Category Archives: Progress

This past week brought us two items of interest that may have been overlooked by some amid the more pressing news of the week.

Even if you are not necessarily a fan of grande vanilla bean frappuccinos or artisan soups, sandwiches or pizzas, the recently approved plans for a Starbucks coffee shop in the Mohawk Acres Plaza on Black River Boulevard and the ribbon-cutting of the newly-opened Crust Kitchen & Bar, 86 Hangar Road West in the Air City Lofts complex on Griffiss Park are welcome and important news.

Both restaurants demonstrate not just a sizable investment and commitment to the community, but these developments show that efforts to diversify and grow the local economy and the partnerships between state and local officials; the Griffiss Local Development Corp., MV EDGE, the Oneida County Industrial Development Agency, Empire State Development and other economic development organizations; and a host of private developers are working, despite the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.

Griffiss Park is bustling from the Innovare Center to the Air City Lofts to the Orgill Distribution Center and just about all spots in-between. Employees at DFAS, at Rome Lab and other companies on the sprawling business and technology park, many of whom have all lived elsewhere, are demonstrating that Rome is a great place to live and the amenities they desire from cappuccinos to calzones are following.

We appreciate the investments of those in our community whether from new or longtime investors; however it is important to take note that among those investing in Romes future is a third generation entrepreneur, Chris Destito, whose grandparents and later father and uncles made both The Beeches and The Savoy nationally renown. We wish him equal success in his venture with the Crust Kitchen & Bar.

For those of us old enough to remember young Christophers father, the late Chris Destito, his sons commitment to the community is hardly surprising. During his life, the elder Chris Destito was perhaps the regions greatest advocate and cheerleader. No agency, organization nor individuals problems or needs were too big or too insignificant to him. Though he would never take credit for a thing, there is nary a local philanthropic organization or non-profit human service agency that didnt receive his assistance or wisdom. Decades after many of his efforts almost all done on his own time and at his own expense these agencies, this community, and a new generation continue to benefit.

See the original post here:

Pair of new businesses are signs of ongoing progress - Rome Sentinel

Just a few hours after World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic introduced its first content update, the newly-introduced raids have been cleared. The first guild to achieve this was the EU-based guild Progress.

The two raids added to the Burning Crusade Classic earlier today were Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. And as youd expect, guilds were quick to gear up and attempt to become the first to clear the pair of raids.

Progress, based on realm Firemaw, were the very first to get through both raids, as well as the first to complete Serpentshrine Cavern killing Lady Vashj. They were beaten to be the first to kill Kaelthas by the guild SALAD BAKERS who opted to clear Tempest Keep first.

Ultimately, the race came down to Progress and another guild BEEF BAR with the final boss of each respective raid being eliminated within one minute of another, resulting in Progress coming out on top.

You can check out some of the highlights from the action where Progress took down the two final raid bosses, courtesy of guild member Tetsus stream.

With BEEF BAR coming in second place only one minute behind Progress, the rest of the top 10 wasnt far behind with SALAD BAKERS 10th placing run taking just under an hour longer than first place.

Here you can check out the first 10 guilds to clear the pair of raids and their respective times.

Originally posted here:

Progress continues WoW Classic dominance with world-first clear of Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep - Dot Esports

No one knows for sure just how good or bad crop yields and production will be until the combines get rolling. And that time is coming soon.

But early word from farmers is mainly positive and may fall in line with recent USDA forecasts of record corn and soybean yields across the Northeast, Michigan and Ohio.

Heres what some farmers across the region had to say about their crops thus far, and some things they did new this season:

Jim Hershey, Elizabethtown, Pa. Ill just say things are looking good, but my crop consultant found tar spot in my corn, he says about his corn. So there might be some management changes that have to go into effect for another year. It came on late, but once its here, it can be more pronounced, especially in corn after corn.

For his soybeans, Hershey doesnt like to predict anything and its still early, but he says enough rain in August will likely result in a good crop.

His says his winter wheat was top notch, with some of the wheat coming in at a 64-pound test weight. Im not sure the yield was quite tops, but the quality was the best I ever had, he says.

Scott Miller, Elsie, Mich. Miller farms 2,400 acres, including 150 acres of wheat, and 1,000 acres each of corn and soybeans. Things have been pretty good for the most part, he says, though tar spot hit his corn hard.

Weve been hearing rumblings about lower test weight, high-moisture corn. Soybeans could be the best beans I ever had. The potential is out there, he says.

His winter wheat was hit by drought early on and didnt make average yield in most places.

One thing he tried new this year was relay cropping on a 20-acre parcel. Last year Miller planted winter wheat in 8-inch rows, and came back this spring and no-tilled soybeans in between the rows to get them started. He then cut the wheat above that.

Ive seen it for years in different parts of the country. Its got enough of a promise that were going to do it again," he says.

Spreaders were busy emptying out manure storages on land surrounding the Kreider dairy complex outside of Manheim, Pa.

Chip Bowling, Newburg, Md. Things have been slow thus far in the combine for Bowling, who planted 450 acres of corn and 1,200 acres of soybeans this season.

The corn isnt drying down as quickly as it normally does this time of year on his southern Maryland farm, but yields have been solid with the combine reading more than 200 bushels in some places.

The corn crop here in southern Maryland looks exceptionally good, he says.

Full-season and double-crop soybeans are also looking good, but like many growers, Bowling is hesitant to predict any sort of yield.

His wheat crop struggled to get going as cool, wet conditions slowed down planting this spring. Still, he says hes pleasantly surprised by how it yielded. Hes even considering growing a more hard red winter wheat next year, as some local buyers are asking for it.

We finally got some varieties that will yield well here, so we may try that, he says. Well plant as much cover crops as possible. Something we may do thats different is carbon markets. We possibly might get into that. Were doing some homework on that.

Russ McLucas, McConnellsburg, Pa. McLucas growers 180 acres of corn, 80 acres of soybeans, 220 acres of wheat and around 150 acres of grass hay.

Silage is coming in about average this year, he says, with most of the crop being chopped at around 68% moisture with good quality.

His wheat crop was really good with a 60- to 62-pound test weight on average and no docks for vomitoxin. The first cutting of grass hay was good and then the spicket shut off.

Its been dry. We got a little bit of second cut but not enough. It was what it was, McLucas says.

Something new he rolled out this year was a 12-row Harvest International planter with all the precision planting stuff on it.

We were very impressed with the planter, he says. A lot of things are hype and BS. This planter is not hype or BS.

Meghan Hauser, Castile, N.Y. Fourth cutting was just placed in the bunks at Table Rock Farms. Hauser and crew grow 1,800 acres of corn and alfalfa to feed a herd of 1,150 dairy cows.

After two years of really short hay, Hauser says this years crop has been amazing. Corn silage chopping will start soon, she says, and thus far the crop looks good.

One thing her cropping crew started this year was planting green in spring, though she admits that the cover crops got away from them a little bit, making it tough to get silage planted.

There is a lot of promise, and we keep learning about it, she says. We continue to learn. Thats the fun thing of farming.

A farmer near Robesonia, Pa., works ground that was recently harvested for corn silage.

Ryan Crane, Exeter, Maine. Crane and crew grow 1,500 acres of potatoes and 2,100 acres of corn within a 200-mile radius in central and southern Maine. Corn and potatoes are grown in rotation, but some small grains winter rye and oats are mixed in, too.

Overall, corn is looking fairly good, he says. He plants a wide range of maturities, from 72- to 89-day varieties. Hes expecting 150 bushels in his 72- to 78-day fields, up to 170 bushels in his 80- to 85-day fields, and up to 200 bushels in his 89-day fields.

On grain, its good to get it planted right. We do two fertilizer products at planting. Good seed depth, spacing. We really to keep the planter calibrated right, he says. We do some fertility in spring, then a sidedress blend based on soil sampling.

Potato yields are variety dependent, but Crane is expecting some fields to average 400 cwt in some places. Thats pretty exceptional. I wouldnt be surprised if its 450 in some places; 300 is usually doing good, he says.

Steve Reinhard, Bucyrus, Ohio. Reinhard and his brother, Tim, run a seed and chemical business just outside Bucyrus near Toledo.

Like many growers, Reinhard says armyworm took a toll on his alfalfa fields this season.

He says soybean yields will be lower because of the cold, wet May. They could not recover to full potential. Some of my best-looking beans had some sudden death, he says. In all, the beans will be average to slightly above-average, but not a huge crop.

Some tar spot was found in his corn, but he doesnt expect it to reduce yield.

A little water damage early drowned out spots. I have heard some early-harvested test weights may be a little lighter than expected. It was very hot and dry in late August, Reinhard says.

Penn States annual crop tour visited 110 corn and soybean fields across the state, sampling sites with typical management practices for their respective counties. This years crop, while variable from field to field and even within the same field, appears to be promising for yield and quality. For more information, go to Penn State Extension.

Here's some results per region:

More here:

As harvest starts, some positive reports from growers - Farm Progress

End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Ensure gender equality and empower all women and girls. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. These are a few of the aspirationsmember states are targetingby 2030 through the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recent reports from the U.N., however, beg the question: Was 2030 a pipe dream?

TakeGoal 13, which focuses on combating climate change: The reportissued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)last month raised thousands of pages of red flags about our progress. Another report from the U.N. published this month puts the spotlight on the SDGs yet again. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Development Programand U.N. Environment Programopen a report about food systems by stating:With eight years remaining, we are falling far short of the trajectory needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Authors cite speed and comprehensiveness as needed but lacking.

In calling out lack of speedy and comprehensive action to reshape food systems in support of the SDGs, the U.N. agencies take aim at agricultural subsidies in particular.

"Current support to agricultural producers worldwide works against the attainment of the SDGs, the targets of the Paris Agreement and our common future, the reports forward reads. This support is biased towards measures that are harmful and unsustainable for nature, climate, nutrition and health, while disadvantaging women and other smallholder farmers in the sector."

Assessing support for agricultural producers in 88 nations, the U.N. reportplaces global agricultural subsidies at $540 billion a year, or 15 percent of total agricultural production value. The agenciescontendthat over two-thirds of this support is price-distorting and largely harmful to the environment. They estimate the value of these subsidies could increase to $1.8 trillion a year by 2030.

Sugar, beef, milk and rice are some of the most subsidized commodities in the world, the report outlines and all of these productsare either nutrient-poor or carbon-intensive, if not both. Authors calculate that eliminating agricultural subsidies entirely could mean avoiding 11.3 million tons of carbon equivalent emissionsby 2030, but they warn that the costs to farmer incomes and food prices would only exacerbate poverty and undernourishment essentially supporting one SDG while sacrificing many others.

In short: Governments needto redirect financial assistance and the U.N. report outlinessix steps to do it. These include: estimatethe support already provided to agricultural producers, identifyand estimatethe impact of this support, designan approach and reforms to repurpose support in more productive directions, estimatethe impact of the new strategy, reviewand refinethe strategy, implement it,and monitoroutcomes.

The action itemsthe U.N. agencies pose for governments underscore that simply eliminating agricultural subsidies won't work.Funds must be redirected for governments to reap the benefits and for sustainable agricultural systems, such as regenerative agriculture, to grow.

Repurposing agricultural support can improve both productivity and environmental outcomes, saidAchim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP),in a recent statementoutliningtheeconomic benefit of actually following through with the U.N.'s recommendations. This change will also boost the livelihoods of the 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide, many of them women, by ensuring a more level playing field, he said.

Whilestrategies must be country-specific, the U.N.also emphasizes that global coordination is needed, if only to standardize the monitoring and reporting of financial support. A good place to begin international cooperation? The reportpoints to the U.N. Food Systems Summit, taking place on Thursday as part of Climate Week,and recommends that repurposing agricultural support be placed at the top of the agenda.

Image credit:Roman Synkevych/Unpslash

Continued here:

Agricultural Subsidies Are Hindering Progress On the SDGs - Triple Pundit

Consumer goods brands giant Ultimate Products has signed a deal with Oprah Winfrey-backed WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers.

The Oldham-headquartered listed company's kitchenware brand, Progress, has signed a license endorsement with US firm.

The agreement will see Progress and WW collaborate to develop and promote "value-for-money" products that can help to prepare and cook nutritious and healthy foods.

READ MORE: Tesco, Aldi, M&S and Morrisons supermarkets acquired by real estate investment giant in 113.1m deal

A range of 'Progress by WW' products will be launched across the small domestic appliances and cookware categories. These will include air fryers, health grills, soup makers, nut milk makers, slow cookers, blenders, food processors, food steamers, chopping boards, knives, utensils, and kitchen gadgets.

Progress was established in 1931 and was acquired by Ultimate Products in 2015 and relaunched in 2016. Its customers include Tesco, Argos and Amazon.

Simon Showman, chief executive of Ultimate Products, said: "We are thrilled to be partnering with a brand of WW's global renown, heritage and standing.

"Their endorsement of the historic Progress brand is a fantastic seal of approval, and we are delighted that 'Progress by WW' will help to inspire people to choose a healthier lifestyle.

"By buying one of these products, customers will also be playing their part in creating a more sustainable, greener and cleaner future thanks to our innovative new 'Buy me & plant a tree' initiative."

Anna Hill, GM of WW UK, added: "At WW, we want to make it as easy as possible for people to follow a healthy lifestyle.

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"Meal planning, food preparation and cooking at home are a big part of that, so we're delighted to have launched Progress by WW with Ultimate Products.

"We hope this wide range of WW licensed products will help inspire people on their wellness journeys and we look forward to seeing the range on supermarket shelves and online."

Continued here:

Ultimate Products' Progress brand signs deal with Oprah Winfrey-backed WW - Business Live

Last time, I chronicled Frances success at boosting homebuilding in greater Paris. This time, I look at the industrial worlds laggards in abundant housing.

Might the boldest new examples of leadership for abundant, low-carbon housing come from two of the worst places in the world at providing itand from opposite ends of the political spectrum?

By one measure, the United Kingdom and its former colony New Zealand have the worst housing records around (see Figure 1). Like their Anglosphere peers Australia and Canada, they govern homebuilding in ways that give neighborhood obstructionists vast power, yielding tight restrictions on new homes. And they provide little incentive for local leaders to welcome more homes. Consequentlyinevitablythey endure housing shortages on an epic scale, with surging and astronomical prices.

Yet recently, from these bastions of NIMBYist exclusion have sprung bracingly ambitious efforts at reform. The government of New Zealands progressive Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has implementedand the government of UKs conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson has proposedefforts to disempower residential obstructionism and unleash construction of vastly more in-city housing. In Johnsons words, build, build, build! Such pro-housing reforms could make these countries unexpected models for Cascadia and other tech-booming places.

When it comes to housing politics, the United Kingdom and its most Anglicized former colonies such as New Zealand are the worst in the world at providing abundant, affordable housing, according to Professor Paul Cheshire, who studies housing internationally at the London School of Economics. But they are not actually destined to fail: indeed, they have certain advantages. Like Japan and France, the UKs largest part, England, and New Zealand have strong national governments with centralized regulatory, tax, and spending systems. They couldthey have begun topromote abundant housing through national policy. The problem is that, unlike Japan and France, they long ago delegated control over real-estate development to local governments, while, unlike Germany, giving them no incentive to welcome new homes.

In the United Kingdom, this modern supercharging of local obstructionism dates to a near-ban on development during World War II. Then, in 1947, the post-war Labour Party government of Clement Attlee enacted the Town and Country Planning Act, which led to some of the worlds strictest development controls: not only tight containment cordons around cities to stop sprawl but also limits on building heights and a system by which almost every building erected needs to win the affirmative consent of local town councils, who can deny permission for any reason or for no reason at all.

Such local, discretionary permitting did not immediately close off construction; the post-war consensus on housing was go-go. But over time, handing power to localities had exactly the same effect as it does in North America today: it gave homeowning local voters (homevoters, in theorist William Fischels term) a veto over change. By a generation later, as homeownership grew (it more than doubled to 70 percent of households in the second half of the twentieth century), localities everywhere were tightening the screws on new construction. After peaking around 1970, the number of homes built annually in the UK has fallen by more than half, even as the nations population has grown by more than a third.

Germany has a decentralized system of development regulation, like the United Kingdom, but it provides strong incentives to local authorities to welcome homes. German localities get money from higher levels of government based partly on how many residents they have. In the United Kingdom, localities gain no such funds. In fact, they end up paying for any new facilities needed to serve newcomers, such as schools or parks, but get scant financial help from London. The countrys revenue system pools some locally collected taxes and fees and shares these elsewhere, so even the local tax windfalls from new development tend to leak away to the chancellor of the Exchequer in London. The housing scholar Christian Hilber, also at the London School of Economics, wrote me by email:

There is an alliance of local residents who do not like local development and . . . local politicians who do not even increase their fiscal revenue when they permit development . . . . The consequence is an extremely restrictive planning system and a massive affordability crisis that has been getting worse over the last 40 years.

Since the 1970s, the United Kingdom has built about half as many new homes as Germany, despite a similar population. From the mid-seventies to the present, UK home prices have tripled, adjusted for inflation, while Germanys have remained roughly stable, as shown in Figure 1. UK home prices are staggeringly high: in London they were, in one careful comparison, almost twice as high per square foot as prices in Paris, and more than three times as high as Tokyos. Rents were similarly astronomical.

New Zealands record is, if anything, worse. A country of five million peoplejust a little larger in area and population than Oregonit is a mid-sized exporter of farm and forest products perched on the periphery of the global economy. But its housing prices are more like those one might expect in a global hub of finance or technology. The average price of a New Zealand house in late 2020 was about US$500,000, which is roughly 50 percent more than the US average.

New Zealand real-estate prices have not always been high. They only skyrocketed over the last 40 years. Since 1980, adjusted for inflation, they have grown fivefold. Thats a larger increase than in almost any of the 25 affluent countries included in the database from which Figure 1 is drawn. Since 1995, New Zealands prices have grown faster than those of any other country. Since 1992, home prices in New Zealands principal city, Auckland, have risen faster than all but one of the cities included in the Economists global house-price index; they have outpaced San Franciscos notoriously escalating prices by 175 percent.

An even better measure of affordability than house prices themselves is the ratio of prices to average incomes. On this measure, New Zealand has gone from good to awful in a single generation. The Auckland-based husband-and-wife team of economists Shamubeel and Selena Eaqub assembled more than 80 years of time-series data on these ratios from official sources for their 2015 book Generation Rent. They have updated it since then and shared the data with Sightline. Figure 2 shows that from before World War II until the late 1970s, average housing prices tracked income: it cost about two years worth of annual earnings, on average, to buy a house. Then after the late 1970s, residential real estate climbed the walls: by 2021, it took almost nine years of income to pay for a house, a national price-to-income ratio as high as almost any in the world.

Rents have followed prices into the heights. As independent housing analyst and urbanist Brendon Harr of Christchurch, New Zealand, put it, with characteristic understatement: Renting in New Zealand is bad. The countrys poorest fifth of households spends almost 45 percent of their income on rent. Thats more than their counterparts in all but one of the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For poor renters, in other words, New Zealand is the second worst country to inhabit in the developed world. (The worst is Chile. In third place iswho else?the United Kingdom.) Consequently, by one measure at least, homelessness and extreme housing deprivation are more common in New Zealand than in any other OECD countryroughly four times the same metric for the United States.

A severe housing shortage born of residential lockdown is at the root of these alarming statistics, although other factors, such as changed banking regulations and, during the pandemic, bargain-bin interest rates, have aided and abetted the spectacular inflation of real estate values. New Zealands Town and Country Planning Act of 1977 (later incorporated into the omnibus 1991 Resource Management Act) paved the way for local governments in most of the country to make it difficult to get permission to build apartments and houses. The Eaqubs pieced together a century of data on the number of permits localities have given to builders, including estimates for the years before 1950. Figure 3 shows that before the late 1970s, the number was almost always at or above eight new homes per year for every 1,000 residents in the country, a level at which housing shortages did not develop, and prices tracked incomes. The major exceptions, on the left end of the data series, were during the Great Depression and World War II. After the late 1970s, the number drops to a lower plateau and stays there almost every year.

New Zealands affluence has been rising and household size decreasing over the past century. One would expect the number of permits to increase over the century, as more people gained the means and desire to live on their own. Instead, house building has yet to match the levels that were normal half a century ago and earlier. Once homebuilding slowed in the late 1970s, prices began to rise. With each passing year of under-building, the shortage became more acute and prices rose higher. Fortunately, since 2016, building has begun a resurgencemore on that below.

New Zealand is an exceptionally centralized state, and its planning system has always been hierarchical in principle, with the national government in Wellington setting goals, regional governments drawing schematic plans, and local governments filling in the details of zoning. Still, the actual practice has put great power in local hands. Restrictive zoning, including bans on apartments in most areas, has resulted, just the same as in the United Kingdom and parts of North America.

Whats more, like the United Kingdom, New Zealand has a system of revenue that provides scant help to localities that add housing. Localities raise their funds through property taxes that are largely locked at low and steady rates by political tradition and voter sentiments. Local New Zealand governments have collected the same paltry share of economic output in taxes since the 1800s. Whereas central governments in many countries help bankroll local infrastructure, Wellington pays little. Localities are thus left with the full tab for urban services that new housing requires, from water and sewers to transit and streets. Caught between voter hostility to property taxes and the sticker shock of needed capital projects, most local leaders just stonewall: why zone for new homes at all?

Overall, local control in the absence of incentives to welcome housing has yielded residential lockdown, unusually tight markets, and massive house-price inflation. The situation is dire enough that not only home seekers and housing reformers but also mainline financial interests are alarmed, fearing a recession-inducing collapse of the real-estate market. In December, New Zealands largest bank, ANZ, called for intentionally deflating the housing market by building much more housing. It asserted that New Zealanders need to be willing to accept a lack of capital gains in housing, or even be willing to stomach a fall in our asset values, while incomes catch up.

Fortunately, in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand, elected leaders have begun to overturn the status quo, unlocking housing construction by righting the imbalance of power with local authorities.

In New Zealand, the action came from the left. In July 2020, Jacinda Arderns Labour government issued a sweeping new policy, the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD), which revised and strengthened planning guidance for all regional and local bodies, instructing them to ensure that land and housing markets are functioning well, which it defines as yielding stable prices and rising residential density. Defining stable prices as a national public policy goal may sound mundane, even blindingly obvious, but its almost never done. In Cascadia, Canadian and US policies aim, implicitly if not explicitly, for rising values.

Going further, the NPS-UD jumped ahead of town and city planners and specified that they must, by August 2022, rewrite their rules so as to:

Again, the scale of these changes is staggering, when compared with what North American jurisdictions have achieved so far. Californian reformers have been trying since 2018 to win a reform that would implement a similar six-story rule, and they have yet to win passage in even a single chamber of the state legislature. New Zealands Ministry for the Environment, which oversees planning, announced its version of the California plan in July 2020 and implemented it the following month.

The reforms did not come out of the clear blue sky. Various expert and citizen groups had been talking up similar ideas, and Auckland had completed a new regional plan in 2016 that reduced carpark quotas and upzoned parts of the city. Indeed, Aucklands new plan partly explains the recent upswing in homebuilding shown in Figure 3. (In 2015, perhaps not coincidentally, the first city of New Zealands Anglosphere neighbor Australia also shifted its posture on housing: the regional government of greater Sydney assigned stepped-up housing targets to its member localities, which forced them to make zoning and other changes. Homebuilding rose dramatically.)

Still, Arderns Labour government was not exactly responding to a groundswell of public support. Considering the circumstances, it acted with impressive boldness. The country was in the middle of its COVID-19 winter lockdown, and the Labour Party held power only tenuously, thanks to a precarious coalition with the Greens on the left and the populist New Zealand First Party on the right. Most leaders would not challenge localities housing prerogatives in such a time, but Labour did itjust three months before an election. Fortuitously, Arderns exemplary pandemic leadership won the party a landslide in October 2020, securing itself an outright legislative majority.

Strengthened by the election, the government is now planning further reforms, including a top-to-bottom rewrite of the countrys laws on natural resource management, including land-use planning. Through this rewrite, in 2022, the abundant-housing principles of the NPS-UP may work their way into law.

Independent housing analyst Harr wrote me by email that the changes have not caused much controversy with the public, probably due to the surreal Covid times. Also, the parliamentary opposition, the conservative National Party, has been in disarray since losing the October 2020 election. Whats more, because the NPS-UD is mostly a deregulatory effort, it aligns with the National Partys conservative ideology. The party has been at least half-heartedly supportive of it. As in Oregon and California, Arderns pro-housing reforms have won left-right backing.

In August 2020, the month that New Zealands Labour government implemented the NPS-UD, the United Kingdoms Conservative government announced a proposal of even greater boldness for the most populous jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, England. This biggest shakeup of the planning system in decades, in the words of Foreign Affairs, would speed and streamline homebuilding by stripping localities of discretionary authority over many building projects.

Introducing the proposal, Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote, Thanks to our planning system, we have nowhere near enough homes in the right places. Its time, he said about the planning system, to tear it down and start again. Calling for radical reform unlike anything weve seen since the Second World War, he termed the proposal a whole new planning system for England. One that is clearer, simpler and quicker.

The proposal calls for local zoning authorities to divide all land into three categories: one for conservation, where few building permits would be issued; one for renewal, where infill development would be allowed when it conforms with local rules for middle housing and gentle density; and one for growth, where building permits would be much easier to get and localities would have less power to intervene. Discretionary permitting would give way to by-right permitting, as on the European continent: if your project checks the boxes, authorities must OK it. Local councils would stop spending their time judging building proposals one by one. Instead, they would write clear, simple, and prescriptive rules. Developers could then design structures that obeyed the rules and be assured of winning permits.

Less noted by the news media, the proposal also includes experiments with hyperlocalismthe innovative plan developed by London YIMBYs John Myers and allies that I described earlier in this series. Under hyperlocalism, residents of individual city blocks gain authority to upzone their own block by supermajority vote under certain conditions. Conceived as a way to flip the valence of homeowners self-interest, giving them a big enough stake in well-designed infill development to overcome their customary aversion to change, hyperlocalism holds great theoretical potential. It needs a chance to get started and perfected in the real world. If it does, widespread replication might follow.

Given the wide range of zoning rules allowed, though, obstructionist localities could quash homebuilding simply by writing intentionally onerous rules. Thats what has happened in Cascadia, which has something closer to by-right permitting than most of North America. To safeguard against such subversion of its purpose, the Johnson government added teeth to its proposal: the central government would assign ambitious targets for new homes in each locality. If a locality didnt hit its numbers, London would step in.

The Johnson proposal is stunningly bold. If those targets were implemented, it would bring a big improvement in English housing undersupply. But so far, its only a white paper, not a policy. The Tories did make two noteworthy reforms promptly and outvoted Labour opponents in Parliament to make the changes stick: one allows two extra stories subject to discretionary approval in some residential zones, and the other allows more conversions of vacant commercial buildings to residential uses. Both reforms have limits, but they mark an auspicious start.

The key questions, of course, are when the government will introduce a bill in Parliament to create its new planning system and what exactly it will include. Since the end of a three-month public-comment period in October 2020, the government has said little. What it has said has mostly been backpedaling. Eleven months after Prime Minister Johnson said of the planning system that he would tear it down and start again, Housing Minister Robert Jenrick said, I dont think we need to rip up the planning system and start again. He also announced a delay in action on the proposal, until late this year or next, and a slew of other steps that weakened the 2020 proposal. The (London) Times reported on September 11, 2021, without citing its sources, that the proposal, once finalized and released, will substitute designated growth sites for a wholesale rezone and will include housing targets that are not mandatory.

The cause of this delay and retreat is undoubtedly political. The proposal kicked up a hornets nest of concerns, not only from Labour and its allies but from Tory members of Parliament. As many as 100 Conservative MPs may oppose the plan, which would be more members than even Johnson can spare to lose. His smashing December 2019 landslide victory gave him the biggest Conservative majority since the 1980s, but his margin was still only 84 members. In June 2021, it dropped to 83: the centrist Liberal Democrats shellacked the Conservatives in a special election in a suburban seat the Tories had held since 1974. Some observers blamed the housing plan.

Still, its too soon to write an obituary for Johnsons ambitions. He has not shied from controversy in the past, including courting intra-party conflict and even purging dissident MPs. Cross-party support is conceivable, as seen in New Zealand and Cascadia. And even a watered-down version of his proposal might still be one of the most dramatic moves against residential lockdown in recent history. The initial scope of his plan is so large that even a quarter of a loaf would be a lot of bread.

Whats more, says John Myers of London YIMBY, even in in the absence of other proposals, implementing hyperlocalism could be a game changer, both for England and for other places like it. A parliamentary bill for a strong form of hyperlocalism has gained momentum, with endorsements from an impressively diverse array of interests, including both opponents and supporters of Johnsons broader plan. On September 14, the Daily Telegraph reported, the government embraced the bill and indicated it would incorporate its tenets into its still-pending planning bill.

The differences between New Zealand and Englands successes to date are mostly a function of the institutional and legal structures in which they operate. New Zealands Ministry for the Environment has authority to guide local land use policy, while in England, Parliament holds that power. New Zealands reforms, therefore, are well under way, while most of Englands have yet to move from policy whitepaper to draft legislation. In time, Parliament will act on Johnsons proposal, and we will see what comes of it.

But even before the denouement in England, Cascadia and its housing-scarce peer regions in North America can draw two lessons from Ardern and Johnsons actions.

First, bold and decisive leadership from above is indispensable. Local housing shortages are a tragedy of the commons: each elected official in a small, local jurisdiction within a large, modern metropolis gains little and risks much by allowing more housing. Only action coordinated from a higher level can yield large rewards and small risks.

Second, housing abundance is an agenda owned by neither left nor right. Indeed, if deployed adroitly, it is a political opportunity for either. Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Jacinda Ardern are tribunes of the two great opposing traditions of Anglosphere politics: Conservative and Labour. They have spent decades arguing with each others political philosophies and running campaigns against each others co-partisans (although in different countries, of course). Both won historic electoral landslides in the last two years, demonstrating their immense gifts as leaderstheir abilities to identify and activate public sentiment in favor of their party.

And both seized, perhaps surprisingly, on abundant housing through national land-use planning reforms as policy initiatives worth attempting. Both did so by asserting an overriding public interest in abundant housing. And both sought to advance that interest by righting an imbalance between local and national control over homebuilding.

The countries with dominion in CascadiaCanada and the United Statesare federated countries, not unitary ones like England and New Zealand, and control of land use is in the hands of subnational governments. Where land use policies are concerned, the analogous figures to Johnson and Ardern are therefore not the US president and the Canadian prime minister. Rather, they are the governors of the states and especially, the premiers of the provinces. These executives have the political positions, andin the case of the Canadian premiers who lead parliamentary governments like those in the rest of the Anglospherethe legislative powers to emulate the UK and New Zealand.

The question, therefore, is which Cascadian governor or premier will first emulate Jacinda Ardern or Boris Johnsonleaders whose countries are among the worst places in the world for affordable, low-carbon, urban housing but whose actions, one from the left and one from the right, aim to swiftly transform their countries from epicenters of residential lockdown to showplaces of abundant housing.

Will it be a governor from the left, such as Oregons Kate Brown, who has already signed a first-in-the-nation statewide middle-housing law, or Washingtons Jay Inslee? Will it be a governor from the right, such as Alaskas Mike Dunleavy, Idahos Brad Little, or Montanas Greg Gianforte? Or will it be British Columbias labor-aligned New Democratic premier John Horgan, who leads a province with striking similarities to New Zealand both in government structure and in housing shortage, and whose party, like Arderns, leaped during the pandemic from a tenuous coalition government to an outright majority?

And whoever does it first, will they be able to mobilize enough legislative votes to tear down exclusionary old rules and build, build, build abundant housing in compact, low-carbon communities?

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Yes, Other Countries Are Making More Progress on Housing, Case 4: The United Kingdom and New Zealand - Sightline Institute

While it was nowhere near a perfect performance on Saturday in the Carrier Dome, Rutgers defeated Syracuse 17-7 to start the season with a 2-0 record for the first time since 2014. Since last season when head coach Greg Schiano returned to lead the program once again, the Scarlet Knights are 4-1 on the road. Both of those facts are head turning with the perspective of how far this program had fallen. Just two games into Schianos second season of his second tenure and RU is in a far different situation as a program.

Dont confuse major progress with being good. Rutgers is making significant improvement, but because the state of things was so poor, they arent a good team..yet.

Saturdays victory was a perfect example of why Rutgers is 5-6 in FBS games since last season after going just 10-47 the previous five years.

The Scarlet Knights have learned how to overcome shortcomings with talent and depth by playing a tough brand of football and sticking together as a team. They make plenty of mistakes, as they did against Syracuse, but against opponents who are about equal or slightly better, Rutgers has come out on top more times than not since Schianos return.

We knew this was going to be a grimy, tough, gritty game. Thats what it was going to be, said Schiano.

At least in recent memory, when Rutgers had an opportunity to make an opponent pay for a mistake and failed to do so, it almost always resulted in a loss. Not anymore. Despite not capitalizing on a blocked punt, botching a field goal attempt, failing to convert several short yardage situations or even missing a 29 yard attempt, the Scarlet Knights never wilted.

I thought we handled it well. We hit adversity several times, said Schiano. There are two kinds of adversity. Everything is rolling downhill on you or you do something well and dont capitalize on it. We had some field position today that you should capitalize on and we didnt. Rather than sit there and lament we didnt do that, we blocked a punt and didnt score, we just came out and played. Thats what chopping is. A sixty minute chop.

Rutgers never stopped playing hard on Saturday and responded well when Syracuse tied the score at 7-7 midway through the third quarter. Instead of falling under the weight of the moment late in that game, RU finished the game strong and closed out the game on the road against a former Big East rival.

The Scarlet Knights averaged 1.2 yards rushing in this game and only amassed 195 total yards of offense. However, the defense played really well and gave the offense the chance to win the game by executing a few key moments in the second half, which they were able to do.

Kyle Monangai had an 11 yard touchdown run and Noah Vedral found Jovani Haskins for a 30 yard touchdown. Mayan Ahanatou had a sack and caused a forced fumble in the fourth quarter that set up the game clinching field goal by Valentino Ambrosio.

They have really talented front people. They are big, strong, long, Schiano said. They have a scheme that is very hard to prepare for unless you are an elite group. We arent there yet offensively. I thought defensively we played really well. Those guys kept answering the bell. I did not think our special teams was particularly good. We can play much better than that on special teams. We made mistakes. We did not capitalize on some of the things that I felt we could on special teams. Obviously on offense we have work to do. Defense played well but you are only good as your last performance. We need to get better as a team but as I said last week, its nice to do it from the W column.

A key to this teams success and improvement so far this season has been their ability to protect the football while forcing opponents into making mistakes. .

We take care of the football, said Schiano. When you dont turn it over, it gives you a chance to win. We didnt turn it over, we took it away three times and we blocked a punt. Thats the game.

Through two games, Rutgers has a +8 turnover margin with zero turnovers and have committed just five penalties overall. Mistake free football can give below average or average teams a chance at winning games they shouldnt be able to. Or in Saturdays case, making sure they win games they should.

Of course, it all comes down to coaching. One team had their head coach flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct that resulted in the opponent scoring on the next play while the other team had their head coach getting the most out of his players. The progress made so far in Schianos return has been impressive. Aside from the wins, this program has a clear identity now. That being said, staying the course is vital to finishing the season having made significant improvement. If Rutgers can get by Delaware next Saturday, theyll finish non-conference play at 3-0 and a chance to fight for a bowl. For fans that have watched this program closely over the last few years, getting to October with postseason aspirations still intact would be progress in its own right.

See original here:

Rutgers makes more progress in win over Syracuse despite miscues - On The Banks

For Immediate Release: September 09, 2021 Statement From: Janet Woodcock, M.D. Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs - Food and Drug Administration

Mitch Zeller, JD Director - Center for Tobacco Products

The following is attributed to Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., and Mitch Zeller, J.D., director of the FDAs Center for Tobacco Products

On this day last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration faced the unprecedented task of reviewing applications for over 6.5 million deemed new tobacco products many of which were already on the market. A majority of the applications submitted by a court-ordered deadline of Sept. 9, 2020, were for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products, such as e-cigarettes and e-liquids, which had never been through the FDA review process.

Weve made significant progress in the months since, working diligently to better understand these products and, as of today, taking action on about 93% of the total timely-submitted applications. This includes issuing Marketing Denial Orders (MDO) for more than 946,000 flavored ENDS products because their applications lacked sufficient evidence that they have a benefit to adult smokers sufficient to overcome the public health threat posed by the well-documented, alarming levels of youth use of such products. Flavored ENDS products are extremely popular among youth, with over 80% of e-cigarette users ages 12 through 17 using them. However, theres more work to be done to complete our remaining reviews and ensure that we continue taking appropriate action to protect our nations youth from the dangers of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, which remain the most commonly used tobacco product by youth in the United States.

As required by statute, a key consideration in our review of premarket tobacco product applications submitted for products like e-cigarettes is to determine whether permitting the marketing of the product would be appropriate for the protection of the public health, taking into account the risks and benefits to the population as a whole. This determination includes consideration of how the products may impact youth use of tobacco products and the potential for the products to completely move adult smokers away from use of combustible cigarettes. Importantly, we know that flavored tobacco products are very appealing to young people. Therefore, assessing the impact of potential or actual youth use is a critical factor in our determination as to whether the statutory standard for marketing is met.

As of today, the agency has taken action on applications for over 6 million ENDS products, including refusing to file (RTF) one companys applications for approximately 4.5 million products because required contents were missing as well as issuing 132 MDOs for more than 946,000 flavored ENDS products, including flavors such as Apple Crumble, Dr. Cola and Cinnamon Toast Cereal.

We continue to work expeditiously on the remaining applications that were submitted by the courts Sept. 9, 2020, deadline, many of which are in the final stages of review. For premarket tobacco product applications, our responsibility is to assess whether applicants meet the applicable statutory standard for marketing their new products. As we have said before, the burden is on the applicant to provide evidence to demonstrate that permitting the marketing of their product meets the applicable statutory standard. Our continued review also includes a smaller number of pending applications that are being reviewed under the substantial equivalence standard, for cigars, pipes and hookah tobacco and for which weve granted marketing orders covering over 350 products.

All new tobacco products on the market without the statutorily required premarket authorization are marketed unlawfully and subject to enforcement action at the FDAs discretion. The FDA is committed to completing the review of the remaining products as quickly as possible to provide regulatory certainty and will continue to keep the public informed of our progress. In the meantime, products for which no application is pending, including, for example, those with a Marketing Denial Order and those for which no application was submitted, are among our highest enforcement priorities. If such products are not removed from the market, the agency intends to follow its usual enforcement practices in these circumstances and will issue a warning letter before initiating enforcement action (such as civil money penalties, seizure, or injunction) and afford the recipient an opportunity to respond. Since January 2021, we have issued a total of 170 warning letters to firms that collectively have listed more than 17 million ENDS with the FDA and that had not submitted premarket applications for these products. Among those warning letters, and in an effort to take action on products with a likelihood of youth use or initiation, the FDA issued a warning letter in July to a single company that did not submit an application and has more than 15 million products listed with the FDA.

We are committed to working as quickly as possible to transition the current marketplace for deemed new tobacco products to one in which all products available for sale have undergone a careful, science-based review by the FDA and met the statutory standard. Continuing to take appropriate regulatory actions to protect the public, especially youth, from the harms of tobacco products remains one of the agencys highest priorities.

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The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

09/09/2021

Continued here:

FDA Makes Significant Progress in Science-Based Public Health Application Review, Taking Action on Over 90% of More Than 6.5 Million 'Deemed' New...

Down goes Ohio State.

No. 12 Oregon shocked the No. 3-ranked Buckeyes 35-28 in Columbus on Saturday, rocking the college footbal landscape and giving coach Mario Cristobal his second win against a top-5 opponent.

The Ducks, known for offense and uniform combinations, ended the game with a sack.

I think these guys got tired of reading the headlines, which they shouldnt be reading anyways after Game 1 against a very good Fresno State team, Cristobal said right after the game.

So what went on here is just a process. This is three or four years of building toward this moment and making it a reality. Its tremendous progress, but it is just the beginning. We have work to do.

C.J. Verdell ran for 161 yards and had three touchdowns as shorthanded No. 12 Oregon exploited a porous Ohio State defense to upset the No. 3 Buckeyes for their first regular-season loss in nearly three years.

Ohio State (1-1) never led the game it was favored the win by 14 1/2 points despite gaudy numbers from freshman quarterback C.J. Stroud.

The Buckeyes had a chance to tie it late after pulling within a touchdown with 7:55 left. But when they got the ball again, Stroud, who passed for 472 yards and three touchdowns, took his first sack of the day and then was intercepted by Verone McKinley III on a desperation sideline pass on third-and-18 at the Oregon 35 with 2:50 to go in front of a stunned crowd of more than 100,000.

Oregon (2-0) without star defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux and linebacker Justin Flowe. Cristobal admitted he wasnt sure what to expect, but the result was that of practice and preparation.

Stroud threw for 484 yards and threw touchdowns. Stroud, in his second start, passed for the second-most yards in Ohio State history, coming up 15 short of Dwayne Haskins Jr.s 499 against Northwestern in 2018.

The Ducks ran the clock down to under 30 seconds before punting, pinning th Buckeyes inside the 10.

Oregons Anthony Brown completed 17 of 35 for 236 yard and two scores. It was the running game that gashed the Buckeye, though. CJ Verdell ran for 161 yards and two scores.

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.

See the rest here:

No. 12 Oregon shocks No. 3 Ohio State: Its tremendous progress, but it is just the beginning - AL.com

By Greg Hirst on September 11, 2021

CASPER, Wyo. A Montana firefighter who was severely injured in a wildland fire in July is reporting that both he and his medical team are astonished at the rate of progress in his recovery.

Dan Steffensen, a member of Red Lodge Fire Rescue,suffered severe burns and respiratory damage after shifting winds caused the Harris Fire near Joliet, Montana to overtake his fire engine on July 16.

Red Lodge Fire Rescue provided social media updates as Steffensen was treated at the University of Utah Burn Center throughout the summer, undergoing several skin graft surgeries.

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On August 14, the agency shared a report from Steffensens family: Dan has been making great progress on his road to recovery over the past week. He is spending more time awake and interacting with the wonderful staff at the hospital as well as family. His wounds are healing and he is working to get his voice back.

On September, Steffensen began reporting his own updates on social media.

Just walked a mile. Completely unaided and on my own, Steffensen said on Thursday. I have new ears, and I love them. And that is the end of skin grafts.

Steffensen said he is feeling better and stronger every day. Keep the prayers going. Thats doing it. Thanks.

On Saturday, the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Steffensen posted: It is very difficult to me to be stuck here today. This day should be spent with my fire colleagues, who have supported me so gallantly through this battle. A special day and a day to remember the fallen.

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Montana firefighter severely burned in July reports great progress on recovery - Oil City News