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Azure was found on a sidewalk in Lafayette before she was brought to Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Peshock, Greenwood’s animal control supervisor, said the tiny, thirsty creature was one of 10 baby squirrels now at the rehabilitation center, just west of Longmont. The squirrels, a few baby doves and a recovering goose that was shot in the face with an arrow, are so far among the center’s few residents. But the nonprofit’s Executive Director Linda Tyler said that’s all about to change. “Spring and summer are the busiest time of year,” Tyler said. “Those start coming in March with the baby squirrels; April, baby foxes and baby raccoons; May, baby birds and baby waterfowl. It all kind of builds up to us (typically) having more than 400 animals in June, July.” In contrast, during the winter season, Tyler said the nonprofit may be caring for roughly five animals at a time. Spring is when many animals across the Front Range are giving birth, Tyler said. Sometimes those babies end up in perilous situations, and that’s where the rehabilitation center comes to the rescue. The nonprofit last year helped to treat nearly 3,200 animals — about 67% of those animals were orphaned. Tyler warned that if someone finds a baby animal, the first thing they should do is call Greenwood before they attempt to move it. While the nonprofit helps animals recover, “We’re not mom,” Tyler said. The nonprofit has detailed instructions on its website, too, that advises people on how to approach the situation, depending on what baby animal they find. Carrying for the baby creatures can be intensive work. Songbirds, for example, must be fed every 30 minutes. To help with the flux of animals throughout the warmer months, Tyler said roughly 30 seasonal staff are hired. The nonprofit is also currently looking for interns. Peshock’s routine with Azure must be repeated four times throughout the day for each of the squirrels. There are many reasons Peshock said the work the nonprofit does to get baby animals back in the wild is important. “They’re all part of nature,” she said. “They play an important role in the ecosystem. They deserve to be out there.” Peshock said squirrels bury nuts, some of which will sprout, play an active role in helping to plant trees. Aiding Peschock to feed the squirrels Saturday morning was Patti Belmont, who has been a Greenwood volunteer for the last 30 years. When asked what’s kept her coming back, Belmont said “This,” as she gestured to a baby squirrel named Denim she was feeding that morning. She added: “Helping the animals.” Before they’re released into the wild, Tyler said the animals will spend some time in outdoor enclosures to help them adapt to the outside world. When it’s time to release them, Tyler said they will be placed in an area within a 10-mile radius of where they were found. The resident goose was rescued by Boulder animal protection officers last week at Viele Lake, after wandering the city with an arrow lodged in its face. Tyler said the goose is doing well and could even be released back into the wild next week. Until then, she said the bird has been “getting the five-star treatment.” On Saturday, the bird was seen swimming in an outdoor enclosure with a fellow goose buddy. Helping injured, orphaned animals To report an injured or orphaned animal, call Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, 5761 Ute Highway, at 303-823-8455. To learn more about the nonprofit or to donate, visit greenwoodwildlife.org.

UNITY, the platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content, has announced a collaboration with HERE Technologies, the location data and technology platform, to partner on developing next-generation embedded automotive human-machine interfaces (HMIs) with state-of-the-art, RT3D rendering capabilities. The collaboration will also extend to work on next-generation location technology for autonomous driving, simulations, city planning and digital twins. To showcase combined capabilities of Unity’s RT3D platform and HERE’s location tech, the partners developed a proof-of-concept application of an embedded in vehicle-infotainment (IVI) system. Created on Unity’s platform and featuring HERE 3D city data, it showcases a futuristic, wide-screen navigation experience of a 3D map of San Francisco and demonstrates what can be achieved with the addition of game-changing HMI workflow design improvements. To date, HERE has mapped in 3D more than 70 major cities in the US, Europe and Asia, with plans to eventually offer global 3D map coverage. “Car buyers now care more about interactivity with their vehicle than power or fuel-efficiency. Unity’s work with HERE opens up the ability to meet consumer demand, providing a continuous user experience across all displays powered by Unity and our ecosystem,” said Julien Faure, vice-president, Verticals at Unity. The partners added that while several dedicated HMI development solutions currently exist in the automotive industry, this collaboration will combine elements of automotive-grade map data and services with an advanced real-time 3D engine that brings dynamic, high-end design capabilities to the automotive user experience in terms of maps, infotainment and more. “The goal of our collaboration with Unity is to meet our customers’ desire for an in-car navigation experience that’s an engaging representation of reality,” said Jorgen Behrens, chief product officer, HERE Technologies. “Unity’s robust 3D rendering engine makes HERE 3D city data, route guidance and navigation look impressive, providing a rich and immersive in-dash experience to the driver.” This collaboration underscores the companies’ commitment to developing the next generation of automotive HMIs. The HERE and Unity PoC application runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon; in 2020, Unity announced collaborations with multiple companies across the HMI ecosystem, including Continental’s Elektrobit and NXP Semiconductors.

Beverly Cleary was a new librarian in Yakima, Wash., when, as she later recalled, "A little boy faced me rather ferociously across the circulation desk and said, 'Where are the books about kids like us?' " She was stumped. There were many volumes about precocious British tots with "nannies and pony carts," she said, but none that would appeal to "grubby neighborhood kids" like the boy before her - or to the adventure-seeking girl she had once been. That encounter in the library set Cleary, who died March 25 at 104, on her way to becoming one of the most beloved children's authors of all time, a chronicler of childhood who found the whole of human experience within the ordinary high jinks of growing up. She died in Carmel, Calif., said her publisher HarperCollins, which did not give a cause. She wrote more than 40 books, many about high-spirited youngsters such as the spunky Ramona Quimby and adventurous Henry Huggins, a third-grader with hair "like a scrubbing brush" and with a knack for getting into gentle scrapes with his mutt, Ribsy. In her stories, quotidian tribulations - the challenges of managing an unwieldy paper route, dealing with a fractious sibling or coping with an absent parent - became tales of triumph. The books sold more than 85 million copies and became, like the works of Maurice Sendak and Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, essential reading for generations of schoolchildren. They earned Cleary some of the highest distinctions in her field, including the Newbery Medal and Newbery Honor, as well as the National Medal of Arts, bestowed by President George W. Bush in 2003. She aimed her stories squarely at an elementary school audience and hoped that, by creating relatable characters, she would inspire in her young readers a lifelong love of books. Her writing was distinguished by what essayist Benjamin Schwarz of the Atlantic magazine once called her gift for "photographic and psychological exactitude." She pulled heavily from memories of what she once described as her "free and wild" youth in Oregon, first on a farm and then in Depression-era Portland, employing what she called "all the bits of knowledge about children, reading and writing that had clung to me like burrs or dandelion fluff." Cleary frowned on the moralizing, didactic themes that dominated children's literature in the first half of the 20th century. She set out not to impart wisdom but instead to portray children at play, and to capture their dialogue and the ways they sometimes venture into an adult world beyond their full comprehension. Her stories paved the way for the more mature subject matter of later young-adult writers such as Judy Blume, who has credited Cleary as a significant influence. The setting of Cleary's first work, "Henry Huggins" (1950), was modeled on Hancock Street in Portland, where she lived as a child. In her book, she gave the street a more evocative name: Klickitat, after a nearby street in Portland whose name reminded Cleary of the sound of knitting needles. The boys she knew inspired the book's title character, who hunts for night crawlers in the park and struggles with whether to spend his silver dollar, a gift from a grandparent, on a pair of guppies at the pet store. ("He didn't see how his mother could object to two quiet little fish that didn't bark or track in mud or anything," Cleary wrote.) "Henry Huggins" spawned five sequels and a spinoff series featuring Cleary's most beloved character, Ramona Quimby. She was the little sister of Henry's friend Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby and was "tossed in," Cleary said, to move the story along. Feisty, redheaded Ramona first received top billing in 1955 with the publication of "Beezus and Ramona." Seven sequels followed, including "Ramona the Pest," her 1968 classic about adjusting to kindergarten, and "Ramona and Her Mother" (1979), which earned a National Book Award in 1981 for children's paperback fiction. The "Ramona" books, the last of which appeared in 1999, gained a following that even Cleary never expected. "Little did I dream, to use a trite expression from books of my childhood, that she would take over books of her own, that she would grow and become a well-known and loved character," she wrote in the second volume of her memoirs, "My Own Two Feet" (1995 A film adaptation of the first "Ramona" book, with the reversed title "Ramona and Beezus," starred Joey King as Ramona and Selena Gomez as her older sister and was released in 2010 to mixed reviews. It was one of the few spinoffs tolerated by the author, who generally loathed the merchandising of her work. Cleary occasionally strayed from the realistic children's fiction that was her hallmark, writing several young-adult novels about thwarted romances and first loves. She also wrote three children's books about the adventurous rodent Ralph S. Mouse, beginning with "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" (1965). She once told the Los Angeles Times that the "Ralph" novels emerged from a family trip to Britain, where she bought her son "some little cars and a little motorcycle" to play with after he became ill. When the family came home, she said, "a neighbor called me over to see a mouse that had fallen in a bucket in her garden. And the thought crossed my mind that that mouse was just the right size to ride that little motorcycle." A whiskered star was born. Her work took a darker tone in later years, as even idyllic Klickitat Street, where kids were allowed to play and walk to school without parental supervision, became the scene of anxiety, loneliness and a feeling of helplessness. By "Ramona Forever" (1984), the title character's troubles shifted from kindergarten messes to worries about a new baby in the family, the death of a cat, her father's unemployment and the departure of a beloved aunt. Another poignant work, "Dear Mr. Henshaw" (1983), earned Cleary the top honor in children's literature, the Newbery Medal. The novel consists of letters between Leigh Botts, a schoolboy whose lunch is always getting stolen, and Boyd Henshaw, an author with whom Leigh began corresponding for a class assignment. In a review for the New York Times, children's writer Natalie Babbitt praised "Dear Mr. Henshaw" as Cleary's finest book. "Dialogue has always been one of the strongest parts of her work," she wrote. "And here, where all is dialogue, that strength can shine alone and be double impressive." The book differed from her other works, Cleary once observed, because it did not arise from a joke or funny idea. Leigh's often-absent father is a truck driver, and his parents eventually divorce. There is no tidy ending. "At first I was surprised because it wasn't funny like your other books," Leigh writes in one revealing letter to Henshaw, explaining that he had just finished the fictional author's new work. He continued, "but then I got to thinking (you said authors should think) and decided a book doesn't have to be funny to be good, although it often helps. This book did not need to be funny." Beverly Atlee Bunn was born April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Ore., the nearest town with a hospital to the family farm in Yamhill. Her father, Lloyd, was the son of a farmer whose ancestors had arrived in Oregon by covered wagon in the mid-1800s. Her mother, the former Mable Atlee, was an aspiring writer who headed west from Michigan in the early 1900s to teach. She founded a library in Yamhill, but the family relocated to Portland after losing the farm in an economic downturn. There, her father worked as a bank security guard but was laid off during the Depression, a traumatic experience for the young Cleary that inspired a similar episode in "Ramona and Her Father" (1977). "I sat filled with anguish, unable to read, unable to do anything," she wrote in her first memoir, "A Girl From Yamhill" (1988), recounting the moment when she learned her father had been fired. "How could anyone do such a thing to my father, who was so good, kind, reliable, and honest?" Chickenpox and then smallpox kept Cleary out of first grade for a time, and when she returned, she was placed with the least-proficient group of readers. She was in third grade when she finally started to grasp the fundamentals of reading. She recalled the moment it all came together: the rainy afternoon at home when she stumbled across Lucy Fitch Perkins's children's novel "The Dutch Twins." "I picked up a book," she told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "My mother always kept them around, with high hopes. I looked at the pictures, and then the words, and discovered I was reading." In recent years, Cleary's birthday became a reading holiday of sorts, with libraries and schools across the country celebrating it as Drop Everything and Read Day. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1938 from the University of California at Berkeley. After receiving a second bachelor's degree, in library science, from the University of Washington in 1939, she became a children's librarian in Yakima. She later settled in California's Berkeley Hills, where she devoted herself to writing full time with the encouragement of her husband, Clarence Cleary, an accountant she married in 1940. He died in 2004. Survivors include their two children, Malcolm and Marianne; three grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. In "My Own Two Feet," Cleary recalled a brief feeling of anxiety while working on her first book. "It occurred to me that even though I was uncertain about writing, I knew how to tell a story," she wrote, remembering her years as a librarian in Yakima. "What was writing for children but written storytelling? So in my imagination I stood once more before Yakima's story-hour crowd as I typed the first sentence: 'Henry Huggins was in the third grade.' "

FILE - Thursday, March 11, 2021, photo, Dr. Tomas Aragon, State Public Health Officer and California Department of Public Health Director takes part in a vaccination event at the RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., to highlight the new one-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine by Johnson & Johnson. The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to end its mass vaccination pilot programs in Oakland and Cal State LA campus in Los Angeles next month. Officials said Friday, March 26, 2021, that the vaccine sites have provided nearly a half-million doses so far. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File) THE ASSOCIATED PRESSLOS ANGELES (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to stop operating two mass vaccination sites in California next month, just days before the state makes everyone 16 and older eligible for a shot. The two sites in Oakland and Los Angeles opened in February for an eight-week pilot program that concludes on April 11. The sites will switch from the Pfizer to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires just one shot, during the final two weeks of operation so that people do not have to sign up for a second dose elsewhere. State and county officials said they would have liked the program to continue, though it provided a small fraction of California's overall shots. Each site was set up to vaccinate 6,000 people per day but they have been administering up to 7,500 shots per day, according to the state Office of Emergency Services. Since the sites are federally managed, those shots are separate from California's overall weekly allocation, which is now about 1.8 million shots per week. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday the state will allow everyone 16 and older to be eligible for the vaccine starting on April 15. Right now people 65 and over, younger people with certain health conditions and farmworkers, teachers and several other occupations are eligible. The state is soon expecting a much greater supply of doses. The two sites combined have administered half a million doses, with about 67% going to underserved communities and people of color, according to OES. Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the agency, said the state is working with Los Angeles and Alameda counties to see if they can continue to put the sites at the Oakland Coliseum and the California State University, Los Angeles, campus to use. The state asked for an extension of the program but it has not been granted. “We’ve been clear that California is ready to continue the mission if further funding and vaccines would be allocated by the federal government,” he said. Officials in the county and city of Los Angeles are in discussions about maintaining the site in some fashion, said Dr. Paul Simon, the chief science officer for Los Angeles County. “While we are disappointed, we understand,” he said about the site's closure. It’s not yet been determined if the campus would remain as a site or its vaccines would be distributed to smaller community sites. “We recognize it’s a really important site,” Simon said, adding that officials do not want to scale back vaccine infrastructure just as more supply is on its way. Representatives for the Alameda County Public Health Department, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Alameda County Board of Supervisors President Keith Carson did not respond to requests for comment about the closure of the Oakland site. Frank Mansell, a spokesman for FEMA, said while the sites may keep operating in some fashion, the special allocation of doses will not continue after April 15. The closure of California's sites does not mean sites will be opening elsewhere, he said. Sami Gallegos, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health, said California will continue to pursue its equity goals through other sites. The state has reserved 40% of all doses for people in the least advantaged neighborhoods, many of whom were vaccinated at the two federal sites. The state has more than 2,000 vaccination sites, she said. “California’s commitment to equity is much more than just two vaccination sites," she said. ___ This story was first published on March 26, 2021. It was updated on March 27, 2021 to correct that vaccination sites will close April 11, not April 15. Additionally, corrects Frank Mansell’s last name. It is Mansell, not Mancel. ___ Associated Press writer Adam Beam contributed from Sacramento. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Tags: Associated Press, infectious diseases, health, public health, coronavirus, lung disease, California

Wind farms and solar plants play a central role in the success of the energy transition and thus in climate protection. However, these renewable energies also cause disruptive fluctuations in the energy grid because they do not always produce energy when we consume it. This problem can be countered by a combination of interconnected systems and innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-based energy services—such as predictive control or demand side management. The Intelligent energy systems and cyber-physical systems research group at the Institute of Software Technology at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) is working on methods to increase the efficiency and intelligence of energy system, while also taking into account the interaction between humans and technology. Energy optimization thanks to user participation The interaction between humans and technology was the focus of the recently completed FFG-funded GameOpSys project. In collaboration with the simulation expert Niki Popper and his company dwh the research group led by Gerald Schweiger developed technologies for innovative user-centered energy services. A mobile app was developed for this purpose, which is intended to motivate users with game-like elements (gamification) to collect data on their own energy consumption (electricity, heating and cooling). This data—together with data from smart meters and smart home devices—forms the basis for future innovative energy services. Or as Gerald Schweiger puts it: "In the future, the data we obtain can help us match the available energy from variable renewable resources with the energy demand in place, time and quantity.." The app was successfully tested in a first field study with households in Upper Austria and Burgenland. The prerequisite for participation was the existing equipment with smart meters, as the data on one's own electricity consumption is an important input for the AI algorithms developed in the project. Over time, the app was able to predict household energy consumption based on smart meter data and users' idiosyncrasies and preferences. Social psychological insights into the acceptance of smart meters The success of novel user-centric energy services requires a willingness to provide data on one's own electricity consumption. Therefore, the technical development of the app was accompanied by a socio-psychological study on the acceptance of smart meters, conducted by psychologists at the University of Graz. Around 260 people from all over Austria were surveyed. This showed that the acceptance of smart meters and their active use correlate with positive attitudes toward the technology as well as with risk perceptions. The more positive the respondents' attitude toward smart meters, the more likely they are to want to use these smart meters to check electricity consumption, for example. And the higher the risks (e.g. data misuse or external interference with energy use) are assessed, the more negative the attitude toward smart meters. "Overall, the study provides valuable information on which aspects should be communicated during the introduction of smart meters if the aim is to actively involve users in future energy systems with the help of smart meters," says University of Graz psychologist Katja Corcoran. Outlook and to-do's GameOpSys has addressed two crucial aspects of future smart energy systems: For example, smart appliances such as heating and cooling devices, washing machines, or car charging stations could be automatically controlled via an Internet-of-Things infrastructure in order to save energy or could only be put into operation at such times when, for example, electricity is offered at a lower price. The implementation of such ideas is the goal of the Horizon2020 project Smart2B, in which Schweiger and his team will be involved. "Smart2B builds on the GameOpSys developments and complements them with IoT technologies that enable the communication between the higher-level energy systems, different devices, the users and energy services. The project will start in May 2021," says Schweiger. Before the app can be launched on a fully commercial scale, however, there are still further issues to be clarified, in particular those relating to data use and privacy. Gerald Schweiger explains: "AI needs data; on the one hand, we need to clarify how and who may automatically access smart meter data. On the other hand, privacy concepts are also needed to give users complete and transparent control over their own data."

The NVIDIA RTX A6000 has been the only workstation Ampere graphics card that you can get but that's about to change soon because the company is preparing the RTX A5000 and RTX A4000 as the more affordable pro options for content creators and work-heavy users. NVIDIA RTX A5000 & RTX A4000 Workstation Ampere Graphics Cards Spotted, Laptop Variants Also Coming The NVIDIA RTX A5000 and RTX A4000 graphics cards are based on the Ampere GPU architecture and are siblings to the flagship RTX A6000. Both graphics cards were submitted for the OpenCL 1.2 validation to Khronos Group. Currently, the NVIDIA RTX A6000 uses the full GA102 GPU so one can assume that the RTX A5000 and RTX A4000 would also come with the full configurations of NVIDIA's Ampere GA104 and GA106 GPUs, respectively.That would give the NVIDIA RTX A5000 a total of 6144 CUDA cores and considering that we will be looking at a 256-bit bus, we can expect either 16 or 32 GB GDDR6 memory. The NVIDIA RTX A4000 would get the full GA106 GPU with 3840 CUDA cores and could end up with up to 12 GB of GDDR6 memory running across a 192-bit bus interface.In addition to the submission, the NVIDIA RTX A5000 workstation graphics card has been spotted within a workstation laptop comprising of an Intel Core i7-11600H CPU. The laptop was tested in the Ashes of The Singularity benchmark and while we don't get any new details regarding the GPU itself, the CPU tested here is surprising as it is the first time we are seeing since the 8th Gen parts that a Core i7 SKU is getting 6 cores and 12 threads. Of course, this is a Tiger Lake-H laptop CPU but it looks like it would feature a base clock of 2.90 GHz and 9 MB of L3 cache.No other details for the laptop are confirmed and the score should be dismissed as it is slower than the RTX 3060 due to un-optimized drivers. All we can tell is that NVIDIA is indeed preparing more affordable workstation graphics cards based on its Ampere GPU architecture and we can expect them to launch in the coming months in both desktop and laptop discrete flavors.

all Of Duty: Warzone's zombies are continuing their grand tour across Verdansk. After washing ashore and stumbling into the hospital, the horde has now arrived at Acropolis National Bank—and they're not interested in opening a savings account. The undead first arrived on Verdansk's shores almost a month ago, and have slowly been infecting new areas of the map. This week, Raven announced that the bank would be the next location to be hit, teasing that "the only thing worth saving is your savings". Emergency alert system. Hostiles detected at National Acropolis Bank. #Warzone https://t.co/A7Rhau43uq pic.twitter.com/jEvrKJkrcIMarch 25, 2021 That tease was accompanied by an in-character lore entry over on the Warzone blog, investigating a few possible reasons for the latest infection. The least likely, but most fun, is that the rotters have "a natural attraction for fiat currency", which would at the very least explain why Warzone participants can loot cash and ammo off their corpses. Last time the zombies moved to a new spot, Activision teased content creators by sending them themed hospital scrubs with ominous messages attached. No such luck this time around, I'm afraid. The Call Of Duty publisher isn't going to help you open a savings account. he ongoing zombie invasion is widely believed to be a lead-up to Warzone's new map. Verdansk is expected to be nuked in response to the uncontrollable outbreak sometime next month, paving the way for Warzone to move to a brand new arena. Warzone nuke event: When will it happen? Warzone bunker codes: All combinations and locations Warzone map: Master Verdansk and Rebirth Island Best Warzone loadout: Finest overall setupsA one-time dog sledder, pancake flipper, alien wrangler and indie darling, Nat now scours the internet looking for the hottest PC gaming news. Destined to become Scotland's first Battlemech pilot.

Handworker person , old on forum , try to join out projects like vgr and Journalist or any project on out forum i will give u a chance .

Everything from bandicoots to tiny turtle hatchlings have been washing up dead in NSW, with wildlife rescuers fearing po[CENSORED]tions already ravaged by prolonged drought and catastrophic bushfires will plummet further. Large tracts of NSW went underwater in the past week as rivers filled by torrential rain broke their banks. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated across the state, with Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley and the mid-north coast the hardest hit. As the waters recede, calls to help injured wildlife are flooding in. "We're seeing kangaroo joeys coming in whose mums have drowned, wombats displaced and taking shelter under cars, possums with head injuries, very small hatchling turtles being washed up on beaches," International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) spokeswoman Josey Sharrad told AAP. "We're even getting reports of bull sharks attacking cattle in the floodwaters." Orphaned animals are coming in hard and fast, as are many animals with hypothermia, shock, pneumonia and exhaustion. "We won't really see the true impact for a few days (but) we anticipate there will be an influx of animals coming in," Ms Sharrad said. Ground-running and burrowing animals like echidnas and wombats are particularly vulnerable, but tree-dwelling animals haven't been spared. One mid north coast resident found a Eastern pygmy possum curled up in torpor - a coma-like state - in one of her pot plants. That tiny critter, which weighs less than a golf ball and is declared vulnerable in NSW, is one of the luckier ones though, John Grant says. It, and many of the animals that survived the floods, will recover without intervention. "They really just need sorting out and drying off," the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) spokesman told AAP. "Some of them might need fluids, but most of them will come good of their own accord." But with more animals out and about in search of new, drier habitats, WIRES has been receiving an influx of reports of car strikes. Domestic pets are also an increased problem. Anyone who spots wildlife that may be injured should leave it be and call their local rescue organisation. Mr Grant is hopeful wildlife po[CENSORED]tions, particularly on the mid-north coast, won't be as drastically affected as during the bushfires. "Animals that live in flood prone areas, almost know the drill, so to speak," he said. "But there are situations where the native animals will go to higher ground and it'll be the one-in-100 year flood where the water just gets higher and higher so they become trapped." But Ms Sharrad says there's only so many extreme weather events the po[CENSORED]tions in the area can take. Action to protect and insure them against increasingly-frequent extreme weather is desperately needed. "Three billion animals are estimated to have been impacted by the bushfires and they had no chance to recover before this," she said. "They've just been reeling from disaster to disaster without any time to come up for air."

Auto Club Speedway, in Fontana, California, is scheduled to undergo a major redevelopment project, including reconfiguration of the superspeedway into a high-banked short track. In anticipation of that, and of racing returning to California after the coronavirus pandemic runs its course, this seems like a good time to look back at the history of this Speedway. Originally named “California Speedway” — a name that some people still refer to it by — Auto Club Speedway is a two-mile, wide and fast, low-banked, D-shaped, oval superspeedway. It is located on the abandoned and badly deteriorating site of the former Kaiser Steel Mill, which is an interesting story in itself. According to a Nov. 27, 1995 story in the Los Angeles Times, the 475-acre site was so badly run-down that Les Richter, the new track’s project manager, reportedly said: “Well, I can tell you this. It was used to shoot the TV movie ‘Hiroshima’ — and it didn’t need any help.” The story went on to say that “demolition could not begin until 13 acres that required special environmental remediation were cleansed and approved by the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.” The site was toxic. Construction of California Speedway began in 1995, and was completed in 1996. It was originally a Penske Speedways track. It was, and remains, a world-class motorsports facility. In addition to the oval track, the facility also includes a road course and Auto Club Dragway. Prior to COVID-19 — and hopefully soon after that becomes a sad memory — it hosted over 320 days of track activity each year, including the NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 weekend. Activities have included NASCAR and IndyCar races, concerts; movie, TV and commercial productions; new car testing, club racing, racing schools and more, attracting thousands of fans and visitors from around the world, and world-wide media coverage. From an Oct. 23, 2017 news release from Auto Club Speedway, we learn about its huge financial impact. Citing a report by the University of California, Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting and Development, it “contributes more than $105 million in economic impact to San Bernardino County.” Additionally, the Impact Analysis for Planning System goes on to report “$148.7 million in economic output in Southern California and $156.2 million in economic output in the state of California.” Visitor spending and jobs generate millions of dollars in tax revenue for the various levels of government in the state. A major part of motorsports is their social impact. Motorsports can be and are enjoyed by entire families. State Senator Connie M. Leyva, of the 20th District, said (as reported in that same news release): “As a longtime resident of the Inland Empire, I know that Auto Club Speedway has created many fond memories for countless families — including my own — over the years.” The Speedway improves the quality of life through community outreach programs, including Lefty’s Reading Challenge, fund drives and charitable donations. On Lefty’s Track Day, members of the public have driven their personal vehicles on the oval. Auto Club Speedway is enormous. It is enclosed by an astounding 17 miles of fencing. Its buildings are 739,000 square feet in area. Total seating capacity, including the main grandstand and the skyboxes, is 122,000. The track is 75 feet wide with a 15-foot apron, enabling thrilling, five-wide racing action. Auto Club Speedway has witnessed significant changes over the years. Perhaps most noticed and still lamented by race fans was the demolition in 2013 — reportedly due to irreparable safety issues — of the speedway’s historic, 100-foot water tower from the Kaiser Steel days. Due to the extended duration of the coronavirus pandemic, the NASCAR race weekend scheduled for 2021 at Auto Club Speedway was realigned to the Daytona road course. No NASCAR weekend will take place at Auto Club Speedway in 2021. Instead, the next NASCAR weekend there will be in 2022. According to a Dec. 2020 press release from the track, all customers who purchased tickets to the 2021 race weekend will automatically be moved to the 2022 race weekend. Furthermore, the decision was made to delay the superspeedway’s reconfiguration into a high-banked short track until after that event. For more information about Auto Club Raceway and upcoming events, visit their website at www.autoclubspeedway.com. To see additional photos, visit www.drivetribe.com, click on the magnifying glass, select “POSTS” and enter “AutoMatters & More #684” in their search

(StatePoint) Music is a mood booster and can help promote mental health. This past year has been particularly challenging, inspiring many people to reap the many benefits of bringing more music into their homes. Here is how you can too: Be your own DJ: Music can instantaneously cause us to experience anything from joy to nostalgia to relaxation to inspiration, making it a pretty potent mood regulator. Whether you need a high-tempo blast of motivation to finish household tasks or something soothing to wind down after a stressful day, you can be your own DJ and tailor a playlist to your needs at the moment. (And if it means piping speakers into bathrooms, laundry rooms or other unusual spaces of your home, so be it!) Learn to play: Whether you’re a novice or an accomplished musician, playing a musical instrument is good for the mind, body and soul. Not only does a daily practice routine give you something to look forward to each day, but the adoption of a new skill can boost self-esteem. To explore the joy of learning to play, consider a Casio keyboard. Forty years of musical instrument expertise is evident in the brand’s keyboards and digital pianos, which inspire students, educators, and performers around the world every day. Certain models even feature tools for new learners of all ages, and their line-up of portable musical keyboards make it possible to practice on-the-go. Build community: It’s easier than ever to tap into a musical community online, and doing so can help beat the social isolation of social distancing. Sites like Bandcamp give performers greater control over how they connect with fans and sell their music; educational institutions like the Smithsonian are offering lifelong learners everywhere opportunities to delve into music history from the comfort of home; and dancers, singers and instrumentalists are using social media apps like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to livestream performances. De-stress with dance: If the gym is off the table for you right now, dance can be a great alternative for working up a sweat, and free tutorials abound online that can help you master such dance forms as belly dance, ballet, jazz and tap. Many communities also hold outdoor, socially-distanced classes in parks. Music can enhance your well-being, especially right now. Fortunately, there are brand new avenues for incorporating this age-old therapy into your life.

The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign-up here. "Pfizer has begun testing its COVID-19 vaccine in children under 12,” writes Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times (Pfizer’s vaccine is already authorized in the U.S. for children ages 16-18). And Moderna also is starting its COVID-19 vaccine studies in children under 12, the story states. “Both companies have been testing their vaccines in children 12 and older, and expect those results in the next few weeks,” Mandavilli reports. With children under 18 making up nearly a quarter of the U.S. po[CENSORED]tion, vaccinating them may prove crucial to generating enough immunity to the entire nation’s po[CENSORED]tion to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (aka herd immunity), according to a U.S. National Institutes of Health infectious diseases physician quoted in the 3/25/21 story. At STAT, Matthew Herper’s coverage of the Pfizer studies of its COVID-19 vaccine in children as young as 6 months old suggests a scenario in which children ages 12 to 15 could be vaccinated against COVID-19 by this fall, when school resumes after summer vacation in the U.S. It will depend on how study data turn out as well as if and when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorizes a COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in this age group. For younger children, any authorization probably would not come until early next year, the story states. In the Pfizer tests with children ages 6 months to 12 years old, the researchers might focus on antibody levels as an indicator of protection rather than on disease symptoms, Herper reports (3/25/21). A study of 100 patients with “long COVID” in 21 U.S. states has revealed that 85 percent of these people experienced four or more neurological issues months after their initial infections, reports Pam Belluck at The New York Times (3/23/21). Reported symptoms include headaches (68 percent), tingling (60 percent), muscle pain (55 percent), troubles with the sense of smell (55 percent), brain fog (81 percent), dizziness, blurred vision, and ringing ears, according to the story and the study, published 3/23/21 in The Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology. None of the study participants was ever sick enough from COVID-19 to be hospitalized, the story states (this is typical of most people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the study states). The findings underscore “the emerging understanding that for many people, long Covid can be worse than their initial bouts with the infection,” writes Belluck. In another study posted online this month but not yet evaluated by outside experts, a third of people with long Covid symptoms felt fine in the first 10 days after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the story states. A physician at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center says the symptoms could be caused by an inflammatory reaction to the virus that can affect the brain and the body. It is possible for a COVID-19 vaccinated person to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 even after the two or so weeks it takes for strong protection to kick in, Katherine J. Wu writes at the Atlantic (3/19/21), but these cases are a “vanishingly small percentage” of all people who have been vaccinated. As she explains, “the goal of vaccination isn’t eradication, but a détente in which humans and viruses coexist, with the risk of disease at a tolerable low.” Each individual’s immune response to vaccination can differ somewhat in its strength. Think of your COVID-19 vaccination as a “layer of protection, like an umbrella, that might guard better in some situations than others,” Wu writes, drawing on the insights of a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York. In many situations, “vaccines are still best paired with safeguards such as masks and distancing — just as rain boots and jackets would help buffer someone in a storm,” the story states. In the first two months of COVID-19 vaccine roll-outs, SARS-CoV-2 infections fell rapidly among U.S. nursing home workers and nursing home residents, as well as among workers at some hospitals in England and Israel, according to data and research covered by Melissa Bailey and Shoshana Dubnow at Kaiser Health News (3/15/21). That said, COVID-19 vaccines are not mandatory in most U.S. nursing homes, Bailey and Dubnow report. And some nursing home workers don’t yet trust the vaccines, the story suggests. A combination of vaccines and “effective infection prevention and control programs/practices” have led to the drop in infections at such U.S. facilities, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control spokesperson quoted in the piece. A Johns Hopkins University infectious diseases specialist who advises nursing homes on COVID-19 responses emphasizes the role of hard-won immunity among SARS-CoV-2-infection survivors in long-term care facilities, as well as the role of vaccines. “Having even one or two vaccinated people in a building can slow transmission,” the specialist is described as stating. On 3/10/21, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued guidelines for nursing-home visitors allowing indoor visits regardless of vaccination status, with some exceptions. Some useful double-masking tips can be found in this 3/17/21 guide by Tara Parker-Pope and Dani Blum at The New York Times, specifically: 1) Wear a cloth mask over a surgical mask rather than wearing two surgical masks to minimize side-gaps; and 2) there’s no need to double-mask if you’re wearing an N95 or KN95.James Hamblin’s latest piece for The Atlantic (3/11/21) focuses on the uncertainties that remain regarding the future of the COVID-19 pandemic. He writes: “Today, the experts I trust most are those who seem to have grown less certain over the course of the pandemic, and have learned the humility it should force upon us all.” Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist who accurately forecast last year that SARS-CoV-2 would infect 40 to 70 percent of the U.S. (we’re currently around 40 percent the story states), said last July that he is “out of the business” of prediction, writes Hamblin, an MD and lecturers at the Yale School of Public Health. The pandemic will end with a whimper, not a roar, the piece suggests.

Intel has listed down several next-generation CPU & GPU products on its official webpage which include the likes of Raptor Lake, Meteor Lake, Xe-HPG DG2 graphics cards, and several HPC class designs such as Emerald Lake & Ponte Vecchio. While we have all heard about these products at some point, the official listings also provide some additional details and all credit goes to Komachi and Momomo_US in finding these out. Intel's Unreleased & Next-Generation CPU / GPU Families Confirmed - Raptor Lake, Meteor Lake, Xe-HPG DG2 For Consumers & Emerald Lake, Ponte Vecchio For HPC There are several lineups to go through so we will divide the article into two segments, one for the CPUs and the other for the GPUs. The Intel CPU families that have been confirmed include the 13th Generation Raptor Lake & 14th Generation Meteor Lake. Well, Intel already confirmed Meteor Lake a few days back but we get a few more tidbits. These two families are aimed at the consumer end & for servers, Intel has listed down its Emerald Lake and Diamond Lake families that will succeed the Sapphire Rapids and Granite Rapids Xeon CPUs. On the GPU front, Intel has listed down several of its Xe-HPG DG2 GPU-based graphics card configurations and also pointed out a specific variant of its flagship Ponte Vecchio GPU. So let's start off with the CPUs. Intel 13th Generation Raptor Lake Desktop (Consumer) CPUs The listing itself doesn't reveal any new specifications but does confirm that the Raptor Lake CPUs do exist and will now be part of the 13th Gen Intel Core CPU family. The Raptor Lake CPUs are also listed alongside Alder Lake CPUs (S-Series) which more or less confirms that they will be compatible with the LGA 1700 socket. To start off with what we know so far, Intel Raptor Lake CPUs will be replacing Alder Lake but it won't be a huge change as we will get to see moving from Rocket Lake to Alder Lake. Alder Lake 12th Gen' CPUs will be the first Intel CPUs to utilize a hybrid core design approach while being based on the 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process. It will also get a brand new platform that will support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. Raptor Lake will essentially carry most of these features over while offering slight upgrades to the platform and core changes. For the desktop Intel Raptor Lake parts, it is stated that the lineup will get new hybrid CPU core changes for improved core performance. We know that Alder Lake maxes out at 16 cores and 24 threads. These include 8 cores based on the Golden Cove architecture and 8 cores based on the Gracemont core architecture. It is expected that Raptor Lake would reuse these cores but we can expect some changes to the way cache and clocks are handled for both desktop and mobility CPU parts. There's also a mention of CPU cache for gaming which could be Intel's answer to AMD's own game cache. We don't know yet if this will be some embedded DRAM cache featured on Raptor Lake or a beefed-up L2/L3 design but we can definitely see some big performance upgrades in games that will help Intel compete with the absolute massive caches that AMD's Ryzen CPUs have to offer. The Intel vPro technology will also be expanded upon in terms of feature set. While Raptor Lake CPUs for the desktop will utilize DDR5-4800 and feature up to 48 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, mobility variants will get support for new LPDDR5X memory and also get a new DLVR power delivery system. Intel 14th Generation Meteor Lake Desktop (Consumer) CPUs Intel also confirms Meteor Lake, its 14th Generation Desktop CPU family, on its official webpage. We already got some details from Intel such as the fact that Intel's Meteor Lake line of desktop and mobility CPUs are expected to be based on a new line of Cove core architecture. This is rumored to be known as the 'Redwood Cove' as was reported by MLID (Moore's Law is Dead) and will be based on a 7nm EUV process node. It is stated that the Redwood Cove is designed from the ground up to be an agnostic node which means that it can be fabricated at different fabs. There are references mentioned that point out to TSMC to be a backup or even a partial supplier for the Redwood Cove-based chips. This might tell us why Intel is stating multiple manufacturing processes for the CPU family. The Meteor Lake CPUs may possibly be the first CPU generation from Intel to say farewell to the ring bus interconnect architecture. There are also rumors that Meteor Lake could be a fully 3D-Stacked design and could utilize an I/O die sourced from an external fab (TSMC sighted again). It is highlighted that Intel will be officially utilizing its Foveros Packaging Technology on the CPU to inter-connect the various dies on the chip (XPU). The Meteor Lake Desktop CPU family is expected to retain support on the LGA 1700 socket which is the same socket used by Alder Lake & Raptor Lake processors. We can expect DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5.0 support. The platform will support both DDR5 & DDR4 memory with the mainstream and budget tier options going for DDR4 memory DIMMs while the premium & high-end offerings going for DDR5 DIMMs. The site also lists down both Meteor Lake P and Meteor Lake M CPUs that will be aimed at mobility platforms.Intel Granite Rapids, Emerald Rapids, Diamond Rapids Future Xeon / HEDT CPU Families Aside from the consumer-oriented lineups, we also have confirmation on the existence of the Intel Emerald Rapids and Diamond Rapid processors. According to the listings, it looks like the Sapphire Rapids family of 4th Gen Xeon Scalable Processors will be replaced by Emerald Rapids on the same Eagle Stream platform. Moving forward, Intel is expected to update its Xeon platform with Mountain Stream and Birch Stream. Now interestingly, both Granite and Diamond Rapids are listed for Mountain Stream but only Diamond Rapids is listed for the Birch Stream platform. The Diamond Stream platform will replace Granite Rapids as its successor but we don't know the exact details regarding the Mountain and Birch Stream platforms yet. Previous reports have stated that Granite Rapids will arrive on the Birch Stream platform and will be compatible with the Birch Stream platform too. So it is likely that the Birch Stream platform will support both Granite Rapids-SP and Diamond Rapids-SP chips while Mountain Stream will support Granite Rapids-AP and Diamond Rapids-AP chips. Granite Rapids is currently pitted to launch in 2023 on the 7nm process node while Diamond Rapids will launch around 2024 and feature either an advanced version of the 7nm process node or a 5nm process from Intel.

Whereas the first version of Google's Android Assistant centered on voice commands until Google added visual elements inspired by Smart Display such as on-screen controls, Google aims to enhance the Assistant. In 2020, a Snapshot feed featuring personalized recommendations and upcoming events became available. To that effect, Google seeks to make the phone form factor easier to use, most demonstrated by its new Memory feature. This feature allows users to quickly save and find all items in a single location for ease of use. The tool's capabilities provide capturing screenshots from any visited digital location, including the ability to save links hosted on pages with which the user engages. Secondly, the Memory tool can store in memory real-world items, such as handwritten notes, objects and posters. In fact, the Assistant Memory can even save the user's reminders and thoughts for access at a later time. Finally, the smart search and organization element allows users to locate all of those items in one place, saving both effort and time. As far as saving capabilities, Google Assistant Memory can keep track of articles, books, contacts, events, flights, hotels, photos, films, locations, music, images, notes, playlists, products, recipes, reminders, restaurants, screenshots, shipments, TV series, videos and websites. Users can utilize either the home screen or the verbal Google Assistant command to store items. The Memory feature can also maintain the context of a stored item, such as related location, screenshots and URLs. Once the information is stored in Memory, users can view all of this data in a new Memory feed that resides beside the existing Snapshot. Operating in reverse chronological sequence, Google will display Older Memories as well as those from Today in the form of card entries. These entries are special cards available when you save to Drive any Google Docs, Drawing, Forms, Jamboard, Sheets and Sites files, offering a document preview for each. In fact, Assistant Memory can even include contextually related actions, such as Cooking time (for recipes), Open Chat, Search flight status, Track Shipment and Watch Trailer, among other possibilities. Amidst these offerings, users will also still be able to set repeating and alarms and location reminders. Indeed, the search bar at the top of the tool still contains options of "Important" and "Read later", wherein users can organize and delete as needed.

Blizzard just announced some significant changes to how World of Warcraft players can purchase game time, and players aren't happy about it. In a forum post, WoW community manager Bornakk broke the news that, going forward, players would only be able to purchase game time for World of Warcraft in increments of 60 days, meaning you can no longer make a one-time purchase for 30, 90, and 180 days of World of Warcraft game time. To be clear, this doesn't affect World of Warcraft subscriptions, which can still be purchased on a recurring monthly basis (or in increments of 90 and 180 days). Though subscriptions are probably the most common way to access World of Warcraft, many players prefer to buy game time as a once-off purchase. It's great option if you don't play consistently, as you can just buy a little bit of game time whenever you need it rather than committing to a monthly fee that potentially gets wasted. Purchasing game time like this is also preferable to a lot of players in different countries where credit cards are not always a common payment method. At the end of the day, though, it's just nice to have more options for how you pay. Selling game time cards for 60-day increments is actually the standard for most other MMOs, but the change is still upsetting to a lot of players. There are already over 500 comments between the official forum post and a thread on WoW's subreddit, with many players expressing frustration and confusion over why the change was even made in the first place. "There's nothing about this that benefits wow players/subscribers," writes one redditor. Other comments accuse Blizzard of trying to artificially juice subscription numbers and retention rates by forcing more players to buy a recurring subscription. "The whole purpose of this is to force more people to HAVE to subscribe," says another player. "Then, when the inevitably quit the game, and forget to cancel your sub, they make more money off you due to auto-renew." Even if Blizzard is just adjusting to the industry standard, it's easy to see why having fewer payment options is frustrating. One thing to take into account is that buying game time (or a subscription) at a larger increment rewards you with a hefty discount. Buying game time in a lump of 180 days would save you about $25 as opposed to paying monthly. But because that's still a lot of money (180 days is about $75), it's natural that some players wouldn't want to commit to a subscription where they might forget to cancel when that six months is up. At the same time, other commenters are pointing out that you can immediately cancel a subscription after buying it and it only takes a few seconds. Sure, it's an extra step, but it's a pretty harmless way of avoiding an unwanted charge. Even so, this this move comes on the back of other Blizzard controversies that have upset its players, including outrage that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is receiving an estimated $200 million bonus at the same time thatSteven enjoys nothing more than a long grind, which is precisely why his specialty is on investigative feature reporting on China's PC games scene, weird stories that upset his parents, and MMOs. He's Canadian but can't ice skate. Embarrassing.

Well i like V1 blur , text .

The Union government has proposed an amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (POCA) to increase penalties against animal cruelty from Rs 50 to Rs 75,000 or “three times the cost of the animal” besides up to five years’ imprisonment. This approach is steeped in caste and class elitism, and is unlikely to help address institutionalised animal cruelty. Cruelty is vaguely defined in law, as it carries cultural values about animal suffering. The animal rights movement and legal jurisprudence state that cruelty is characterised by unacceptably high animal suffering. In Animal Welfare Board of India v. A Nagaraj, the Supreme Court ruled that animal suffering caused for “legitimate” purposes is not cruelty. The po[CENSORED]r and judicial conceptions of cruelty, and which animals need to be protected from it, continue to be coded in Brahmanical ideas of suffering, legitimacy and proportionality. For instance, cruelty was cited as the reason for banning dog meat trade in Nagaland. Alleged inhuman killing methods were used on stray dogs. However, the imposed ban was not on the inhuman killing methods to address cruelty, but an arbitrary and disproportionate prohibition on all dog meat. Meanwhile, laws prohibit only inhuman killing methods for other animals such as poultry and cattle, instead of blanket meat bans. Criminal justice studies dispel the notion of deterring crimes through increased penalties and stringent criminal laws. Therefore, higher penalties may be unlikely lower the cruel incidents of animal murder and puppy violence. The POCA is then yet another tool for the police to criminalise communities that traditionally earn their livelihoods from animal labour by vilifying these interactions as cruelty. Given the police’s selective enforcement and proposed higher penalties there is a grim possibility of criminalisation further producing marginalisation. The Sapera and Madari communities (formerly criminalised tribes categorised today as Denotified Tribes), are traditionally snake-charmers and performers with monkeys respectively. POCA and wildlife protection laws frame these communities as offenders facing imprisonment without providing rehabilitation opportunities. POCA is commonly implemented by the police such that dominant caste families who invite snake charmers home for the annual Hindu festival of Nag Panchami escape sanction. It is an established legal principle that punishment should be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. However, the sliding scale of sentencing is often disproportionate due to cultural influences on criminal law. In recent years, the legitimisation of Brahmanical morality has led to the penalty for unlicensed cattle slaughter in Gujarat leading to higher imprisonment than for certain kinds of culpable homicide. Other laws coded in similar cultural values, such as excise and gambling laws, disproportionately criminalise marginalised communities. The police use their wide discretionary powers to commonly extort and harass vulnerable individuals. The judiciary may also be complicit in entrenching cultural values — mere alcohol possession is routinely denied bail by lower courts. Members of the animal rights movement belong to elite castes and classes. Over a period of time they have assumed the status of being a pressure group of sorts. They “requested” increased POCA penalties to balance human needs with animal interests. Yet, their scales of balance fail to consider the lives of lower caste and class communities. These groups have little engagement with indigenous cultures which have advanced and nuanced practices of respecting all sentient beings. It is “modern” society that grades its priorities of care on animals by demeaning categorisations of wildlife, cattle, domestic pets, vermin etc. Such animal rights activism has also previously framed Adivasis as “encroachers” and “poachers”, invisibilising tribal communities’ contemporaneous symbiosis with all animal life, and their crucial role in wildlife existence. In 2019, a band of wildlife conservationists challenged the constitutionality of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The case nearly evicted over 11.8 lakh tribal families and traditional forest-dwellers from forestlands in 16 states. The anti-cruelty animal rights movement is not seeking POCA amendments to enforce stringent rules or strict enforcement against large-scale industrial operations such as factory farms that profit off the cruelty of millions of animals. Instead, it counts among its chief successes, the banning of animal-drawn carts in Delhi and Mumbai. These punching down strategies lay bare its inability to challenge institutionalised animal cruelty. Several animal cruelty incidents have arisen from escalating human-animal resource conflicts. The death of the pregnant elephant in Kerala was due to the accidental consumption of a cracker-stuffed fruit intended to repel wild boars from farms. As development increasingly deprives animals of foods, they forage in human cultivations while vulnerable agricultural households with inadequate incomes struggle to protect their primary income sources. The POCA serves some value insofar as it protects animals from select forms of institutionalised cruelty, including exploitation for research and experimentation. However, we must commit to co-producing and protecting the dignity of all beings. Our experiences with the criminal justice system, arbitrary policing and the state’s carceral nature should caution us that even well-meaning, but uncritical elitist movements will exacerbate the subjection of vulnerable individuals to the cruelties of policing and prisons in India. The writers are associated with the Bhopal-based Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project

An auto repair shop in Georgia has been accused of delivering a final wage package to a departing employee by dumping a pile of oil-covered pennies on his driveway - 91,500 of them. The pennies amounted to the $915 (£667) that Andreas Flaten said he was owed by A OK Walker Autoworks. Mr Flaten said he faces having to wipe down each coin individually to get rid of the grease the pile was covered in. A OK Walker Autoworks has not commented publicly on the incident. But on its website, it says: "And yes we accept pennies as payment! They are cash you nitwits!" The owner, Miles Walker, told a reporter from CBS46 he did not remember dumping the coins on Mr Flaten's drive but added: "He got paid - that's all that matters." Mr Flaten said he was a manager at the auto repair firm, which is based in Peachtree City, south of Atlanta, until he quit last November in a disagreement over when he could leave work to pick up his child from day care. When his outstanding pay failed to arrive, Mr Flaten filed a claim with the US Department of Labor, which confirmed to US media it had contacted the repair shop three times over the issue. The money did eventually materialise, as a pile of coins at the end of Mr Flaten's drive. On top of the pile was an envelope, with an expletive written on the front, and a pay stub inside - which was filmed by his girlfriend Olivia Oxley and posted to her Instagram account. The pennies are now in a wheelbarrow in Mr Flaten's garage in Fayetteville, and the weight is so heavy it has deflated the tyres. Mr Flaten said he had tried bathing the coins in a big tub of water, soap and vinegar, without success, and the only way to get the grease off was to wipe each one individually. He added it had taken him around two hours to clean up about $5 worth. "I think that's going to be a lot of work for money I've already worked for," he told Fox 5 Atlanta. And it appears that paying your staff this way - while not practical, moral or fair - might also not be illegal. "There is nothing in the regulations that dictates in what currency the employee must be paid," Eric R Lucero of the US Department of Labor was quoted by the New York Times as saying.

In partnership with Williamson, Inc., owner Larry Johnson explained they offer a variety of drinks for whatever the customer may need at the time. From meal replacement shakes, healthy teas and hydration-focused drinks, Franklin Nutrition Stop has something for everyone on its menu, Johnson said. “I want to help guide everyone who walks in the store towards the healthy movement going on right now and get people moving in the right direction,” Johnson said. Originally from Brownsville, Tennessee, Johnson has other family members who also run similar nutrition stores in other cities in West Tennessee. Johnson, 20, was inspired after seeing his family business's success as well as his own weight loss journey. “Franklin was a very good spot and I feel we’re in a good location for success,” he said. “I thought this would be the next best step in doing something bigger, better and improving myself. I used to drink the same shakes and hydration drinks that I now serve in the store. advertisement "Before and after workouts these drinks helped me lose 60 pounds in addition to changing my lifestyle.” Johnson said some of the most po[CENSORED]r drinks so far have been the peanut butter cup and the apple pie shakes. For the teas, the strawberry watermelon or Georgia peach have also been top sellers. “Stop on by and give us a try,” Johnson said. “We have plenty of options to choose from whether it’s a meal replacement shake, or one of our healthy energizing teas, we want to help you make the right healthy choices and develop relationships with our customers.” Franklin Nutrition Stop is located at 595 Hillsboro Road, suite 409 in Franklin. For more information

They reviewed 256 studies that included a total of more than 28,000 people with dementia with or without major depression. Medications alone were no more effective than usual care in treating depression in these patients. But 10 therapies were more effective than usual care, according to the study. It was published March 24 in the BMJ. "Non-drug approaches were associated with a meaningful reduction in symptoms of depression in people with dementia and without a diagnosis of a major depressive disorder," said researchers led by Jennifer Watt, of the division of geriatric medicine at the University of Toronto. The beneficial therapies included: cognitive stimulation; exercise; reminiscence therapy (which helps people with dementia remember events, people and places from their lives); mental stimulation with a cholinesterase inhibitor (a drug used to treat dementia); and massage and touch therapy. Other helpful therapies included multidisciplinary care; psychotherapy combined with reminiscence therapy and environmental modification; occupational therapy; exercise combined with social interaction and mental stimulation, and animal therapy. Three of these approaches -- massage and touch therapy, mental stimulation with a cholinesterase inhibitor, and mental stimulation combined with exercise and social interaction -- were found to be more effective than some drugs, Watt and colleagues said in a journal news release. The researchers said their findings suggest that doctors should use more drug-free methods to treat depression and loneliness in people with dementia. The study had limitations, the researchers noted. For instance, it did not assess the severity of depression symptoms, the effects on different types of dementia, or the potential costs or harms of drug and non-drug interventions. However, they said the study's strengths included the large number of articles reviewed and use of a recognized clinical scale for symptoms of depression. Health care providers, caregivers and patients all have a role in putting these findings into practice, according to the authors. Of the 50 million people worldwide with dementia, about 16% also have diagnosed major depression, and 32% have symptoms of depression without a formal diagnosis, the researchers noted.

With the release of Firefox 87, Mozilla has introduced a safe browsing feature called SmartBlock. SmartBlock allows users to avoid online tracking tools while browsing the Internet. This way, users can surf the Web without worrying if their information is being scrutinized. Mozilla began its safe browsing mission in 2015 with the built-in Content Blocking feature that automatically blocks images, scripts and related content from third-party entities. This block capability helps to prevent cross-site scripting tracking by companies blacklisted by the data protection company, Disconnect. However, in providing these tracker blocking features for Private Browsing and Strict Mode, developers have come to realize that such safety mechanisms can also sometimes block necessary web page function. As a result, blocking tools can inhibit images, videos and even entire websites from loading. To mitigate the potential obstacle of web page interference, the SmartBlock feature automatically restores websites that have been damaged by other blocking features without disrupting user privacy. SmartBlock operates by providing scripts for the web page that support the site exactly how its original scripts would, so that the web page can render normally without risking user security. Of course, these replacement scripts do not contain any code that would track the user. In fact, the Mozilla team plans to keep improving upon such features that continue to protect users browsing the Web while also maintaining their access to and intended destination web pages. So far, the teams behind the NoScript and uBlock tools have assisted with developing SmartBlock's capabilities. In addition to blocking blacklisted tracking scripts, SmartBlock also has the ability to trim URLs from embedded images and scripts. This sort of referrer trimming removes everything from cross-origin web requests save for the embedding domain itself. The reason safeguarding your data while browsing the Internet is so important lies in how third-party websites track that data—namely, by ingesting bits of your information whenever you embed an image or script from their web page into your own. This basically means that whenever you implement an artifact from their website, the owners of that site receive a URL containing some of your data along with their own. Luckily, SmartBlock ensures third-parties cannot view any bits of information from your end.