Category Archives: Post Human

With effective immunizations and a potential return to something resembling more or less normal life on the horizon, the question arises: Wheres the vaccine for your post-Covid-19 household finances?

Unfortunately, there has been no Operation Warp Speed to provide lasting immunity to the sort of personal financial damage wrought by the pandemic. Stimulus payments are certainly welcome, but thats more like giving oxygen to a struggling patient than actually fixing anything.

Still, who knows? If 2020 taught people anything, its the constant presence of uncertainty. A year ago, suffice to say, few if any people thought the U.S. would be where it is now. Even acknowledging the difficulty of looking ahead, however, some broad outlines that indicate the shape of post-Covid-19 household finances are appearing.

First, understand that this will likely not be like other serious economic downturns of the last century. In fact, the recession that accompanied the landing of the pandemic on U.S. shores hit harder in some ways than the early days of the Great Depression. In 2020, as much or more than in 1929, jobs, markets and general economic activity shriveled, and it became clear that we were up against something more serious than almost any living human had experienced.

However, as the St. Louis Fed noted in an August 2020 report, this is not your grandfathers Great Depression. The big difference: The Depression had staying power. This one will likely not last nearly as long. Of course, a slam like 2020 will produce echoes that reverberate for a few years, if not longer. But its not going to be a lost decade by any means.

The post-Covid-19 economy is probably more like a post-hurricane economy. Natural disasters tend to produce economic slumps that are sharper and shorter than those generated by economic cycles, such as the Great Recession that began in 2008.

Covid-19 is a natural and human disaster far more than it is an economic one. If much of 2021 is a lot like most of 2020, then 2022 and beyond are probably going to more closely resemble 2019.

With all that in mind, whats the ordinary consumer supposed to do? Doing the best you can, in the circumstances in which you find yourself, is a good approach. And that begins with assessing your current status.

Its possible, for instance, that youre unemployed or coming off an extended spell of joblessness. December 2020 unemployment reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a disturbing 6.7%, but much depended on where you are and what you do for a living. Figures for individual states ranged from lows right around 3% in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Vermont, to 9% or more in California, Hawaii and Nevada.

Different occupations have also been affected differently. An August 2020 report from the St. Louis Fed on the early months of the pandemic showed leisure and hospitality payrolls collapsing by 48.3%, while the finance sector was off just 3%. If youre a restaurant manager as opposed to an investment manager, youve fallen further and have more to get back in 2021.

In addition to your job stability, recent history and prospects, youll want to evaluate your savings. What is your status on short-term emergency funds? Numerous surveys have found Americans drew down rainy day funds in 2020. Some people took early withdrawals from long-term retirement funds to replace lost income and help pay bills.

In order to get back to where you were and make progress toward where you want to go, it will take budgeting. A TransUnion survey released in December 2020 found that cutting back on subscriptions and memberships, and canceling or reducing digital services, were popular ways to save money. Want 2021 to be better? Be slow to restart those expenses in the months ahead.

When it comes to rebuilding your emergency fund, some financial experts say the lesson of Covid-19 is that the traditional three to six months worth of expenses is inadequate. What you really want may be closer to 12 months, especially if youre the sole breadwinner. However, thats simply not realistic for most people.

If you direct 10% of your income to an emergency fund, it will take 10 years to get a years income in a rainy-day account. Theres no perfect safety net, and the likelihood of another pandemic is not necessarily higher in the future. So dont overreact. Stick with whatever emergency savings you can manage.

On retirement savings, the experience of the Covid-19 era may suggest preparing for early retirement. After all, some positions and even careers have been decimated, if not completely eliminated.

On the other hand, another even bigger loss of Covid-19 is that a lot of lives ended prematurely. The uncertainty inherent in retirement planning is one of its biggest challenges: Its impossible to know how long a retirement youll be funding, or what your investment returns are likely to be in the future. So plan to get your retirement savings back on track, to help ensure youre prepared for whatever occurs.

Refinancing is another matter. Continued historic interest rate lows provide an unparalleled opportunity to borrow money. This doesnt mean you should borrow to buy things you dont need. It does suggest you look into refinancing loans on things you already ownhomes, certainly, but also cars, recreational vehicles and boats. In this sense, 2021 is an opportunity.

Another potential opportunity is the one to continue with some beneficial habits you picked up during 2020. For instance, you may be better at following a budget because you had to be. Ditto prioritizing expenses and cutting out nonessentials like dining out and gym memberships. You may have reached the point where you scrutinize many or most personal expenses to ask yourself if theyre really necessary or whether those dollars could best be directed to savings or reducing debt.

If so, hang on to those. Because perhaps the most salient prediction about household finance post-Covid-19 is that most of 2021 is not going to be post-Covid-19 at all. Vaccines aside, Americans wallets are still going to be in the thick of it.

First, understand that there are still more financial shocks to play out. Eviction and foreclosure moratoriums are set to expire in the months ahead. Many will be extended, but that cant last forever. At some point during 2021, more people than usual may lose their homes. You could be one of them. That may lead to more downsizing, moving in with relatives and relocation to less costly parts of the country.

Also, understand that, whatever your experience is, its likely to be very different from what other people are experiencing. Were all in this together is arguably the dominant meme of this pandemic. But it may wind up categorized along with Otherwise the terrorists win, which came to be seen more as a tool for the cynical to get others to do what they wanted than a real call for togetherness in the face of adversity.

Because while were all Homo sapiens and, therefore, more or less at risk of contracting Covid-19, this is clearly a bifurcated recovery. Just as some people havent been hurt by the pandemic economy, other people have been seriously hurt and have more hurt to come. We may be all in this together, but some of us seem to be more in it than others.

Confirming that, TransUnions survey found lower- and middle-income consumers were less optimistic about the future than those with higher incomes. One possible reason: Knowledge workers, who earn their living by shuffling information more than serving customers face to face, tend to be paid more and to have had less job disruption due to social distancing. Whatever the cause, people who earn less also plan to cut back more in 2021, including reductions on gifts, vacations and home improvements.

In short, New Years Day 2021 was significant on the human calendar, but the date meant nothing to the coronavirus. The post-Covid-19 household economy is coming, almost certainly, but its not here yet.

At this point, its worth referring to a Fidelity survey that found a higher than normal nearly two thirds of Americans reporting experiencing major life events during 2020. These events included the loss of a loved one and some sort of job upset.

Its not all bad, however. Nearly 90% of those Fidelity surveyed said something unexpectedly positive came from their pandemic experiences. Among the benefits are a greater appreciation for the power of perseverance and the wisdom to accept support from others.

The pandemics global personal and financial costs have no doubt been more profound than those of nearly any episode anyone living can recall. And there are no refunds from the store of Covid-19. But perhaps weve bought something of real value with our pandemic sacrifice. As we go into the post-Covid-19 era, many of us are sadder and poorer. We may also be a little bit wiser about how we manage our money and ourselves.

Even if 2021 doesnt turn out to be exactly back to normal when it comes to household finance, its worth bearing in mind that weve seen worse. That may not be prosperity, but its not nothing either.

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If Only There Were A Vaccine To Protect Your Post-Covid-19 Household Finances - Forbes

Prominent Istanbul gallery Vision Art Platform is set to debut its latest online exhibition bringing together four prominent artists from the Turkish art scene and curating a show tied together by the theme of the cycle of life. The "Beyond Vision" exhibition can be visited from April 15 to May 15.

The exhibition, which has been prepared to be experienced digitally and in 3D format, will be the gallery's first show since moving to its new space in the Akaretler neighborhood in the city's Beikta district. The gallery will also take part in Senkron, an art event consisting of exhibitions that will be held simultaneously and focusing on video art, with this show taking place April 15 - 30. The artists Gkhan Balkan, Mehmet t, zgn ahin and Sabo Akda, also known as SABO, will present their works of art of various forms to viewers.

The show comprises of t's paintings created using the technique of burning paper, ahins videos titled Mterek Alanda Kusursuz Tekrar (Flawless Repetition in the Common Field) and oil paintings, SABOs series of paintings titled Magus, which were inspired by English novelist John Fowles as well as Balkans ultraviolet (UV) printings on paper that examine culture and nature through a post-human perspective, establishing a multilingual narrative in the exhibition. This methodological diversity in the exhibition reaches a conceptual unity while questioning the relationship of the visible with the fluid being.

Beyond Vision questions the possibilities of the image in making flow, repetition, transformation and life cycle visible to the eyes. While the idea of this cycle is placed in an ontological context in ts works, it finds its roots in an urban depth in ahins pieces. It appears with its ecological aspects in Balkans printings and is blended with literary perspective in SABOs creation.

Painting with the marks left by matches on paper, t actually lets the fire and air create the artwork. Thus, he places the mastery of nature against the representation traditions of classical art. The debate on the contradiction of culture and nature is also central to Balkan's work. The sense of rhythm felt in his compositions is also echoed in ahin's works. ahin captures the geometrical order and perhaps the peace hidden in the chaotic urban life in kaleidoscopic images and isolated moments. SABO focuses on an experience of vision where isolation sets the boundaries between delusions and reality. In his work, while the times of the hero of the novel, the writer and the painter create different layers, traces that cover each other are reflected on the canvas.

Participating in Beyond Vision from different routes, these four artists seem to be after a meaning hidden in coincidence, flow and repetition. While this meaning escapes as it is caught, like a stain on the retina, the paths of the artists intersect beyond what is seen.

Link:
Vision Art Platforms latest show revolves around circle of life | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

To some degree, Nomadland wishes to be settled. At the same time, the movie rebels against its own conventional impulses.

People wish to be settled, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. This tension between stability and uprooting, between the illusory consolations of home and the risky lure of the open road, lies at the heart of Nomadland, Chlo Zhaos expansive and intimate third feature.

Based on Jessica Bruders lively, thoroughly reported book of the same name, Nomadland stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a fictional former resident of a formerly real place. The movie begins with the end of Empire, Nevada, a company town that officially went out of existence in late 2010 after the local gypsum mine and the Sheetrock factory shut down. Fern, a widow, takes to the highway in a white van that she christens with the name Vanguard and customises with a sleeping alcove, a cooking area, and a storage space for the few keepsakes from her previous life. Fern and Vanguard join a rolling, dispersed tribe a subculture and a literal movement of itinerant Americans and their vehicles, an unsettled nation within the boundaries of the US.

Bruders book, unfolding in the wake of the Great Recession, emphasises the economic upheaval and social dislocation that drive people like Fern middle-aged and older; middle-class, more or less out onto the road. Reeling from unemployment, broken marriages, lost pensions, and collapsing home values, they work long hours in Amazon warehouses during the winter holidays and poorly paid stints at national parks in the summer months. They are footloose but also desperate, squeezed by rising inequality and a frayed safety net.

Zhao smooths away some of this social criticism, focusing on the practical particulars of vagabond life and the personal qualities resilience, solidarity, thrift of its adherents. Except for McDormand and a few others, nearly all the people in Nomadland are playing versions of themselves, having made the slightly magical transition from nonfiction page to non-documentary screen. They include Bob Wells, the magnificently bearded mentor to legions of van dwellers, who summons them to an annual conclave part cultural festival, part self-help seminar in Quartzsite, Arizona; Swankie, an intrepid kayaker, problem-solver and nature lover; and Linda May, a central figure in Bruders book who nearly steals the movie as Ferns best friend.

Friendship and solitude are the poles between which Zhaos film oscillates.

It has a loose, episodic structure, and a mood of understated toughness that matches the ethos it explores. Zhao, who edited Nomadland in addition to writing and directing, sometimes lingers over majestic Western landscapes, and sometimes cuts quickly from one detail to the next. As in The Rider, her 2018 film about a rodeo cowboy in South Dakota, she is attentive to the interplay between human emotion and geography to the way space, light, and wind reveal character.

She captures the busyness and the tedium of Ferns days long hours behind the wheel or at a job; disruptions caused by weather, interpersonal conflict or vehicle trouble without rushing or dragging. Nomadland is patient, compassionate, and open, motivated by an impulse to wander and observe rather than to judge or explain.

Fern, we eventually discover, has a sister (Melissa Smith), who helps her out of a jam and praises her as the bravest and most honest member of their family. We believe those words because they also apply to McDormand, whose grit, empathy, and discipline have never been so powerfully evident. I do not mean to suggest that this is an awards-soliciting display of acting technique, a movie stars bravura impersonation of an ordinary person. Quite the opposite. A lot of what McDormand does is listen, giving moral and emotional support to the non-professional actors as they tell their stories. Her skill and sensitivity help persuade you that what you are seeing is not just realistic but true.

(Also read Frances McDormand on borrowing from self in Nomadland: 'I created a character like I've created myself in 63 years)

Frances McDormand in Nomadland

Which brings me, somewhat reluctantly, to David Strathairn, who plays a fellow wanderer named Dave. He is a soft-spoken, silver-haired fellow who catches Ferns eye, and gently tries to win her affection. His attempts to be helpful are clumsy, and not always well-judged he offers her a bag of licorice sticks when what she wants is a pack of cigarettes and although Fern likes him pretty well, her feelings are decidedly mixed.

Mine too. Straitharn is a wonderful actor, and an intriguing, nontoxic masculine presence, but the fact that you know that as soon as you see him is a bit of a problem. Our first glimpse of Dave, coming into focus behind a box of can openers at an impromptu swap meet, is close to a spoiler. The vast horizon of Ferns story suddenly threatens to contract into a plot. He promises or threatens that a familiar narrative will overtake both Fern and the movie.

To some degree, Nomadland wishes to be settled wants not necessarily to domesticate its heroine but at least to bend her journey into a more or less predictable arc. At the same time, and in a fine Emersonian spirit, the movie rebels against its own conventional impulses, gravitating toward an idea of experience that is more complicated, more open-ended, more contradictory than what most American movies are willing to permit.

Zhaos vision of the West includes breathtaking rock formations, ancient forests, and wide desert vistas and also iced-over parking lots, litter-strewn campsites, and cavernous, soulless workplaces. Against the backdrop of the Badlands or an Amazon fulfillment center, an individual can shrink down to almost nothing. The nomad existence is at once an acknowledgment of human impermanence, and a protest against it.

Fern and her friends are united as much by the experience of loss as by the spirit of adventure. So many of the stories they share are tinged with grief. It is hard to describe the mixture of sadness, wonder, and gratitude that you feel in their company in Ferns company, and through her eyes and ears. It is like discovering a new country, one you may want to visit more than once.

Nomadland is now available in Indian cinemas.

AO Scottc.2021 The New York Times Company

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Oscar-nominated film Nomadland is acknowledgement of human impermanence, and also a protest against it - Firstpost

Published on April 4th, 2021 at 05:00am EDT

Immigrant children are twice as likely as Canadian children to come from low-income households, but in adulthood, more of them end up getting a post-secondary education, and their salaries are oftentimes greater.

These findings come from a recent Statistics Canada study that looked at data from tax files in 2018. Researchers studied the educational and labour market outcomes of immigrants who arrived in Canada as children before the age of 15.

By age 20, about 70 per cent of immigrants who arrived before age 15 are in a post-secondary institution, compared to 56 per cent of the overall population. Women who immigrated as children make up the majority of these 20-year-olds in post-secondary.

Find Out if Youre Eligible for Canadian Immigration

In 2018, 25-year-olds in the overall population had a median wage of about $29,700, but 25-year-olds who immigrated as children were making an average of $30,300 per year. For 30-year-olds, the median wage overall was about $41,800, compared with $47,400 for 30-year-old immigrants admitted as children. In other words, immigrant children grew up to make about 13 per cent more per year than the overall population.

There are three groups of immigrants in Canada: economic class, family class, and refugee class. Economic-class immigrants are the largest category. They come through Express Entry programs, Provincial Nominee Programs, Quebecs Skilled Immigration, and other pathways. Family-class immigrants may be sponsored by a Canadian who is the spouse, parent, or another family member of a foreign national. Refugee-class immigrants are seek asylum in Canada.

The children of economic-class immigrants saw the highest rates of post-secondary participation and annual wages in adulthood.

Up until the age of 23, family class and refugee class kids had higher earnings than their economic class counterparts, because they were more likely to be working than going to school.

Starting at age 24, when most have completed their study programs, the wages of economic-class kids not only surpass their peers who came to Canada through other immigration classes but the overall population as well.

By the age of 30, immigrants who came as children through an economic-class immigration program had median wages of $52,400, in 2018. The overall population was making about $41,800. Thirty-year-old immigrants admitted as children in refugee families were making about $41,600, and immigrants admitted with sponsored families were making about $40,100.

The differences in labour market outcomes is due to how these classes of immigrants are admitted to Canada. Economic-class immigrants get approved to come to Canada for their ability to integrate into the labour market. They arrive to Canada with high levels of human capital: they are young and middle-aged, and demonstrate education, language skills, and in-demand skills that address Canadas economic needs. As such, the children of economic class immigrants are likely to develop human capital characteristics that mirror that of their parents.

Find Out if Youre Eligible for Canadian Immigration

CIC News All Rights Reserved. Visit CanadaVisa.com to discover your Canadian immigration options.

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Immigrant kids grow up to outshine the overall population in the labour force - Canada Immigration News

It is underway. It has huge momentum, and it will change everything we do work, leisure, health care, education, use of resources and, as a bonus, how the world sees us.

It is the Great American Reset, where things will be irreversibly changed. It is a seminal reset that will shape the decades to come, just as the New Deal and World War II shoved the clock forward.

The reset is being driven in part by COVID-19, but in larger part by technology and the digitization of America. Technology is at the gates, no, through the gates, and it is beginning to upend the old in the way that the steam engine in its day began innovations that would change life completely.

Driving this overhaul of human endeavor will be the digitization of everything from the kitchen broom to the electric utilities and the delivery of their vital product. Knitting them together will be communications from 5G to exclusive private networks.

President Joe Bidens infrastructure proposals could speed and smooth the innovation revolution, facilitate the digital revolution and make it fairer and more balanced. Bidens plan will fix the legacy world of infrastructure: roads, bridges, canals, ports, airports and railroads. It will beef up the movement of goods and services, supply chains and their security, even as those goods and services are changing profoundly.

But if Bidens plan fails, the Great American Reset will still happen. It will just be less fair and more uneven as in not providing broadband quickly to all.

Technology has an imperative, and there is so much technology coming to market that the market will embrace it, nonetheless.

Think driverless cars, but also think telemedicine, carbon capture and utilization, aerial taxis, drone deliveries and 3D-printed body parts. Add new materials like graphene and nanomanufacturing, and an awesome future awaits.

We have seen just the tip of digitization and have been reminded of how pervasive it is by the current chip shortage, which is slowing automobile production lines and thousands of other manufactures. But you might say, You aint seen nothing yet. The future belongs to chips and sensors: small soldiers in mighty armies.

Accompanying digitization is electrification. Our cars, trucks, trains and even aircraft and ships are headed that way. Better storage is the one frontier that must be conquered before the army of change pours through the breach in a great reshaping of everything.

Central to the future to the smart city, the smart railroad, the smart highway and the smart airport is the electric supply.

The whole reset future of digitization and sensor-facilitated mobility depends on electricity and not just the availability of electricity going forward, but also the resilience of supply. It also needs to be carbon-free and have low environmental impact.

An overhaul of the electric industrys infrastructure, increasing its resilience, is an imperative underpinning the reset.

The Texas blackouts were a brutal wake-up call. Job one is to look into hardening the entire electric supply system from informational technology to operational technology, from storm resistance to solar flare resistance (see Carrington Event), from catastrophic physical failure to failure induced by hostile players.

The electric grid needs survivability, but so do the data flows that will dominate the virtual utility of the future. It also needs a fail-safe ability to isolate trouble in nanoseconds and, essentially, break itself into less vulnerable, defensive mini-grids.

Securing the grid is akin to national security. Indeed, it is national security.

Electricity is the one indispensable in the future: the future of the great reset.

Klaus Schwab, the genius behind the World Economic Forum, called this year from his virtual Davos conference for a global reset to tackle poverty and apply technology and business acumen to the human problems of the world. We are on the cusp of going it alone.

In the end, the route to social mobilization is jobs. The Great American Reset will throw these off in an unimaginable profusion, as did the arrival of the steam engine a little more than 300 years ago.

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle on PBS. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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Commentary: The Great American Reset is underway. It will change everything - Charleston Post Courier

Robert Tanen| Palm Beach Post

Each year, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., leads the nation in remembering the victims of the Holocaust and honoring the survivors during the Days of Remembrance, Americas annual national commemoration of the Holocaust established by Congress. Days of Remembrance this year takes place between April 4 to 11.

For the second year, the coronavirus pandemic prevents us from holding the ceremony in person. The pandemic is not the sole source of pain that has cast a dark cloud over the Museums canceled plans at the U.S. Capitol. The appalling January attack on the Capitol has compounded this profound ache, especially for Holocaust survivors.

The Capitol, a symbol of American democracy, has a special significance for Holocaust survivors. That they are joined annually by World War II liberators and government officials to remember the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust and to honor the bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers who fought to defeat Nazism, is a testament to Americas commitment to Holocaust memory.

Earlier this year, Holocaust survivors watched in horror as the Capitol was desecrated by individuals displaying neo-Nazi, antisemitic, and white supremacist symbols. In the aftermath of the attack, the Museum called out the pain this tragedy caused Holocaust survivors, quoting our founding chairman Elie Wiesel who once said, [W]e must remember for our own sake, for the sake of our own humanity.

These words resonate more powerfully today.

Prior to COVID-19, 1.7 million people visited the Museum annually to see the evidence of the Holocaust firsthand. With the Museums doors closed to visitors, the Museum has reimagined its educational outreach, pivoting to a digital-first approach. Given the rise in antisemitism; ongoing politicization of the Holocaust and efforts to distort or deny it; and group-targeted violence in Burma, China, Syria, and elsewhere, the Museums mission of Holocaust education and remembrance is increasingly urgent.

Holocaust education is important for all because it carries lessons on the dangers of unchecked antisemitism and hate, the fragility of societies, and human nature. Education does not exist in isolation. It happens within the context of society at large, and currently, a number of converging trends are cause for concern. A recent Claims Conference study shows a distressing lack of Holocaust knowledge among American millennials and Gen Z. (Almost one-half couldnt name a single concentration camp or ghetto.)

Indeed, history education as a whole is on the decline in the U.S. as school districts put increasing emphasis on STEM. All of this is happening just as the eyewitness generation is diminishingand the rise of social media makes spreading hate, antisemitismand Holocaust distortion much easier. This predicament yields serious challenges for Holocaust educations many stakeholders here in South Florida and nationwide, including parents, students, communities, school systems, educators and administrators.

Our focus has always been on not just learning the events of the Holocaust, but understanding how and why it was allowed to happen. We seek to understand what individuals, governments and institutions knew and did or didnt do as Nazi Germany and its collaborators perpetrated the genocide of Europes Jews.

Elie Wiesel said the Museum is not an answer, it is a question. The Holocaust raises many questions, and when done with rigor, Holocaust education can stimulate critical thinking and self-reflection as well as challenge assumptions.

Before COVID-19, the Museum had already been aggressively digitizing our collections and expanding our online educational resources. The pandemic significantly accelerated these efforts. After COVID-19 arrived, the Museum reached out directly to educators to learn what they most wanted from us at this critical juncture. During summer 2020, the Museums annual Belfer National Conference for Educators reached four times as many educators virtually as it had in-person. Demand was so greatthat we added a second training for new audiences, including administrators and librarians. The Museum also created new ready-to-use online lessons designed for remote and hybrid learning environments.

The Museums social media audience, especially our Facebook Live programs, has grown significantly to connect Holocaust history to global conversations and move beyond broadcasting information to spark interactive engagement. These interactions reached 14 million last year, doubling in comparison to the prior year.

We have also made our digital content globally accessible, with our Holocaust Encyclopedia the most visited section of our website now available in 19 languages and reaching 16 million people annually as we expand with new content.

In Florida, we tracked a marked increase in website visits to specific Holocaust educational resources. For example, website visitation increased to the following online resources from 2019 to 2020: the History Unfolded crowdsourcing project on how local newspapers reported on events of the Holocaust was up 70%; The Path to Nazi Genocide film up 92%; and the Holocaust Encyclopedia up 20%.

Through our expanded educational outreach and impact during this virtual era, the Museum is exporting the lessons of the Holocaust outside of its walls in Washington, D.C., to Floridians, Americans, and citizens across the world.

With fewer Holocaust survivors alive today to share their stories with us, including many who have been lost to COVID, it is imperative that we act now to ensure that Holocaust education and awareness do not suffer due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic.

This week, as we gather virtually as a nation to commemorate the Days of Remembrance, let us heed the warnings and lessons of the Holocaust to unite and say with purpose: Never Again.

Robert Tanen is the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Southeast Regional Office based in Boca Raton.

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Commentary: Why we remember the Holocaust - Palm Beach Post

The UK and international allies have expressed concerns aboutreports of human rights abuses and violations of international law in Ethiopias conflict-hit region of Tigray.

A statement from the G7 made up of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU called for an independent, transparent and impartial investigation into the reported crimes.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and his counterparts urged parties involved in the conflict to provide immediate, unhindered humanitarian access as the group expressed concerns about worsening food insecurity for civilians.

We condemn the killing of civilians, sexual & gender based violence, and forced displacements in Tigray. The UK welcomes @AbiyAhmedAli announcement of Eritrean troop withdrawal but it must be swift, unconditional & verifiable. Read @G7 statement here: https://t.co/fU71fQfr0q

Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) April 2, 2021

The leaders also called for the swift, unconditional and verifiable withdrawal of Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopia in the countrys northern region amid the conflict with the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF).

We condemn the killing of civilians, sexual and gender based violence, indiscriminate shelling and the forced displacement of residents of Tigray and Eritrean refugees, the statement released on Friday said.

All parties must exercise utmost restraint, ensure the protection of civilians and respect human rights and international law.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) are due to conduct a joint investigation into human rights abuses committed by all parties.

The G7 noted this, adding: It is essential that there is an independent, transparent and impartial investigation into the crimes reported and that those responsible for these human rights abuses are held to account.

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Raab and G7 counterparts condemn reported 'human rights abuses' in Tigray - Jersey Evening Post

The Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR) panel (Review) is led by Sir Peter Gross. Its establishment follows the2019 Conservative Party manifestocommitment that:

We will update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government. We will ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of the individuals against an overbearing state, while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays.

The Review seeks to examine whether the HRA is working in practice and continues to meet the needs of the society it serves, looking specifically at two key themes:

Baker McKenzie participated in the recent call for evidence by the Review, collaborating with the Law Society and, separately, several industry representative bodies on responses as well as issuing our own, which is availablehere.

The IHRAR is expected to report in Summer 2021 with options for reform that could have significant implications for the rights and standards to be observed in the UK, the ability of individuals to enforce their rights directly before domestic courts and the scrutiny of the exercise of executive power. Its work should be read together with the work of the Independent Review of Administrative Law panel (IRAL), which is considering options for the reform to the judicial review process (Baker McKenzies submission to the IRAL can be foundhere), and which is expected to publish its conclusions this week.

The recommendations made by the IHRAR and IRAL may reshape existing constitutional norms and protections opening a path to the light-touch regulatory economy reportedly envisaged as part of the UKs post-Brexit future. Setting aside the question of how this might be pursued within the constraints of level playing field commitments made to the EU, as a practical matter, corporates operating across jurisdictions will remain tasked with meeting regulatory burdens across borders and the potential challenges in a divergence of approach in the UKs domestic application of international rights obligations, as well as the decisions of public authorities more broadly.

The framing of the Review

The HRA came into force in 2000 and has operated as a significant buttress to the respect and enforcement of individual human rights in the UK in three key ways:

Parliament will work to make sure that new legislation is compatible with the ECHR, while retaining its sovereignty and power to pass incompatible laws. The courts will also interpret laws in a way that is compatible with the ECHR where that is possible.

All public bodies (like courts, police, local authorities, hospitals and publicly funded schools) and anybody performing a public function must act with respect to, and to protect, individual human rights.

The HRA incorporates the rights set out in the ECHR into domestic British law. This allows individuals to enforce those rights before a British court, rather than having to go to the ECtHR in Strasbourg.

The IHRAR will look at the operation of the HRA in two broad ways:

The IHRAR is not considering a potential departure from the ECHR, a binding international treaty, or derogation from the ECtHR.

Baker McKenzies response to the Review

Baker McKenzie made the following points in response to the Review:

What does this Review mean for industry?

The HRA ensures consistency across the many thousands of acts or decisions of public authorities that are made each year by ensuring that they are compliant with the ECHR. Securing a level playing field in this regard between jurisdictions is a key concern for many international corporate clients who are affected by the decisions of public authorities across multiple European jurisdictions, as well as European domestic legislatures. If, following receipt of the IHRAR and the IRALs recommendations, Parliament decides to take action that might render rights protections vulnerable to executive overstep and/or remove a crucial mechanism by which the executive might be held to account for any abuse of power, this could affect the UKs ability to offer this certainty as to the rights and standards to be observed in the UK.

It is also widely recognised that the legal landscape is changing across the EEA, with ESG and human rights diligence at the forefront of many companies agendas. The trend to mandatory legislation in this space, including environmental and human rights due diligence and the prevention of modern slavery in supply chains, means that businesses are increasingly aware of the part they play in securing and protecting fundamental human rights.

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United Kingdom: Human Rights Act Review: Signalling a rollback of regulation and judicial oversight post Brexit? - GlobalComplianceNews

Genevieve Hansen expected Monday, May 25 to be a peaceful day.

That's what she told jurors on Tuesday in the murder trial of former officer Derek Chauvin who is accused of killing George Floyd last year.

Instead, during an off-duty walk home from a community garden she heard a woman yelling that the police were killing the black man, prone and in handcuffs, face down in the street.

Hansen, who is a trained emergency medical technician and Minneapolis firefighter, testified that upon taking in the scene, she moved closer to the officers who were pinning Floyd on the asphalt and identified herself as a first responder.

In video footage played for the court, Hansen could be heard demanding that the officers check his pulse.

"I had already assessed that [Floyd] was in an altered state of consciousness. What I needed to know was if he had a pulse."

She described how Floyd was lying motionless: "He wasn't moving, and he was cuffed. And three grown men putting all of their weight on somebody is too much," she said. "The first thing that concerned me was his face was smushed into the ground. Swollen. It appeared swollen to me."

But rather than allow her to help, Hansen said, then-officer Tou Thao "said something along the lines of, 'If you really are a Minneapolis firefighter, you would know better than to get involved.' "

Her voice began to tremble when she recalled the impotence that overwhelmed her as Thao and the other officers blocked her from providing the kind of medical care she has been trained to give. "I got there and I could have given medical assistance. That's exactly what I should have done."

She broke down moments later when describing how she felt "totally distressed."

When asked about her shifting tone on the video taken on the day of the killing, she explained that she initially addressed the officers in a calm and reasonable manner. But that as the minutes slipped away, and she realized that Floyd may have released his bladder as a result of becoming unconscious or possibly dead, she began raising her voice and using foul language.

"Because I was desperate to help. ... Because there was a man being killed and ... had I had access to a call similar to that, I would have been able to provide medical attention to the best of my abilities. And this human was denied that," she said.

Prosecutors also played audio of a 911 call Hansen made moments after Floyd was loaded into an ambulance.

"Hello. I'm on the block of 38th and Chicago, and I literally watched police officers not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man, and I am a first responder myself, and I literally have it on video. I just happened to be on a walk," Hansen said in the call.

She told the court that she regretted waiting so long to call adding that she should have acted more quickly.

"I should have called 911 immediately but I didn't and when things calmed down I realized that I wanted them to know what was going on. I wanted to basically report it," she said.

During cross examination, defense attorney Eric Nelson, questioned Hansen's training and discrepancies between statements she'd previously given law enforcement and the testimony she had just provided. He also reminded her that she cannot definitely testify that two of the officers who were helping to restrain Floyd did not take his pulse because she could not see them from her vantage point where she was told to stand on the sidewalk by Thao.

Nelson noted that Hansen's training as an EMT was not equal to that of a paramedic. He also asked a series of questions that forced her to acknowledge that she was unaware of the timeline of when the officers had called for medical assistance and noted they were already on their way by the time she arrived on the scene.

He also tried to get her to admit that if she were to try to put out a fire with "an angry crowd" around her, she may become distracted. But Hansen refused to agree.

"Have you ever had a citizen start to yell at you while fighting a fire? ... What if there were 12 people yelling at you telling you you were doing it wrong? You wouldn't be distracted by that?" Nelson asked.

"Like I said, I know my job and I am confident in my job and what I do and what needs to be done and my training. So I would continue to do that," Hansen responded.

In one of the more tense exchanges, Nelson asked Hansen if she was angry and upset at the scene.

"I don't know if you've seen anybody been killed, but it's upsetting," she replied.

That prompted Judge Peter Cahill to instruct her to answer the specific question.

But Hansen grew increasingly agitated by Nelson's questions and the second day of the trial ended with Cahill reprimanding Hansen for being argumentative.

"I'm advising you do not argue with the counsel and the court," Cahill said, from the the bench. "You will not argue with the court."

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Firefighter Testifies: 'I Was Desperate To Help ... And This Human Was Denied That' - WAMC

When astronaut Scott Kelly spent nearly a year in space, his heart shrank despite the fact that he worked out six days a week over his 340-day stay, according to a new study.

Surprisingly, researchers observed the same change in Benot Lecomte after he completed his 159-day swim across the Pacific Ocean in 2018.

The findings suggest that long-term weightlessness alters the structure of the heart, causing shrinkage and atrophy, and low-intensity exercise is not enough to keep that from happening. The study published Monday in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

The gravity we experience on Earth is what helps the heart to maintain both its size and function as it keeps blood pumping through our veins. Even something as simple as standing up and walking around helps pull blood down into our legs.

When the element of gravity is replaced with weightlessness, the heart shrinks in response.

Kelly lived in the absence of gravity aboard the International Space Station from March 27, 2015, to March 1, 2016. He worked out on a stationary bike and treadmill and incorporated resistance activities into his routine six days a week for two hours each day.

Lecomte swam from June 5 to November 11, 2018, covering 1,753 miles and averaging about six hours a day swimming. That sustained activity may sound extreme, but each day of swimming was considered to be low-intensity activity.

Even though Lecomte was on Earth, he was spending hours a day in the water, which offsets the effects of gravity. Long-distance swimmers use the prone technique, a horizontal facedown position, for these endurance swims.

Researchers expected that the activities performed by both men would keep their hearts from experiencing any shrinkage or weakening. Data collected from tests of their hearts before, during and after these extreme events showed otherwise.

Kelly and Lecomte both experienced a loss of mass and initial drop in diameter in the left ventricles of the heart during their experiences.

Both long-duration spaceflight and prolonged water immersion led to a very specific adaptation of the heart, said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Levine, a professor of internal medicine/cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

While the authors point out that they only studied two men who both performed extraordinary things, further study is needed to understand how the human body reacts in extreme situations.

No negative impact

In this case, researchers saw that the heart adapted, but the shrinkage did not cause any ill effects, present or long-term.

"The heart gets smaller and shrinks and atrophies, but it doesn't become weaker -- it's just fine," said Levine, who is also director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, a collaboration between UT Southwestern and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. "The function is normal, but because the body is used to pumping blood uphill against gravity in the upright position, when you remove that gravitational stimulus, particularly in someone who is pretty active and fit beforehand, the heart adapts to that new load."

Levine noted the plasticity and adaptability of the heart's muscle mass, nearly three-quarters of which is responsive to physical activity.

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"If there's one thing that I've learned over 25 years of studying how the heart adapts to spaceflight, exercise training and high altitude, it's that it's a remarkably adaptive organ and it responds to the demands that are placed on it."

The larger the load that's placed on the heart, the bigger it gets; the same happens in reverse.

Currently, astronauts stick with the same exercise regiment Kelly used while on the station. Looking ahead to missions to the moon and Mars, the exercise countermeasures to prevent muscle and bone loss may need to shift.

Levine believes the current countermeasures work, but limits will be placed due to the space allowed for exercise equipment on future vehicles.

Rowers have the biggest heart of any athletes, Levine said, so a combination of rowing and strength training may be the best strategy for astronauts moving forward. Rowing is a dynamic exercise because it loads the heart in a way that feels like strength and endurance training simultaneously, Levine said.

The effects of space radiation

Future long-term spaceflight missions will return humans to the moon and send them on to Mars, so understanding how spaceflight impacts all aspects of the heart is crucial.

Astronauts are largely middle-aged men and women, so the main concern is that they may experience a heart attack. These space explorers are highly screened before selection, but they deal with the same things everyone else does, including hypertension and elevated cholesterol. While NASA and medical experts can work with these known parameters as they quantify risk and choose the healthiest people, there is one large unknown: radiation exposure.

What happens to the heart arteries after long-term exposure to weightlessness and radiation? That's a question Levine and his fellow researchers want to answer in the future. They will look at the coronary arteries of astronauts before and after flight using a computed tomography angiogram, an X-ray test that can reveal the overall structure and lining of the heart arteries.

Atrial fibrillation, or a fast, irregular heartbeat, is the most common form of arrhythmia -- and astronauts are getting it about a decade earlier than the rest of the population, Levine said. That may be because the atria, the two upper chambers of the heart, get dilated in space.

Levine is concerned that astronauts could be at risk of developing this during long-duration spaceflight. While it's not life-threatening, atrial fibrillation can cause discomfort, reduce exercise tolerance and increase the risk of stroke in people who are otherwise healthy, he said.

Having access to cardiac MRIs of astronauts before and after their flight in the future could provide researchers with a better and more detailed understanding of what is happening in the right and left ventricles of the heart, said first study author Dr. James MacNamara, an advanced echocardiography fellow with UT Southwestern who works with Levine.

Levine and his colleagues will study 10 more astronauts who plan to spend a year in space over the next decade, focusing on the most intensive look at the heart arteries and muscle itself. The study will also include astronauts spending six months on the space station, as well as shorter duration flights.

"So we'll be ready when we're going to go to Mars," Levine said.

Stacker rounded upthe top 50 schools on the West Coast, based on Niche's 2021 Best Colleges in America list (updated February 2021).These institutions are in Oregon, Washington, and California. Click for more.

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This is how the human heart adapts to space - Gwinnettdailypost.com