Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Bill Kelly: COVID-19 fatigue is spreading, and that’s a problem

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Increasingly lax compliance with guidelines is understandable, but we need to remember that we have not defeated this deadly virus and a vaccine is many months away, Bill Kelly says.

Young people are trying to save the US election amid dire poll worker shortages

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Young Americans are volunteering to work at polling stations as elderly and retired people have dropped out amid the pandemic

Ahead of the 2016 election, Maya Patel, then a student at the University of Texas at Austin, registered 250 students to vote. But after seeing first-hand the hours-long lines voters were forced to navigate before casting their ballots, she knew there was more work to do. Two years later, she worked to install an additional polling location on the campus just in time for the midterm elections.

Now Patel is getting ready to be a poll worker in November. Why? Well, because it’s fun, and more importantly, she said, there’s a dire poll worker shortage around the country that could threaten the presidential election.

Continue reading…

Trump wants to convince Americans they are safer under him. They aren’t | Moustafa Bayoumi

Our physical safety is threatened. Our individual and public health is in jeopardy. Our employment prospects have substantially diminished.

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As a nation and as individuals, we are at considerably more risk than we were in 2016

Forty years ago, during the only presidential debate of 1980, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan asked the American people what became perhaps the defining question of that election: are you better off than you were four years ago?” Simple and straightforward, the question seemed to move beyond the drama of politics and to resonate with the electorate on an immediate and personal level. Now, as we head into the final stretch of the 2020 election, it’s time to pose to the American people another question that ought to be equally as consequential: Are you safer today than you were four years ago?

The honest answer, for just about everyone in this country, must certainly be no. As a nation and as individuals, we are at considerably more risk than we were in 2016. Our physical safety is threatened. Our individual and public health is in jeopardy. Our employment prospects have substantially diminished.

Continue reading…

DC mayor worried about US ‘descending into a race war’ | TheHill

DC mayor worried about US 'descending into a race war'

“We will not tolerate violence of any kind in Washington, D.C.,” she added. “We don’t tolerate it if it’s on the streets between rival crews and we won’t tolerate it against our police officers, the men and women who are charged with keeping our community safe. And we certainly won’t tolerate it against our residents and visitors.”

Source: DC mayor worried about US ‘descending into a race war’ | TheHill

Belarus protests: Students held as marches mark new term – BBC News

A student flashes the victory sign as he is detained by law enforcement officers during a protest against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus September 1, 2020
Thousands of students marked the first day of term on Tuesday by going on strike and taking to the streets in support of the protests, many carrying the historic Belarusian white-red-white flag used by the opposition.
“We came to support the people, to show our political stance and demonstrate that there is no need to stay at home, to be afraid,” said one student.
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A BBC team witnessed riot police attacking and forcibly arresting one group of students marching near one of the main squares in the capital. Two Belarusian journalists were among those detained.

Source: Belarus protests: Students held as marches mark new term – BBC News

Tel Aviv Municipality opens up public institutions to house classrooms – The Jerusalem Post (this is what is called innovative and active cooperation in creating a new normal)

the municipality intends to utilize a range of public buildings, parks, green spaces, theaters as well as auditoriums, so that it may breakdown classrooms into smaller groups. Buildings and institutions such as Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theater, the Charles Bronfman Auditorium (Heichal HaTarbut), the Israel Music Conservatory and Tel Aviv University.

Source: Tel Aviv Municipality opens up public institutions to house classrooms – The Jerusalem Post

Romania’s highest scientific body slammed for quoting 5G conspiracies | Euronews

“5G energy density levels will be similar to 4G, not a 100 times stronger as the Romania Academy press release says,” a physicist, Florian Pompieru, told Euronews. “5G technology does not generate ionising radiation, thus [it is] impossible to endanger any living tissue. “The Romanian Academy, a publicly funded institution, wants to scare people into making tin foil hats. “The fact that they published and then removed such a press release proves both ignorance and the lack of proper scientific knowledge regarding these issues.”

Source: Romania’s highest scientific body slammed for quoting 5G conspiracies | Euronews

Watch Home Movies Starring Salvador Dali, Henri Matisse, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein, Colette & Other Early 20th Century Luminaries

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Léonide Massine may not be not the most famous name to grace socialite Elizabeth Fuller Chapman’s home movies.

In terms of 21st century name brand recognition, he definitely lags behind art world heavies Salvador DaliMarcel DuchampConstantin BrâncușiHenri Matisse, composer Igor Stravinsky, novelist Colette, playwright Thornton Wilder, the ever-formidable poet and collector Gertrude Stein, and her longtime companion Alice B. Toklas. Such were the luminaries in Mrs. Chapman’s circle.

But in terms of sheer on-camera charisma, the Ballets Russes dancer and choreographer definitely steals the collective show, above, currently on exhibit as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Private Lives Public Spaces, an exhibit exploring home movies as an art form.


Massine’s unbridled al fresco hip-twirling, prancing, and side kicks (preceded by a slow-motion run at 1:55) exist in stark contrast with Matisse’s stiff discomfort in the same setting (11:11) One need not be a skilled lipreader to guess the tone of the commentary Mrs. Chapman’s 16mm camera was not equipped to capture.

Stein (12:00), whose forceful personality was the stuff of legend, appears relaxed at the summer home she and Toklas shared in Bilignin, but also happy to position their standard poodle, Basket, as the center of attention.

Georges Braque (14:50), the introverted Father of Cubism, clings gratefully to his palette as he stands before a large canvas in his studio, and appears just as wary in another clip at 20:10.

The Surrealist Dali (21:50), as extroverted as Braque was retiring, takes a different approach to his palette, engaging with it as a sort of comic prop. Ditto his wife-to-be, Gala, and a painted porcelain bust he once accessorized with an inkwell, a baguette, and a zoetrope strip.

Dali serves up some serious Tik-Tok vibes, but we have a hunch Colette’s struggles with her friend, pianist Misia Sert’s semi-tame monkey (4:35), would rack up more likes.

As the curators of the MoMA exhibition note:

Chapman Films is immensely popular in the Film Study Center for the rare and intimate glimpses of their lives it provides, from a time when the famous were not readily accessible. Yes, there were gossip columns, fan magazines, and juicy exposés in the 1930s and ‘40s, but many notable figures carefully curated their public personas. We know these figures through their paintings, music, or words, not their faces, so to see them at all—let alone in real life, doing everyday things—is remarkable.

Also charming is the freshness of their interactions with Chapman’s camera—many of her subjects were celebrities, but their fame was in no way tethered to the ubiquity of smart phones. Hard to go viral in 16mm, decades before YouTube.

Though dancing, as Massine, and his close second Serge Lifar (8:50) make plain, is an excellent way to hold our attention.

Related Content:

Salvador Dalí Explains Why He Was a “Bad Painter” and Contributed “Nothing” to Art (1986)

Vintage Film: Watch Henri Matisse Sketch and Make His Famous Cut-Outs (1946)

Gertrude Stein Recites ‘If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso’

Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, theater maker and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

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Russian hackers leak personal data of nearly every voter in Michigan, plus a million more voters in four other states

While Trump lackeys work to make it harder to track Russian hacking-spying-sabotage.

Russian hackers have leaked the personal data of nearly every voter in Michigan (7.6 million of the state’s 7.8 million voters), as well as the information of another million voters in Arkansas, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida, according to the newspaper Kommersant. The data recently appeared on a Darknet forum, posted by a user nicknamed “Gorka9.” The information was current as of March 2020 and a source at the security firm “InfoWatch” confirmed to Kommersant that the data is authentic.

Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research study finds honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells – ABC News

A close up of honey bees in a hive.

“We found that the venom from honeybees is remarkably effective in killing some of these really aggressive breast cancer cells at concentrations which aren’t as damaging to normal cells,” Dr Duffy said.

The research showed a specific concentration of the venom killed 100 per cent of triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells within 60 minutes, while having minimal effects on normal cells.

 

Source: Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research study finds honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells – ABC News