguish their mothers voices from others12 and, within days after birth, associate auditory and visual information together, such as mothers voices with their faces13.

Not only are children actively learning about people and objects around them from birth, but they are learning how to learn, mainly from other people. Child-directed speech, emotional attunement between caregivers and children that promotes affection and trust, and predictable adult responsiveness to childrens communication are foundations of childrens learning14. The importance of these elements for young childrens development is articulated in the Nurturing Care Framework (NCF), developed in follow-up of the 2017 Lancet series Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale15. The NCF describes the qualities of holistic environments that promote, support and protect young childrens health, nutrition, safety, and early learning, and satisfy the need for warm and affectionate responsiveness from others.

Clearly, the elements for success in school and lifelong learning are developed long before children enter primary schools. Both stimulating home environments and participation in high-quality early childcare and educational programmes independently and interactively support childrens early learning. One or more years of quality pre-primary education builds cognitive and social skills founded on the substantial learning that takes place through interactions with familiar adults and other children at home, as well as in child day care.

Poverty and undernutrition mar early development for far too many children, estimated at 250 million, or 43%, of all children under 5 years old in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)16,17. These early disadvantages put children at risk of inadequate learning, incomplete schooling and lower adult earnings18,19,20. The average percentage losses of adult income resulting from loss of schooling due to stunting or living in extreme poverty in early life are estimated to be about 27%21. Early disadvantages are compounded by poor quality and high out-of-pocket costs of early childcare and educational and pre-primary programmes. Both poverty and stunting can be mitigated by governmental actions. For example, both minimum wage and parental leave policies have been shown to improve nutrition, family income, and healthy child development22,23.

Inequalities in learning and development are evident early. Analysis of data collected since 2010 through 135 nationally representative datasets (primarily Demographic Health Surveys & Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys) showed that risks for early childhood development and opportunities for early learning varied widely across regions7. All four indicators analysed showed clear gradations of increasing disadvantage for young children from upper-middle- to lower-middle- to low-income countries. From 16% to 36% to 55% of children under age five were exposed to extreme poverty or stunting; 15% to 38% to 46% of 3- to 4-year-olds were not receiving basic stimulation for learning at home; 13% to 26% to 40% of 3- to 4-year-olds were not developmentally on track (as measured by the Early Childhood Development Index, or ECDI), and from 47% to 63% to 79% of children of the same age were not attending early childcare and educational programmes. Gradations of disadvantage were found also within countries with respect to household wealth and rural versus urban residence, with poor rural households having the greatest disadvantages. The differences between boys and girls on the four indicators were either small or non-significant, with slight advantages for girls on stunting and ECDI7. Consistent with the schooling data reported by Friedman et al.1, children in sub-Saharan Africa were most likely at risk due to poverty and stunting, had the lowest percentages receiving adequate stimulation at home (47% vs. 69% for the average of 62 countries from different regions), the smallest proportion developmentally on track in terms of the ECDI (61% vs. 75% for the overall average), and the lowest percentages attending some form of early care and educational programmes (24% vs. 39% for the overall average).

At least 95% of children between 4 years of age and entry into compulsory primary school participate in pre-primary programmes in the 28 European Union countries, reaching the target set in their Strategic Framework for Cooperation in Education and Training24. Pre-primary programme enrolments globally have increased dramatically from 35% in 2000 to over 62% in 2019, with increases in all regions. In LMICs, enrolments nearly doubled over this period. For example, enrolments increased from 9 to 20% in low-income countries and from 45 to 76% in upper-middle-income countries. However, substantial gaps remain, between and within countries and between urban and rural areas and by socioeconomic status. For example, the 2019 pre-primary programme gross enrolment rate was only 32% in sub-Saharan Africa25 compared to 62% globally.

Governments vary in their provision of pre-primary programmes. Among 194 countries, 68 countries have legal mandates for either free and/or compulsory pre-primary education. Among these 68 countries, pre-primary education is free and compulsory in 46 countries. Notably, legal provisions for free pre-primary education exist in 3/27 low-income countries, 11/34 lower-middle-income countries, 23/33 upper-middle-income countries, and 24/26 high-income countries. There is thus a gradient between income and legal provision for pre-primary education. On the one hand, countries that legislated either free and/or compulsory education saw their enrolments increase from 41.4% in 1999 to 82.8% in 2018. On the other hand, countries with no legal frameworks for pre-primary education increased from 52.9% in 1999 to 63% in 201826. Countries offering 1 year of tuition-free pre-primary programming, had 16% higher gross enrolment rates compared to countries without tuition-free pre-primary provision27. Countries providing at least 1 year of free and compulsory pre-primary programming had 10% higher primary school completion rates27, suggesting that free compulsory programmes can set children on paths to longer-term educational attainment.

Inequalities in both provision of and access to early learning opportunities accumulate and extend as children progress through pre-primary, primary and secondary schooling28. This lessens childrens chances of catching-up and of realizing the global communitys efforts to eliminate documented inequalities in schooling1.

Learning occurs progressively and skills build on each other. Complementarities between skills increase motivation and make learning at later ages easier. A recent national longitudinal study showed dynamic complementarity between access to pre-primary education and improved primary and secondary education, with access to both particularly beneficial in terms of increased educational attainment and earnings for children from more disadvantaged households29. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that universally provided high-quality early care and education programmes reduce learning gaps between children from higher and lower socioeconomic status households30.

Given this, it is unsurprising that longitudinal studies show strong evidence for cognitive, social, and economic returns to high-quality early care and educational programmes30. For example, expanded pre-primary programme attendance for Argentinian children aged 35 increased primary school language and mathematics scores by 0.3 and 0.2 standard deviations (SD), respectively, for both boys and girls31. Adults in 12 LMICs who had attended early care and education programmes stayed in school on average 0.9 years longer, controlling for family background and other factors32.

We undertook new analyses of the value of pre-primary school, using a sample of 430,000 children from 73 middle- and high-income countries (Supplementary Table 1) surveyed in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessments (PISA)33.

Read the original:

Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood? | npj Science of Learning - Nature.com

Share this article

This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.

As much as gaming is a thriving industry right now, there's no shortage of bad news in the headlines. It can be discouraging seeing a near-constant succession of stories about abusive studios and communities rife with racism, sexism, xenophobia, and general intolerance of all stripes.

Sometimes the avalanche of bad news might make it seem like we're living through a uniquely terrible moment in games, but I actually think it's a sign of progress in the industry.

Consider the stories of toxic workplaces, and how many of them detail long-standing patterns of behavior, cultures built on sexism or crunch at studios and publishers that have been doing their dirt for decades. In generations past, these stories simply wouldn't be told in public.

"Developers have always crunched, but industry attitudes have shifted from glorifying it, to tolerating it as a necessary evil, to regarding it somewhere between irresponsible and exploitive"

It's not like poor work-life balance is a recent innovation in the industry. Developers have always crunched, but industry attitudes have shifted from glorifying it, to tolerating it as a necessary evil, to regarding it somewhere between irresponsible and exploitive.

We may not look at the outcomes of these stories as any kind of justice for the wrongs done and the harms caused, especially considering how often the leaders who built and oversaw toxic cultures are left in place to deal with the problems they created. But at the very least there's a much greater understanding in the industry -- and critically, a greater understanding for people just entering it -- that workplaces like this are not acceptable, that they cannot be the norm.

As frustrating as it might be for veterans to see the companies that wronged them paying lip service to the need for healthy and supportive workplaces, the next generation of developers have them on the record now and can insist they live up to those sentiments. (Or call them out for failing to do so, at the very least undermining recruitment efforts in the process.)

The increased awareness and volume around these issues has not only given some momentum to unionization efforts in the industry, but it has (perhaps not coincidentally) prompted more companies to explore alternative ways of working more explicitly centered around employees' work-life balance and well-being, whether through shorter work weeks, allowing remote working, or other measures.

And as for the bigotry against various groups, it's at least taken more seriously now. Various indies have long blazed a trail for curating better communities, and even massive companies like EA (with its Positive Play charter) and Microsoft (with its accessibility push) have realized that a bigger tent for gaming is a better tent -- or more profitable, at least -- and the most caustic corners of our audiences have been holding that back.

There's a lot of rotten news out there, but there's reason to hope these are necessary (if long overdue) growing pains for an immature industry. I don't see how we can go from the industry that was to something better without a whole lot of bad news along the way.

STAT | 44% - The percentage of Paradox Interactive employees who reported experiencing mistreatment at the company, according to a survey conducted by Swedish union groups Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjrer.

QUOTE | "In this time that we've very visibly fended off this cohort of trolls, their stance is that, 'You're killing your sales by doing this. We're the gamers and you're keeping us out.' The reality is that our baseline sales since that time, through that whole turmoil, have more than doubled, which is extremely material to us." - Caves of Qud developer Brian Bucklew says the game's tightly controlled Discord community has resulted in financial and community benefits that far outweigh the backlash.

QUOTE | "If we're all happier to be at work because we're well-rested, I think we're going to be better off in the long run." - Phil Tibitoski of Bugsnax developer Young Horses explains the reasoning behind the studio's shift to a four-day work week. It made the change in July and hasn't noticed any change to productivity.

QUOTE | "We realized that working from home is a work mode that is more suitable for some people, as it offers a work-life balance adapted to their needs." Dontnod HR director Matthieu Hoffman on the company's decision allowing all employees to choose between working in the office or remotely.

QUOTE | "Currently, as it stands, the creative team at Ubisoft is composed of white people who are of uniform cultural backgrounds. This leaves us with a lack of confidence in the future shape of the editorial team." - Employee group A Better Ubisoft responds to the promotion of long-time Ubisoft employee Igor Manceau to be chief creative officer. Manceau replaces Serge Hascot, who left the company last year after reported naming him as a central figure in sexual harassment and discrimination claims at the company.

STAT | 24% - Percentage of Riot's global employees in 2020 who were women, according to the company's latest diversity update. That figure is up 2% from 2019.

QUOTE | "If you're a bunch of white guys and one woman, some people might be cautious about [being] the first person of [their identity] because they don't know what to expect... If you haven't been paying attention and you grow to 20, 50, 100, you are going to have a harder sell in a lot of ways." - Poorly Timed Games founder Chris Wright emphasizes that diverse candidates are a lot easier to attract if you care about diversity from the start.

QUOTE | "Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don't get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer." - Tripwire Interactive president John Gibson, posting on Twitter Saturday afternoon.

QUOTE | "We started Shipwright with the idea that it was finally time to put our money where our mouth is. We cannot in good conscience continue to work with Tripwire under the current leadership structure. We will begin the cancellation of our existing contracts effective immediately." - Tripwire co-development partner Shipwright Studios, responding to Gibson's tweet on Sunday afternoon.

QUOTE | "We do not share the opinion expressed in a recent tweet by the president of Tripwire, publisher of Chivalry 2. This perspective is not shared by our team, nor is it reflected in the games we create. The statement stands in opposition to what we believe about women's rights." - Chivalry 2 developer Torn Banner Studios distances itself from Gibson's comments on Sunday night.

QUOTE | "His comments disregarded the values of our whole team, our partners and much of our broader community. Our leadership team at Tripwire are deeply sorry and are unified in our commitment to take swift action and to foster a more positive environment." - Tripwire Interactive, in a statement announcing Gibson's resignation Monday night.

QUOTE | "To work with people that go as far back as Wipeout... the entire leadership team we have worked with in the past. Graeme Ankers, Stuart Tilley, Dr Lovegrove... I've worked directly with them on projects, on Killzone 2. That legacy of the old Studio Liverpool with Formula 1... it's a really great feeling to welcome them back to the family." - PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst talks about how highly Sony thinks of the people behind its new acquisition Firesprite.

QUOTE | "It was felt that by focusing our investment plans on other Studios that are currently working on exciting new projects, we would be in a stronger position to offer the best possible content for our consumers." - Sony, in 2012, explaining why it was closing Studio Liverpool and kicking Ankers, Tilley, and Lovegrove out of "the family" in the process.

STAT | 1 year - The minimum amount of time remaining until the worldwide semiconductor shortage starts to ease, according to Toshiba. Good luck meeting demand until then, console makers!

QUOTE | "It's abundantly clear that the offerings we confirmed in [Horizon Forbidden West's] pre-order kickoff missed the mark." - Sony Interactive Entertainment's president and CEO Jim Ryan resorts to the dreaded "missed the mark" euphemism for explaining why the company was going to charge an extra $10 to upgrade the PS4 version of Forbidden West to the PS5 edition, even though it had specifically told people the upgrade would be free. Turns out charging people for things you previously told them would be free will indeed "miss the mark" more often than not.

Continue reading here:

Progress isn't always pretty | This Week in Business - GamesIndustry.biz

Stewart-Haas Racing isnt having a very good NASCAR Cup Series season, but Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola made the playoffs. Despite those two plus Chase Briscoe and Cole Custer likely earning another season of job security, team co-owner Tony Stewart still faces his second straight year of starting from scratch.

Thats because SHR, like all the Cup Series teams, must retire the current fleets and introduce the Next Gen cars, hopefully in time for the Daytona 500. The car offers enhanced safety and likely reduces the gap between the top and bottom performers. Multiple drivers performed a shakeout on the setups in testing this week.

Drivers will do more testing between now and Daytona. Stewart and Gene Haas will have to optimize the new cars once NASCAR sets the final standards shortly before the 2022 season.

A year ago, though, Stewart turned his attention to another major initiative that introduced a not-so-new racing idea to fans. Stewart and Ray Evernham, who made his reputation as Jeff Gordons crew chief in the 1990s, founded Superstar Racing Experience (SRX).

SRX launched with a six-race season and the general premise of the old IROC series: Put drivers from various backgrounds into identically prepared cars and let em go at it. But SRX added some changeups, including relying on dirt tracks, randomly assigning crew chiefs to new cars each week, and enlisting local drivers as one-off entries.

Stewart and Evernham didnt score a monstrous success right out of the box, but CBS liked what it saw on Saturday nights. SRX delivered an obvious NASCAR flavor, but with shorter races and smaller fields. TV viewers bought into the idea enough to earn Stewart and Evernham a second season of mixing the likes of Helio Castroneves and Paul Tracy with NASCAR and IMSA veterans.

Speaking to CBS Sports leading up to the start of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Stewart said he is lining up money for the new seasons traveling show. Hes also been kicking around innovations, including literally taking SRX down a different road.

Obviously after the first season youre gonna make tweaks and changes, but (were) extremely happy with the product, obviously. Happy with the fact that after Week 1 we took the fans feedback and were able to implement that for the next five weeks. I personally would like to add a road course race to the schedule next year, definitely looking at driver lineups and potential changes in the driver lineup for next year.

Tacking on a road course is a departure from version 1.0 of SRX, but it makes sense. It serves as an equalizer for drivers, who come from a variety of backgrounds, and adds a challenge for crew chiefs, who really only needed to set up cars in one fashion a year ago. But NASCAR went heavy on road courses this season, and all but the most hardcore Cup Series fans seemed to embrace the idea.

But what can Stewart do beyond adding a road course? Here are some possibilities:

These guys arent gimmicks, and SRX can use more of them.

Chase Elliott pulled double duty by racing against his father in Nashville on Saturday night and then returning to his NASCAR gig the following day. If Stewart, who drove in the SRX series this summer, can use his connections to add active Cup Series drivers and colleagues like Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr., now that they know SRX isnt some fly-by-night outfit, he could probably goose TV ratings by another 20%.

Again, theres an expense involved in adding cars. But aiming big requires an investment. Besides, the cost of two or four more cars will pale in comparison to buying the fleet of Next Gen cars that Stewart-Haas will need for the 2022 season.

Like Sportscasting on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @sportscasting19.

RELATED: Tony Stewart Won a Race and Celebrated by Posing on a Bull

Continue reading here:

NASCAR Playoffs Are in Progress, but Tony Stewart Eyes Adding a New Twist to the SRX Series - Sportscasting

The report released this week by Policy Matters Ohio, titled the State of Working Ohio 2021, showed that inconsistencies in assistance from federal and state administrations limited the effectiveness of relief plans like unemployment assistance.

While the study also showed that financial injections like supplemental unemployment, aid packages and direct stimulus payments likely prevented the recession from dragging on months longer in the state, the fact that they were one-time deals or deals that were taken away before the pandemics end brought progress to an end as well.

The pandemic remains with us, study authors Michael Shields and Vivian Jacobs wrote. Weeks after COVID-19 seemed to be receding as a threat, daily cases surged again, prompting renewed uncertainties about when and how we will overcome the coronavirus.

The study said Ohio lawmakers did not help matters as they legislated away the power of public health mandates and the ability to regulate masks and vaccines.

The consequences have been felt across Ohio, but working people, whether working on the frontlines at risk of exposure, or displaced from their jobs, have borne the brunt, the report stated.

Those frontline workers were more likely to be persons of color and/or immigrants and those workers faced higher rates of illness and death from COVID-19, and were more likely to have their jobs destroyed by COVID-19.

Using state and federal data, the study showed that as of July 2021, 269,000 fewer jobs existed in the state compared to February of 2020. The poverty rate in the state reached levels not seen since 2007.

Shields and Jacobs said Gov. Mike DeWine prematurely pulled supplemental unemployment benefits something hes still fighting in the Ohio Supreme Court and that, compounded with the end of eviction moritoria, could cause more Ohioans to lose housing or be unable to pay bills.

Women faced a wage gap that had been narrowing in the years before the pandemic began, and workforce participation also fell as Ohio women left the workforce to care for children or were laid off, the report said.

Women were more likely to have to take on unpaid care work that disrupted their careers, the authors wrote. This recession was distinct from the Great Recession in disproportionately harming women.

While the Great Recession that started in 2o07 exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequity, Policy Matters said COVID-19s fiscal effect threatened to continue that problem, and the study credits rapid recovery of corporate stock prices and real estate as a pandemic boon for the wealthiest Ohioans.

Fiscal stimulus programs, however, showed an equitable state economy is possible, it said.

The unprecedented fiscal stimulus with which federal policymakers met (COVID-19) is a reminder that government is the vehicle we use to solve problems and craft better communities together, the study concluded. When used to those ends, it is an incredibly powerful force.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal, republished here with permission.

See the article here:

Study: COVID-19 Reversed Progress for Ohio Women, More Than 1 Million Workers Displaced - Cleveland Scene

(NAFB) Indigo Ag announced it has dispersed initial payments to the inaugural group of Carbon by Indigo participants.

The 267 paid growers are the first to implement on-farm practice changes and provide the data required to ensure the rigorous measurement and validation of resulting emissions reduction and removal according to registry protocols. The group has helped to pave a path for the scaled production of carbon credits as a new income stream for farmers.

Carbon by Indigo is the first carbon farming program to provide outcomes-based direct payments to growers at scale. Indigo also announced plans to expand eligibility for farmers in 28 states. The company says 78 percent of U.S. cropland is now poised to respond to the mounting demand for high-quality credits, which has already resulted in a credit price increase of 35 percent in the first year of the program.

Starting in the 2022 crop year, farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are also eligible to begin farming carbon with the support of Indigos farmer-first program.

See the rest here:

Indigo Pays 267 Farmers for Progress in First-Ever Carbon Farming Program - newsdakota.com

On Sept. 11, 2001, Brandon del Pozo was a Brooklyn beat cop sent over to Lower Manhattan to help secure and shut down the New York Stock Exchange. By 2005, he was stationed in the Middle East as an intelligence officer for the city, responding to terrorist attacks in Jordan and India to understand what vulnerabilities they might expose in New York.

The path of del Pozos career reflects the way the New York Police Department and the country as a whole shifted from surprised reaction to aggressive planning and preparation to respond to terrorism.

9/11 laid bare how much New York City was truly at the mercy of both global events and the protection of the federal government when it came to homeland security and terrorism, del Pozo says. The idea that a cell operating in the Middle East could somehow cause thousands of deaths thousands of miles away in New York City we knew that at an abstract level, but it hit home on 9/11.

A year after the attacks, the federal government combined 22 separate agencies into its new Department of Homeland Security. Over the past 20 years, every state has set up an emergency operations center to coordinate disaster response, while cities and counties have integrated police, fire and health department responses in a way that wasnt true even in New York City on Sept. 11. After the attack, the New York City Police Department built up a counterterrorism bureau thats one of the leading intelligence agencies in the country.

Its a long way from a foolproof system, but planning is much better and the level of coordination within and between levels of government is vastly improved. Homeland security has become a thing that states and all local governments realize they need to deal with, says Donald Kettl, author of System under Stress, a book about homeland security and politics. Its become a far more integrated effort.

President Bidens decision to pull out of Afghanistan last month has raised concerns that the country is withdrawing from the global war on terror, complacency taking the place of vigilance against continued threats. We all tuned out, says Jason Killmeyer, a security consultant based in Pittsburgh. The soldiers went over there. They died in reasonably low numbers, which kept us satisfied.

(Marcus Yam/TNS)

We have made tremendous progress in keeping Americans safe from a 9/11-style attack, says Suzanne Spaulding, senior adviser for homeland security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Whats happened in the ensuing 20 years, through the competence of our military and the actions weve taken, it appears weve gone back to terrorist groups primarily being focused on the near enemy.

Yet the sense of peril was not great. Despite the bombing and warnings from police experts New York City placed its emergency command center at the World Trade Center, hampering its efforts on Sept. 11.

The post-9/11 clich that everything changed as a result of the attacks was never accurate, but it came close to being true in terms of homeland security. The Justice Department and FBI had offices concerned with attacks on critical infrastructure, while the CIA ran counterterrorism centers. Still, there were only pockets of folks in the federal government, Spaulding says, who were focused on homeland security.

Within days of the attacks, President George W. Bush appointed Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as his homeland security adviser in the White House. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established by Congress in 2002.

We really needed to bring the people looking at the border in one place the immigration folks, the border patrol folks because the big worry then was terrorists coming in from outside the United States, Spaulding says. We started thinking about how we can deter, prevent, respond and recover effectively from catastrophic attacks, and what is the range of capabilities and resources with the federal government that could be brought to bear.

That year, Hurricane Katrina exposed stubborn vulnerabilities within the U.S. to catastrophic events, including ongoing problems with coordination between the different levels of government. With the flooding of New Orleans what you were really dealing with was the equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction being used on the city without criminality, said Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen.

There was plenty of finger-pointing. Federal officials felt that their state and local counterparts couldnt be trusted, Kettl says, in the sense that they werent adequately prepared for disasters, yet blame would be laid at the feds feet. When it came to issues such as dirty bombs, federal officials argued they should have primary responsibility, but locals pushed back. Local governments said, Were always the first responders, theres no way were going to back off, Kettl says.

(SMILEY POOL/KRT)

Nevertheless, Wise says that coordination has gotten better, particularly when it comes to natural disasters. Meanwhile, theres a much greater sense that the formerly independent agencies within DHS are pulling in the same direction than was true at the time of the departments birth.

Just as the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act helped unify military command while keeping the service branches separate, DHS now has much greater unity of effort, says Spaulding, a former department under secretary. The Coast Guard, Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection these are all institutions that have been around a very long time and have their own cultures, she says. But they cant just operate in their silos.

Omar Mateen, who killed 49 mostly gay and Latino people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, was an American who called himself an Islamic soldier. Is he more of a terrorist than Stephen Paddock, who killed 60 people at a Las Vegas concert in 2017 but pledged allegiance to no foreign group?

What about the Jan. 6 assault on Congress? FBI Director Christopher Wray called that an act of domestic terrorism, although to say theres not bipartisan agreement on that score would be an understatement. Jan. 6 was not an isolated event, Wray told the Senate in March. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and its not going away anytime soon.

(Yuri Gripas/TNS)

Weve done a lot to secure the country, says del Pozo, the former NYPD officer. Every civic event, every big cultural or sporting event is viewed through the lens that some outside force could wreak havoc if the city isnt prepared. That will never change.

Theres no end to violence. No matter how secure the borders, local radicalism can continue to cause harm to cities. What we continue to find most challenging is the individual, whether inspired by foreign terrorist ideology, or racially motivated or motivated by domestic politics, Spaulding says.

But the ability of any group or certainly any individual to perpetrate a mass casualty event on the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks has been much diminished.

To find a lone individual who may be on the verge of committing an act of violence is a very big challenge for the government, Spaulding says. Its a very serious concern, its a very serious threat, but its not 9/11.

See original here:

Since 9/11, Tremendous Progress in Homeland Security - Governing