[~OMAR~]

At the age of 17, Tom Turcich had enjoyed a good life so far. He had wonderful parents, great friends, did well at school and was a gifted sportsman. But two things gnawed away at him: he thought he was too timid, and he was terrified of death. As a little boy, he would run down the stairs at night to check that his parents were still alive. At the age of 11, he’d lie in bed trying to simulate death so he could prepare for it. “I’d lose the sensation of my body,” he says, “and I would cover my ears and close my eyes so I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and I’d try to imagine what death was like. But then you can’t because you’re thinking. And there’s no thinking in death.” Then, in 2006, his life was turned on its head. Turcich remembers every detail. He was in a car with three friends – Nick, Kevin and Fitz. Kevin was driving his father’s convertible. Back then, the boys used to hang out with a group of girls who were in the year below at school in Haddon Township, New Jersey. There was Shannon who was going out with Kevin, Ann Marie, Amanda and Jess. They’d grown up together, been friends since they were seven or eight, and they were as close as close can be. The radio was blasting and the boys were having a good time when Kevin got a call from Shannon. He was distraught. “Kevin yelled for the music to be turned down and said, ‘Ann Marie has died.’” Sixteen-year-old Ann Marie had been killed in a jetski accident. They drove to Shannon’s house. “We sat in the front yard. There were maybe 10 of us, we were in a circle and everybody’s crying, unsure what to do. That night I lay in bed and I remember feeling this fog. It lasted about six months.” Not only was Turcich petrified of death, he now knew he could die at any moment. Hardest of all was reconciling that it had happened to somebody like Ann Marie. “She was super-clever and exceptionally kind,” says Turcich. “Ann Marie was nice to the point it drove me crazy when I was younger because you could never get her to say anything mean. When we were hanging out I would prod her, trying to get her to say anything not generous.” I thought: if Ann Marie can die, who is a better person than I am, then for sure I can go at the same time He never succeeded. Not only did Turcich lose an amazing friend, but the accident left him questioning the meaning of life, and reinforced his fear of death. In short, he had the ultimate teenage existential crisis. “I thought: if Ann Marie can die, who is definitely a better student and better person than I am, then for sure I can go at the same time. That’s why it really hit home.” Turcich went into a decline. “It brought all those unresolved questions flooding back. I thought: OK, you’ve got to solve this problem just to go about your life.” What was the problem? “That death can come at any time – arbitrarily and instantly. It was like, with this knowledge, how do you live? What do you do? How do you integrate that fact into your life?” He was stuck for an answer. Then one day at college, the students watched Dead Poets Society, the film about a teacher called John Keating, played by Robin Williams, who inspires his students through his love of literature. Just as the movie’s seminal speech about seizing the day – carpe diem – and living an extraordinary life had a huge impact on the students in the movie, so it also did on Turcich. He watched the film again and again, asking himself how best he could seize the day and make his life extraordinary. It struck him for the first time that he could shape his future rather than simply let it happen to him. From then on, he did just that. He won a place in the school swimming team, performed in a one-act play, returned to playing tennis and became school champion, all the time wearing the blue “AML” bracelet his school had designed as a tribute to Ann Marie Lynch. He finally conquered his passivity when he braved his first kiss, after three (nervous) dates with a girl called Britney. That kiss proved to be an epiphany. “It was like the birth of the universe in my head,” he says. “All of a sudden I could see all the possibilities expanding out. It finally clicked: the actions you take really can affect your life.” Turcich decided he was going to seize the day by getting out of safe, friendly Haddon Township, with its po[CENSORED]tion of roughly 15,000, and seeing the world. He started to make plans. He didn’t want to just see a bit of the world: if possible, he was going to see all of it. “Because the world is complex and vast, and because my general temperament is pretty timid and more towards the shy side, I wanted to be forced into adventure. The point of adventure is it’s uncomfortable and you have to grow in it. “I had $1,000 in my bank account so I needed to find a cheap way to travel, and that led me to the guys who had walked around the world.” He read up about Steve Newman (an American who circumnavigated the globe on foot over four years in the late 1980s) and Karl Bushby (a British ex-paratrooper who set off in 1998 and is still walking today), and now he had his answer. “It seemed to solve everything I wanted out of life,” he says. As in Dead Poets Society, the students in his class shared a deep friendship and trust. When they had to give end-of-year talks to each other, Turcich announced his plan to walk the world. His friends were “genuinely supportive” – and then he told his parents. As a young man, his father, also called Tom, had seized the day: he headed off to Hawaii at the age of 20 and spent four years spear-fishing, working on a sugarcane plantation and living under a tarp in the woods on a tiny plot of land. He met Turcich’s mother, Catherine, at the tail-end of his trip. Tom Sr, who now runs a catering business, remembers how badly affected his son was by Ann Marie’s death. “That really threw him through a loop,” he tells me over the phone from Haddon Township. “It just turned a switch on. Ooof! Boy, if that can happen at 16 I better get living, you know. And all of a sudden, he became real.” Tom Sr thought the world walk was an inspired idea. “For me it was like, go – adventure!” But his wife, Catherine, an artist, was less enthusiastic. What did she think when her son first mentioned the walk? “Hahahaha!” She’s got a lovely bright laugh. “I thought how naive he was. Does he actually think he’s going to walk around the world? I just thought it was a crazy idea, a passing whim.” She pauses. “But Tommy was always somebody who’d get an idea and follow it through. He stuck to a challenge.” “She was like, ‘You’re 17 and this is just a 17-year-old’s idea,’” Turcich says. And she was right. But he wasn’t planning to act on his idea just yet. For the next few years he rarely mentioned it to anybody. He knew that many would dismiss him as fanciful at best. “I don’t like people who just talk about the things they’re going to do,” he says. For the next eight years, Turcich quietly worked away at making it a reality. He graduated with a degree in psychology and philosophy from Moravian University in Pennsylvania, and made a living installing solar panels until he turned 25, at which point he quit and worked as a waiter in a restaurant and at an insurance firm doing data entry. All the while, Turcich was busy making his final preparations. He would endlessly study maps, working out the best routes. Much of it depended on practicalities such as which countries insisted on a visa. He decided to walk to Argentina for the first leg of his trip. Shortly before he was due to leave he met yet another Tom, Tom Marchetty, who customised a baby buggy for his travels. The buggy would hold all his essentials – tent, sleeping bag, laptop, camera, batteries, plastic food crate (partly to hold his food, partly to insulate the smell from animals), water bottles, six pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear, a pair of trousers, a pair of shorts, long-sleeved shirt and short-sleeved shirt, wool shirt, hoodie, jacket and waterproof shoes. [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/11/the-man-who-walked-around-the-world-tom-turcich-seven-year-search-meaning-of-life}

A Lebanese-Canadian university professor has been convicted in absentia of a bomb attack on a Paris synagogue more than 40 years ago that killed four people and injured 46 others. Hassan Diab, 69, the only person to have been accused in connection with the bomb blast outside the Copernic synagogue in 1980, where more than 300 people were worshipping, was sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence and an arrest warrant was issued against him. He remains in Canada and did not attend the Paris trial. His legal team argued he was a victim of mistaken identity. It is not certain whether a new procedure to extradite Diab would be successful, and what tensions it would cause in relations between Canada and France. There were heated moments during the three-week Paris trial, where a chair was left empty for Diab. State anti-terrorist prosecutors asked for a maximum prison sentence, saying there was “no possible doubt” he was guilty. Diab’s defence asked for him to be acquitted to “avoid a judicial error”. The bombing was the first fatal attack against France’s Jewish community since the Nazi occupation of the second world war. The bomb, containing 10kg of explosive, was left in the saddlebags of a rented motorcycle parked outside the synagogue on 3 October 1980. The blast brought down the synagogue’s glass roof on those inside, who were celebrating the Shabbat and the barmitzvah of three boys and batmitzvah of two girls. A synagogue door was blown off by the force of the explosion, and shopfronts along 150 metres of road were shattered. Three passersby were killed and a concierge of the hotel opposite the synagogue died of his injuries in hospital 48 hours later. The attack was timed to hit those leaving the synagogue, and a greater tragedy was averted only because the ceremonies were running 15 minutes late. A long-running police investigation concluded that the attack, which was never claimed by any group, was organised by Palestinian nationalists. Diab, a sociology professor in Ottawa, reportedly matched a photofit of the suspected bomber. He was arrested in Canada in 2008 and extradited to France in 2014, where he spent three years in prison, some in solitary confinement, awaiting trial on charges of murder. French prosecutors claimed he was a member of the special operations branch of the Po[CENSORED]r Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was believed to be responsible for the attack. Each time a judge ordered his release because of a reported lack of evidence, the appeal court overruled them. Diab was finally released in 2018 and allowed to return to Canada, but in 2021 a higher French court ordered him to stand trial. The three-week trial in Paris focused in part on the discovery of a passport nearly 20 years after the attack showing entry and exit to Spain – the point from which a commando was believed to have organised the bombing. State prosecutors said the passport was “extremely incriminating”. Diab’s defence said there was no material element to prove that Diab, then a sociology student, was in France at the time. His lawyers said he had been sitting exams at a university in Lebanon and could not have used the passport, which he said he had lost. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/canadian-professor-convicted-in-absentia-of-1980-paris-synagogue-bombing]

Elon Musk's SpaceX company's mammoth new rocket, Starship, has exploded on its maiden flight. No-one was hurt in the uncrewed test that lifted off from Texas' east coast on Thursday morning local time. After two to three minutes into the flight, the rocket - the biggest ever developed - started to tumble out of control and was soon destroyed by onboard charges. Mr Musk has said his company will try again in a couple of months. SpaceX engineers still class Thursday's mission as a success. They like to "test early and often" and are not afraid to break things. They will have gathered a mass of data to work towards the next flight. A second Starship is almost ready to take flight. "Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months," Mr Musk tweeted. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses rocket launches in the US, said it would oversee a mishap investigation. A spokesman said this was standard practice when a vehicle was lost in flight. The entrepreneur had tried to temper expectations before the launch. Just getting the vehicle off the ground and not destroying the launch pad infrastructure would be considered "a win", he said. His wish was granted. Starship cleared its launch complex on the US-Mexico border and picked up pace as it headed out over the Gulf of Mexico. But it was evident within a minute or so that not everything was going to plan. As the rocket climbed higher and higher, it could be seen that six of the 33 engines at the base of the vehicle had been shut down or had flamed out. And three minutes into the flight, it was pretty obvious the end was near. When the two halves of the vehicle should have been separating, they were in fact still connected - and veering off course. At launch-plus-four-minutes, as Starship was losing altitude, a large explosion ripped across the blue sky, the result of computers, or someone on the ground, triggering the vehicle's Flight Termination System (FTS). "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship," SpaceX said in a statement. The top segment of Starship, also known as the ship, had taken flight previously on short hops, but this was the first time it had launched with its lower-stage. This immense booster, called simply Super Heavy, was fired while clamped to its launch mount in February. However, its cluster of engines on that occasion were throttled back to half their capability. If, as promised, SpaceX went for 90% thrust on Thursday, the stage should have delivered something close to 70 meganewtons. That's double the thrust put out by the Saturn V rocket that famously sent men to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s. Starship may not have destroyed its launch pad but later pictures indicated the forceful departure had done a fair amount of damage to concrete surfaces. The plan for the mission had been to send the ship on one near-complete revolution of the Earth, ending with a splashdown in the Pacific, a couple of hundred km north of Hawaii. There was no expectation that the ship or Super Heavy would be recovered. However, long term, this is the plan. The idea is to land both halves, refuel them and launch again - over and over. If this can be achieved, it will be transformative. Starship has a prospective payload performance to orbit of more than 100 tonnes per flight. When this is allied to the low cost of operation - principally, just the cost of fuel - it should open the door to an exciting future. "In the industry, there's certainly a very high expectation at the potential of this vehicle for disruption," said space consultant Carissa Bryce. "Its massive capacity, from a commercial standpoint, could be significant. A very large vehicle that's human-rated could be important for the emergence of space tourism. The other element is the vehicle being inexpensive. So, you've got a vehicle with two transformational aspects - massive capacity and, potentially, at a very low price," she told BBC News. The entrepreneur will initially use Starship to launch thousands more satellites for his broadband internet constellation in the sky - Starlink. Only when engineers are confident in the vehicle's reliability will they permit people to fly on the rocket. The first mission has already been lined up. It will be commanded by billionaire US businessman and fast-jet pilot Jared Isaacman. He's already flown to space in a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The first flight around the Moon will be conducted by Japanese retail fashion billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. He will take eight artists with him as part of his DearMoon project. The US space agency, Nasa, wants to use a version of Starship to land its astronauts on the Moon's surface. [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65334810]

Senate invites supreme court chief justice to testify on ethics The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked chief justice John Roberts to testify on 2 May about the court’s ethics, following revelations of undisclosed links between a Republican megadonor and conservative justice Clarence Thomas. In a letter to Roberts, judiciary committee chair Richard Durbin did not mention those reports about Thomas specifically, but noted that since he last addressed the court’s ethics in 2011 “there has been a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally. These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence. The status quo is no longer tenable.” Durbin said the hearing would focus on “the ethical rules that govern the Justices of the Supreme Court and potential reforms to those rules,” while noting that the “scope of your testimony can be limited to these subjects, and that you would not be expected to answer questions from Senators regarding any other matters.” Closing summary The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked supreme court chief justice John Roberts to testify early next month about the panel’s approach to ethics. The request comes after a series of articles published by ProPublica raised questions about conservative justice Clarence Thomas’s ties to Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Roberts has not responded yet, and the judiciary chair Richard Durbin says he’s not looking to compel his testimony with a subpoena. Here’s what else happened today: The debt limit battle has officially started. Latest development: one Democratic senator thinks Joe Biden should negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy. House Republicans pushed through a measure to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports at schools and universities, a bill that will meet its doom in the Senate. A top Donald Trump adviser was scheduled to be interviewed by the special counsel investigating the former president’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and possession of classified documents. Trump’s comments about abortion being left to the states displeased an influential group opposed to the procedure. Mike Lindell, a noted conspiracy theorist and pillow magnate, appears to be on the hook for $5mn to a software expert who took him up on his challenge to debunk data Lindell claimed proved fraud in the 2020 election. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/apr/20/debt-ceiling-biden-trump-classified-documents-politics-live-updates]

Many workers worry AI is coming for their jobs. Can we get past the fear and find a silver lining? Claire has worked as a PR at a major consulting firm, based in London, for six years. The 34-year-old enjoys her job and earns a comfortable salary, but in the past six months, she’s started to feel apprehensive about the future of her career. The reason: artificial intelligence. “I don’t think the quality of the work that I’m producing could be matched by a machine just yet,” says Claire, whose last name is being withheld to protect her job security. “But at the same time, I’m amazed at how quickly ChatGPT has become so sophisticated. Give it a few more years, and I can absolutely imagine a world in which a bot does my job just as well as I can. I hate to think what that might mean for my employability.” In recent years, as headlines about robots stealing human jobs have proliferated – and as generative AI tools like ChatGPT have quickly become more accessible – some workers report starting to feel anxious about their futures and whether the skills they have will be relevant to the labour market in years to come. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report showing that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. Last year, PwC’s annual global workforce survey showed that almost a third of respondents said they were worried about the prospect of their role being replaced by technology in three years. “I think a lot of creatives are concerned,” says Alys Marshall, a 29-year-old copywriter based in Bristol, UK. “We’re all just hoping that our clients will recognise [our] value, and choose the authenticity of [a human] over the price and convenience of AI tools.” Now, career coaches and HR experts are saying that although some anxiety might be justified, employees need to focus on what they can control. Instead of panicking about possibly losing their jobs to machines, they should invest in learning how to work alongside technology. If they treat it as a resource and not a threat, add the experts, they’ll make themselves more valuable to potential employers – and feel less anxious. Fear of the unknown For some people, generative AI tools feel as if they’ve come on fast and furious. OpenAI’s ChatGPT broke out seemingly overnight, and the “AI arms race” is ramping up more every day, creating continuing uncertainty for workers. Carolyn Montrose, a career coach and lecturer at Columbia University in New York, acknowledges the pace of technological innovation and change can be scary. “It is normal to feel anxiety about the impact of AI because its evolution is fluid, and there are many unknown application factors,” she says. [https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230418-ai-anxiety-artificial-intelligence-replace-jobs]

Nick Movie: Insidious: The Red Door Time: 19/04/2023 Netflix / Amazon / HBO?: Netfli : IGN Duration of the movie: - Trailer:

Ambitious targets to halt the decline in nature may already be slipping out of reach, a study suggests. Scientists say the effects of climate change and habitat loss on animal po[CENSORED]tions have been underestimated. They say bringing back wildlife may take longer than expected and that unless we act now global biodiversity targets will be out of reach. In December almost 200 countries agreed to halt the decline in nature by the end of the decade. They set ambitious goals to halt the loss of biodiversity and protect 30% of lands and seas by 2030. "What this analysis is highlighting is that it's even harder than we think [to meet the targets]" said Dr Robin Freeman of ZSL's Institute of Zoology in London. "We need to act more urgently and more quickly, and tackle more things to achieve them." The study, published in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings B, analysed trends in po[CENSORED]tions of more than 600 different species of birds and mammals. The scientists found that past modelling work had largely ignored time lags of decades before the effects of drivers such as climate change and habitat loss kick in. This means we may be further down the line towards biodiversity loss than we thought. "We've seen delayed effects of up to 40 years for large mammals and birds," Dr Freeman told BBC News. "And that means that the longer we wait to take action the longer it will take to see any kind of response." On the plus side, the research suggests immediate action on such things as unsustainable hunting and over-exploitation of natural resources will have immediate and far-ranging benefits. More plants and animals are going extinct than at any other point in human history. In December countries signed up to a landmark agreement setting global goals to address biodiversity loss. A total of 188 governments including the UK committed to global targets for 2030, from reducing global food waste by half to phasing out subsidies that harm biodiversity. [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65315823]

Emmanuel Macron has said that banging saucepans at him will not move France forward, as about 100 protesters bashing pots were pushed back by police when the French president visited a factory in Alsace in an attempt to contain anger over raising the pension age from 62 to 64. Members of the CGT and CFDT trade unions had gathered in front of the mayor’s office in the village of Muttersholtz on Wednesday, where Macron began a series of visits to rural France to try to calm tensions over his unpo[CENSORED]r pensions changes. Demonstrators banged frying pans and pan lids as well as whistles and horns. After repeated requests from police to move back from the area, where local authorities had banned demonstrations, officers used force to push them 200 metres away. “It’s not saucepans that are going to allow France to move forward,” said Macron. He described the demonstrations as “just the times we live in”. “We can relaunch the French saucepan industry, we don’t produce enough,” he said, adding that his priority was re-industrialisation, work and jobs. “The reality across the whole country is not just those making noise with saucepans or complaining. “You will always see me with people … I have to keep going,” he added. Sporadic protests have continued since Macron signed the pensions changes into law at the weekend after three months of demonstrations and union fury that the government used an executive order to push through the law, bypassing a vote in parliament. This week, small groups have gathered at night, particularly in Paris where bins have been burned after dark. The banging of pots and pans as a new form of protest started on Monday night during Macron’s televised address, as hundreds gathered outside town halls to drown out the president. The clattering of pots began at the suggestion of the NGO Attac, which campaigns on tax and social justice. This form of protest, which has a long history in the country, could follow Macron around rural France this week. About 300 people also banged pots, pans and kitchenware and called for Macron’s resignation in Saint-Denis on Tuesday night when he attended a private event. Unions have planned more protests as Macron makes further visits across the country this week. The scenes are reminiscent of the president’s travels around France during the gilets-jaunes anti-government protests of 2018-19 when Macron was frequently confronted by angry hecklers. He was slapped in the face in 2021 by a 28-year-old unemployed medieval history enthusiast during a visit to a small town in south-eastern France. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/19/banging-saucepans-will-not-move-france-forward-says-macron]

Music Title: Music Mix 2023 🎧 EDM Remixes of Po[CENSORED]r Songs 🎧 EDM Bass Boosted Music Mix Signer: - Release Date: 19/04/2023 Official Youtube Link: :

Musician Name: Jon Batiste Birthday / Location: Metairie, Louisiana, United States Main instrument: Vocals Musician Picture: Musician Awards & Nominations: American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, bandleader, and television personality had 3 Grammy Awards in 2022 Best Performance: Soul and We Are Other Information: /

Nick Movie: EXORCISTE DU VATICAN Time: MARCH Netflix / Amazon / HBO?: Netflix- Duration of the movie: - Trailer:

The 2024 Jeep Wrangler receives a refresh that brings a revised seven-slot grille and an updated interior. All '24 Wranglers come equipped with a new 12.3-inch center touchscreen with standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The Wrangler 4xe lineup expands with the new 4xe Sport on the low end and the new Rubicon X on the high end. CORRECTION 4/06/23: This story has been updated to correctly state that the six-speed manual transmission is only available with the V-6 engine option, and not the turbocharged I-4, which came from an error in Jeep's press release. A Jeep spokesperson has confirmed the error to Car and Driver, and we've since updated this story to reflect this. Now stretching back decades, the Jeep Wrangler has been a stalwart figure in the world of American off-road vehicles. Still using the same basic formula it always has, the Wrangler continues to plod along steadily with incremental changes. For the 2024 model year, Jeep restyles the Wrangler with an updated grille and a moderate refresh to the interior technology. Familiar Faces A quick glance at the refreshed front end shows exactly what you would expect: the same broad-nosed Wrangler face we've all grown so accustomed to over the previous decades. Under more scrutinizing eyes, you can see each slot of the grille is now more distinct, and the mesh behind the slots has been opened up. The normally flat bodywork beneath each headlight has been replaced and instead incorporated into the mesh backing. The 2024 Rubicon models may look even more distinct, as buyers now also have the option to add a factory-backed Warn winch with an 8000-pound capacity. Inside, the most drastic change comes from Jeep dropping the old infotainment options in favor of a newly standard 12.3-inch center touchscreen that uses Uconnect 5 software. It also features standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Trails Offroad software is integrated directly into the center screen, giving access to guides for Jeep's 62 Badge of Honor trails (or the option to subscribe for access to over 3000 trail guides). Soft-touch fabrics with contrast stitching now wrap the instrument panel and round out the minor interior updates. The 4xe lineup adds what Jeep is referring to as the Power Box, which is essentially an accessory power supply unit with four 120-volt outlets supplying 30 amps of total output. The Power Box can run independently or in a hybrid mode using the SUV's engine if you need access to extra power for longer. Jeep is also expanding the 4xe lineup for 2024 by adding two new models. The Sport S 4xe is the new entry point, mirroring the gasoline-powered Sport trim and giving customers a cheaper version of the plug-in-hybrid model. The new Rubicon X joins both the 4xe and gas-fed lineups and sits directly above the standard Rubicon trim while adding interior niceties and off-roading goodies. Speaking of off-roading goodies, the Rubicon now comes with a full-float Dana rear axle, making it easier to install larger off-road tires. The Rubicon X we mentioned earlier adds a Rock-Trac full-time transfer case, steel bumpers, an integrated off-road camera, and 35-inch BFGoodrich A/T tires mounted on beadlock-capable wheels. The Willys trim adds steel rock rails, a locking rear differential, and 33-inch tires as standard. Plus, the 4xe Willys gets a Selec-Trac full-time transfer case with a 4LO ratio of 2.72:1. [https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43509572/2024-jeep-wrangler-revealed/]

Canada has temporarily shut down its baby eel fishery following a string of attacks on harvesters, as well as mounting concerns over widespread poaching of the threatened fish. Officials from the department of fisheries and oceans on Saturday announced a 45-day ban on harvesting the young eels, called elvers, in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shuttering the lucrative C$50m (£30m) market. “Conflicts have escalated to violence and threats, risking the safety of harvesters and constituting a threat to the proper management and control of the fishery,” the department said in a statement. “Closing the elver fishery is a required response to address these combined risks.” Last week, a man harvesting glass eels was allegedly assaulted with a metal pipe. Federal police in Nova Scotia charged two men over the alleged attack. Police later discovered a stun gun and shotgun after searching vehicles, as well as a shotgun discarded on the road. Indigenous leaders also believe a shooting in early April was linked to an eel fishery dispute, though police say they do not have any evidence to support the claims. “[The fisheries department] appears to be doing little to control unlawful elver harvest activity and to make sure our Kespukwitk fishers are safe from violence,” Chief Gerald Toney of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs said in a statement. “This is unacceptable, and it is time that federal officers start taking steps to ensure the safety of all.” The season to harvest glass eels is relatively brief, beginning in March and typically running until May as fishers frantically harvest the region’s rivers for the glistening juveniles. Coveted in China and Japan, where they are grown on farms and harvested for food, the translucent fish command a steep price, with buyers paying $5,000 a kg last year. Canada’s endangered wildlife committee designated the species as “threatened” more than a decade ago, and the federal government has put limits on the harvest. The total allowable catch for 2023 is 9,960kg, unchanged over the last 18 years. In recent years, however, Indigenous nations have grown frustrated that their treaty rights have not been recognised by the federal government. Canada’s supreme court has previously ruled that Indigenous peoples have a right harvest from the land and water in order to obtain a “moderate livelihood” – a term the federal government repeatedly failed to define over the years, frustrating both Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers and leading to tense standoffs. In 2020, officials stopped the eel harvest after Mi’kmaw fishers joined commercial licence-holders in harvesting the region’s rivers, complicating the federal department’s ability to manage the total catch. In an attempt to remedy longstanding frustrations, the federal government has granted Indigenous communities a growing share of the commercial quota. This year, nations have been allocated 14% of the commercial harvest. To enforce the ban fisheries officers will increase patrols at rivers and conduct more inspections at airports and border crossings. Already this season, the department says, it has conducted nearly 750 patrols from 13 March 13 to 10 April, resulting in the seizure of 35.8kg of elvers, including 25kg at Halifax airport, worth more than C$125,000. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/18/canada-shuts-baby-eel-fishery-after-string-of-attacks-on-harvesters]

Attempts by Scotland’s new first minister, Humza Yousaf, to stamp his authority on his already beleaguered administration were scuppered by the arrest of the Scottish National party’s treasurer hours before a major policy statement. Police Scotland said Colin Beattie, 71, the SNP MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh and a former banker, had been taken into custody on Tuesday morning and was being interviewed by detectives as part of an investigation into the party’s funding and finances. He was released without charge later that day, pending further investigation. The move was announced as Yousaf prepared to deliver his “fresh vision” to MSPs, setting out the policy priorities of his new government after weeks of infighting and damaging revelations. After the statement – which notably delayed, redrew or reversed a number of his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon’s key policies – opposition leaders told Yousaf that his government was “not functioning” and that any attempt at a relaunch had been “utterly torpedoed” by the arrest. Beattie’s detention follows the arrest earlier this month of Peter Murrell, who is Sturgeon’s husband and a former chief executive of the SNP, at their home in Glasgow, and the seizure of a motorhome parked outside Murrell’s mother’s house in Fife. Murrell was later released without charge pending further investigation. Yousaf told reporters at Holyrood that he would be talking to Beattie in due course about whether he would remain as party treasurer and as an SNP member of Holyrood’s public audit committee. He said Beattie’s arrest “was a very serious matter”, but added: “People are innocent until proven guilty.” Yousaf acknowledged that the timing of Tuesday’s police action was “far from ideal”, but said he did not believe that the party was operating in a criminal way. He added: “We instructed a review into transparency and good governance, and of course with the issue around financial oversight, and I want some external input into that. So there is change that is needed within how the party is operated, and I have made that absolutely clear.” Making his first significant policy statement since he was elected as SNP leader and became first minister last month, Yousaf told MSPs on Tuesday afternoon that he would delay the deposit return scheme for bottles and cans, take plans to restrict alcohol advertising “back to the drawing board”, take more time to build consensus around the planned national care service, and rejoin two international school league tables in order to increase the available comparable data on Scotland’s education performance. Announcing a delay of almost a year to the widely criticised bottle recycling scheme, Yousaf acknowledged that businesses felt their concerns had gone unheard by the previous administration, where the scheme was led by the SNP’s governing partners, the Scottish Greens, and he promised a reset of the relationship between business and government. Telling Scottish businesses directly that “my door is always open to you”, he said the three missions he was setting out – to tackle poverty, build a “fair, green and growing” economy and improve public services – all depended on a thriving business sector in Scotland. Blaming the UK government for creating uncertainty around the deposit return scheme by delaying the decision to exclude the scheme from the Internal Market Act, Yousaf announced that the launch would now be delayed until 1 March, during which time measures would be introduced to simplify the process and support small businesses and the hospitality industry. Yousaf promised to invest a further £1.3bn in the Scottish child payment over the next three years and said he would be even bolder on redistributive taxation, as he repeated his campaign pledge to convene an anti-poverty summit, inviting experts and those with lived experienced as well as opposition colleagues. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, dismissed the statement as “rehashed promises from the past that have never been delivered”. He said: “What Humza Yousaf can’t escape from is that he is not now running a functioning government. This is an SNP that is mired in scandal, mired in division, talking to themselves and about themselves.” The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said: “Everyone, including those SNP backbenchers otherwise engaged today, knows this first minister’s relaunch has been utterly torpedoed. And while he is focused on the turmoil within his own party, NHS waiting time targets are still being missed, more ferries are breaking down, and record amounts of sewage are being dumped into Scotland’s rivers.” [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/18/arrest-of-snp-treasurer-overshadows-humza-yousaf-policy-relaunch-scotland]

Alice Hart pairs her salad of shaved asparagus, beetroot, fennel and wild rice with a sweet mustard dressing. Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food styling: Esther Clark. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins. Kitchen aide I always make a classic vinaigrette, but what other dressings should I have in my arsenal? Sarah, York This sounds like a job for Emily Nunn, the American food writer behind cult newsletter The Department of Salad: “I’m going to sound as if I work for the International Salad Federation,” she says, “but the advice I would give Sarah is not to fence herself in. There are a million different kinds of salads, and just as many vinaigrette out there.” That’s to say, don’t dismiss vinaigrette out of hand just because you’ve mastered the classic. “A light lemon vinaigrette is perfect for spring, but if you want something stronger, chop up shallots, add them to the jar, shake and leave to sit in the fridge overnight.” The simplest adjustments will keep things interesting – Nunn’s suggestions include anchovies, capers, sherry vinegar. “I would then get Sarah thinking about green goddess dressing,” adds Nunn, who first makes it as a dip (for sugar snap peas, say) by blending tarragon, mint, chives, parsley, red onion, garlic, lemon juice and anchovy, then mayo, soured cream and maybe salt. To turn that into a salad dressing, she loosens the mix with buttermilk, a little more mayo and extra seasoning and/or lemon juice if needed. Other mayo-based delights include Skye McAlpine’s creamy mustard dressing: “It’s my go-to year-round,” says the author of recently published A Table Full of Love. “I’m obsessed with it.” And she’s not alone: “Whenever I make it, everyone asks for the recipe.” So, here goes: combine a tablespoon each of mayonnaise, dijon mustard and wholegrain mustard, two tablespoons of red-wine vinegar, three to four tablespoons of olive oil (“depending on how you like it”) and a bit of salt. “It goes with pretty much everything – bitter leaves, baby gems, fennel, radishes, peas.” Everyone also needs a sesame-ginger dressing in their back pocket, says Nunn, who makes hers by combining garlic, ginger, sesame oil, dijon mustard, rice vinegar, lime, soy, maple syrup and red pepper flakes. You could, she adds, make it creamy “with tahini or peanut butter, and serve it on noodles or with spinach”. Gregory Marchand, chef/owner of Frenchie in central London, meanwhile, shakes his tahini and sesame oil with lemon juice, neutral oil and a little za’atar, which “goes really well with cauliflower”. For Rachel Stephanie, founder of Spoons, a London-based Indonesian supper club, it’s hard to better a Javanese spiced grated coconut dressing from the urap salad. “Beyond the classic gado gado peanut sauce, this Indonesian salad is often overlooked in the west. But it’s simple, fresh and fragrant.” She starts by blending shallots, garlic, red chillies, galangal and tamarind, then sautes the spice mixture, adds grated coconut and mixes continuously until the spices are well absorbed and the grated coconut dressing has dried up. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, ready to “kick up the vibrance” of blanched veg, be that spinach, green beans or beansprouts. Essentially, Nunn says, open your mind: “Explore all the different kinds of salads there are, because the whole world eats salad.” [https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/apr/18/beyond-basic-vinaigrette-alternative-salad-dressings-kitchen-aide]

French president says he has heard public anger over issue and promises measures to boost pay Emmanuel Macron has said he has heard the public’s anger over his contested pension reform which has sparked three months of protests but insisted once again the measure was necessary. In a televised address late on Monday, the French president said he regretted no “common ground” could be reached over the legislation which raises the official retirement age from 62 to 64. The measures “needed to guarantee everyone’s pension” will come into effect in stages from the autumn, he said. He admitted increasing prices and certain jobs “don’t allow many French people to live well”, but insisted that “gradually working more means also producing more wealth for the whole nation”. The recorded 15-minute broadcast on prime-time television was the first announcement Macron had made since signing the new bill into law on Saturday just hours after it had been approved by France’s highest court. After the stick came the carrot: in an attempt to soothe the public mood, Macron promised a series of “concrete measures” to boost pay and careers, as well as improve the education, health and justice systems, to be announced within the next 100 days. He called for “conciliation and unity”, an appeal addressed to the unions who have vowed to continue their protests. If Macron was hoping his speech would calm a volatile public mood and reset his and the government’s image – both tarnished by the way the bill was passed – Laurent Berger, secretary general of France’s biggest union the CFDT and considered a moderate, suggested it had failed. He said the president had offered “nothing concrete” and the demonstrations would continue with a national day of action on 1 May. “Regret doesn’t change much for the workers who now have to work longer, many of whom have mobilised over the last three months and many of whom will do so on the 1st of May,” Berger told French television. “We don’t need to hear that he has heard the anger but has now moved on from the question of pensions. He said nothing that showed consideration for the workers who are affected because they have to work two years more.” Berger added: “We’re not in a poetry contest … it’s about acts and the acts over the last months have been unfair for those in the workforce. I don’t think what I have heard this evening is going to calm the anger.” Protesters gathered around the country banging saucepans to suggest that if the president would not listen to them, they would make enough noise to drown him out. The bill was then referred to France’s highest court, the constitutional council, which declared the process and the text were “not contrary to the constitution”. Macron ignored pleas from opponents to delay signing it into law by promulgating it a few hours later, infuriating opponents. Union leaders accused the president of acting with indecent haste. The president said nothing about the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, who he has instructed to negotiate with opposition parties to find some kind of working majority in the national assembly and to agree on a legislative timetable. The indications are that she will fail, meaning political coalitions will have to be negotiated on a bill-by-bill basis, which will be complicated, slow the legislative timetable and water down Macron’s key election pledges. Macron’s reelection programme included a labour law and legislation covering energy, the climate and immigration to be introduced to parliament before July, but now postponed. How and when these texts will be considered, and what will be in them, is not clear. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/emmanuel-macron-insists-pension-reform-is-necessary-in-tv-address]

Nick Movie: The Boogeyman Time: 2023 Netflix / Amazon / HBO?: - Duration of the movie: - Trailer:

It can be difficult to talk to young people about rising seas and temperatures, but a new book from Save the Children’s Wonderbooks series that tells a more personal story is helping to open up the conversation When a ferocious storm sweeps across Seima’s village and her big brother Rainsey can’t be found anywhere, it’s Seima’s tin can telephone that saves the day – and the year 3 pupils at Longsight community primary school were impressed, especially as she was only five years old at the time. “Children are capable of doing anything,” one said, when they were asked what the story of Seima and the Storm, one of the books from Save the Children’s Wonderbooks series, told them about children. “Children are brave,” volunteered another. “Children can make an impact,” came a third voice. But Seima is more than a character in a story: she’s a real little girl in Cambodia. Each story in the Wonderbooks series is based on the life of a real child who Save the Children works with in one of many countries around the world, and introduces young readers to themes such as diversity, inclusion, resilience, the effects of poverty and, in the case of Seima and the Storm, climate breakdown. This gave the teachers at Longsight the perfect way to discuss how rising temperatures and extreme weather are making life increasingly challenging for communities such as Seima’s. “For our children, it really connected us to Seima,” says Rukhsana Ahmed, the Manchester school’s executive headteacher. Seima’s floating village is on Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in south-east Asia, with a surrounding region that is home to more than a million people. Their lives have always been shaped by water, but higher temperatures, drought, pollution, overfishing by commercial trawlers and environmental damage have led to devastating drops in the fish stocks the vast majority rely on for their livelihood. “Fishing is the main source of income and food security, but climate change is making it harder and harder,” says Reaksmey Hong, Save the Children’s country director in Cambodia. “Once there’s no water, or it’s too hot, once it’s stormy or raining all day, that sole source of income is not possible – but communities here don’t have a coping mechanism for that.” Save the Children is determined to help families like Seima’s adapt to the challenges they face, and educate children on ways to take their future into their own hands. Hong says the charity is now running multiple initiatives in the region to promote access to inclusive and quality early childhood, primary and lower-secondary education. Thanks to its GREEN project, pupils now get lessons about the climate emergency and the environment, and take to the water to conduct awareness-raising campaigns and collect rubbish. Besides education, adds Hong, Save the Children is supporting the floating community in diversifying its income beyond fishing – working in partnership with them to create 2,250 new employment opportunities outside of the industry. The charity has also helped repair storm-damaged schools and installed solar powered fans to keep children cool during the dry season’s increasingly intense heat. But climate shocks still have the power to blight Cambodian children’s education. Schools hit by flash floods have been forced to close, and more than once the government has reduced school hours during heatwaves over fears about pupil health and safety. Children on Tonlé Sap travel to school by boat, and when there are storms it is sometimes simply too dangerous to go. “We talked about how climate change would impact on a child’s life at such a visceral level,” says Ahmed. [https://www.theguardian.com/grow-your-childs-world-with-wonderbooks/2023/mar/01/children-make-an-impact-what-one-cambodian-girls-story-can-teach-kids-about-the-climate-crisis]

Nick Movie: EL SILENCIO Time: 14/04/2023 Netflix / Amazon / HBO?: NETFLIX Duration of the movie: - Trailer: