Amazon Prime’s Global Child "Travel with Purpose" & Netflix’s Down to Earth with Zac Efron bring hope to audiences through a new breed…

Efron travels the world with health guru Dan Olien trying to find new perspectives to common problems as they explore sustainable living practices. On the other hand, Augusto Valverde, the host and creator of Global Child, explores the world through the best experiences as he shares positive life lessons and gives back with the top influencers of the world. The success of both shows in connecting with audiences signals that despite a nation torn by toxic political discourse, people still love to travel even if through a screen and welcome a message of hope, purpose and unity.

"People love travel; it's the number one goal for millennials and that hasn't changed I think what's changing is the awareness of the good we can all do when we visit places. I love to see celebrities like Zac using their influence for good. We created Global Child almost four years ago to team up with the top influencers to yes, enjoy the world, but to also make it a better place by taking a moment to give back by leading by example. Doing good in twenty three countries, from providing food for a leper colony in India for a year, to protecting sharks in Fiji and supporting orphanages in Greece it's a blessing to use our influence for a greater good. What's the point of being on earth if we're not going to at least try to make it a better place?" Says Augusto, a former host for NBC, Theologian and volunteer Christian Jail Chaplain.

As Covid lockdowns closed International boarders, Global Child's Season 1 streaming numbers skyrocketed 10x to over 220,000 streaming hours in two months. Down to Earth also achieved success as both shows continue trending with audiences desperate for a getaway and a reprieve from the toxic political discourse.

"Perhaps people can't travel like they used to for the moment, but hopefully we can bring some laughter and great travel ideas so that when the world re-opens everyone is ready to travel with purpose and help this world get back on track. Besides, it's not every day that one gets to dive with 35 bull sharks, no cage and risking their life to promote ocean conservation I'm sure my exes loved that Fiji episode." Quips Augusto.

Down to Earth is streaming on Netflix and Global Child "Travel with Purpose"Season two launched this week on Amazon Prime Video.

About Global Child Global Childhas been featured on American Airlines and another 13 major airlines and on Amazon Prime with a reach of almost one billion viewers. Valverde also hosted this year's Miss New York USA beauty pageant and leads BIG Foundation a 501c3 that has all religions working together to help those in need.He recently completed a book for a major publisher about his travels. You can see Season 1 & 2 of Global Child on Amazon Prime Video and connect with Augusto via Instagram @GlobalChildTV and find out more on: http://www.GlobalChildTV.com

SOURCE Global Child

http://www.globalchildtv.com

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Amazon Prime's Global Child "Travel with Purpose" & Netflix's Down to Earth with Zac Efron bring hope to audiences through a new breed...

The world of travel is (slowly) reopening | Opinion – ECM Publishers

Since my last column in these pages, theres been a subtle but definite change in the travel landscape. More and more people are dipping their toes in the travel waters again, eager to resume traveling safely, of course. Where the month of March was characterized by the world slamming its doors shut, August and September have been characterized by an ever-increasing number of destinations reopening their doors and travel companies resuming service, all with new and comprehensive health and sanitation measures in place. While not everyone is eager to explore the world again, more and more people are venturing out and bookings are rebounding more quickly than many expected.

So, whats it like to travel internationally to the popular warm-weather destinations like Mexico, Hawaii, and the Caribbean islands in this new environment?

Depending on the destination, your travel experience is likely to start with a requirement that you produce a negative COVID-19 PCR test within three to five days of travel, which youll then need to upload to your destinations immigration authorities or travel provider. Not all destinations require a negative test Mexico and the Dominican Republic, for example, do not. You may encounter additional screening upon arrival, or in some cases, there may be random screening of arrivals. Some destinations may require that you remain on the property of your resort either pending the return of a negative test result or for the entire duration of the trip. Others have no such requirements.

I discussed the airport and flying experience in my last column, so I wont repeat that here. Once youve arrived in your destination and completed the immigration process, youll find a lot of things that look familiar to you. Resorts have incorporated social distancing into their operations, with a goal to reduce crowding. Most resorts have limited capacity to 50-60% of normal, and have removed tables in restaurants to allow more space between diners. Dining reservations, while always recommended, are now required in many places. Staff undergo frequent health screening, including routine COVID-19 testing and temperature checks, and all wear marks and/or gloves throughout their daily work. Masks requirements may vary, but typically track fairly closely with what we are used to here in Minnesota.

Importantly, the destination experience remains as incredible as ever, even with the implementation of these protocols. The sun shines, pools and outdoor lounge spaces are open, the food is great, and the service friendly. Attractions are mostly open, with distancing and sanitation protocols in place. And perhaps most importantly, the palpable sense of relaxation and well-being that washes over us when we go on vacation is still there! And after a year like this, who wouldnt look forward to that?

Its been personally rewarding for me to talk with recent returning travelers and to hear the incredible amount of relief in their voices as they describe their vacations and the impact on their overall well-being. While travel looks a little different right now, those of us who are ready to go can indeed experience more and more parts of the world with a high level of safety and return home refreshed, invigorated, and ready to face todays challenges.

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The world of travel is (slowly) reopening | Opinion - ECM Publishers

Is One of the Most Overtouristed Cities in the World Better Off Without Them? – Fodor’s Travel

All Photos Courtesy Of Lisa Bernardi

I may not be the last American in Barcelona, but it certainly feels like it.

Months have passed since Spain entered a national lockdown that would become one of the strictest in the world. For eight weeks, residents were forbidden from leaving their homes except to buy essentials. Those who broke the rules faced severe fines, some even prison time.

My life in Barcelona came to a screeching halt in less than 72 hours. On a Thursday evening, I met friends for drinks after work as usual. We even made plans to go out that weekend, blissfully unaware that these drinks would be our last social interaction for months. It wasnt until noon on Friday that a nationwide panic began as news of the pandemic broke. Within hours, supermarket shelves had been stripped bare. The city was mostly shuttered when I woke up on Saturday, the few bakeries that remained open so desperate to get rid of their pastries they were giving them away for free. By Sunday, Barcelona had become a ghost town.

Of course, the lockdown didnt last forever. The Spanish government finally began easing restrictions in mid-June once positive cases had dwindled. Within a few weeks, life almost felt normal again, just with masks. But as residents began to reemerge, there was still one thing missing: tourists.

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Its hard to argue with the idea that Barcelona is one of the most overtouristed cities in the world. The city council recorded 9.5 million overnight visitors in 2019, a figure that doesnt include the thousands of cruise passengers who arrive in Barcelonas port every day to spend a few hours sightseeing. Multi-day tourists outnumber the citys population of 1.6 million by nearly six to one.

This is where things get tricky. On one hand, tourists visiting Barcelona spend 22 million euros every day, accounting for 12% of the regions GDP. One out of every dozen residents is employed by the tourism industry, jobs that wouldnt exist without that steady flow of cash. But tourism workers earn just half the average annual salary in the city, scraping by on less than 17,000 euros ($19,800 USD) per year. With the growing number of tourists entering Barcelona straining the citys physical capacity, residents have questioned whether the financial benefits are even worth it.

The first major anti-tourism protests in Barcelona started in 2014 when residents of the beachfront Barceloneta neighborhood finally had enough of rowdy parties and illegal vacation rental properties. Locals all across the city soon joined in expressing their frustration as they watched their neighborhoods rapidly gentrify. Luxury hotels and high-end restaurants drove out small businesses and sent rent prices skyrocketing, forcing many residents to relocate to nearby cities and commute in for work.

By the end of 2019, authorities in Barcelona had put several measures into place in an effort to curb tourism. The city stopped issuing new licenses for hotels and cracked down on vacation rental platforms like Airbnb. Plans for an airport expansion were curbed; the mayor announced that there would be a cap on the number of cruise ships allowed to dock in Barcelonas port. It may not have been a total solution, but there was at least some hope that the city had taken a step in the right direction.

And then COVID-19 arrived. In three short days, a deadly virus did more to curb tourism than five years of legislation. A government that had been actively working to reduce the number of tourists just weeks prior now desperately wanted them back.

Walking through Barcelonas streets, however, there was a noticeable sense of calm. Most residents didnt seem to mind that the tourists were gone. As news headlines cried major financial losses, I had to wonder: Was the loss of tourism all bad? Or could this, somehow, be the citys chance to save itself?

Ive called Barcelona home on and off since 2016. Living here as an expat, Ive always felt determined to distinguish myself from the throngs of anglophones who crowd the citys beaches, overpay for cheap sangria, and throw raucous parties that have been known to end in drunken streaking. It wasnt until a friend pointed it out that I realized Id developed a habit of issuing a blanket apology anytime someone asked where Im from. Im Americansorry!

Nowadays, being an American in Barcelona is somewhat of a novelty. Prior to the pandemic, it was just as common to hear English on the street as Spanish or Catalan in certain neighborhoods. I didnt fully appreciate how drastically things had changed until I passed two strangers speaking English one day and immediately did a triple take.

With no foreigners around to fill them, former tourist strongholds, like Las Ramblas, remained mostly empty for the first several weeks after the lockdown was lifted. But slowly, locals began taking tentative steps into the streets they had long avoided for fear of being trampled by hungover, board-short-clad Yankees. Restaurants took down English-language signs and replaced them with menus more tailored to local tastes. While foot traffic remains at a small fraction of the typical high season, its now fairly commonplace to hear Catalan being spoken on the terraces of establishments that once catered to foreigners.

Once the restaurant industry began to fill seats, major tourist attractions followed closely behind. Popular destinations that would normally be booked far in advance this time of year turned their attention to city residents that had never visited the cultural attractions in their own backyard, enticing them with generous discounts.

1. With a large majority of their customer base still barred from entering Europe, most souvenir stalls along Las Ramblas remain shuttered despite getting the green light to reopen months ago.2. A Barcelona resident follows a self-guided audio tour through Casa Vicens in Barcelonas Grcia neighborhood. Casa Vicens, one of several attractions designed by famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaud, has discounted tickets by 35% in an effort to attract local visitors.

As a legal resident with a local identification number, Im fortunate enough to be allowed in on these deals. Recently I joined a Spanish friend at Casa Vicens, one of the many buildings designed by famed Catalan architect Antoni Gaud. Our 35% reduced entry price included a complimentary glass of cava and a scoop of ice cream in the museums tree-lined courtyard. Gaud is better known for the Sagrada Familia, which started offering its 26 tickets to residents for free in July. I managed to score mine for October before they sold out.

While attractions are fun to visit, they barely scratch the surface in encompassing local culture. The more time Ive spent here, the more Ive come to realize that there are two Barcelonas. The first is a faade created solely for the benefit of tourists. It evokes images of paella and Picasso exhibits, neither of which actually come from the region. And yet these stereotypes are what continue to draw tourists from all corners of the globe.

The second, the one which I consider to be the authentic Barcelona, cant be found printed on a mug in a souvenir shop. Its beginning every conversation with How are you doing today? before diving into business. Its spending a sunny Sunday afternoon sipping vermouth with friends. Its bumping into an acquaintance on the street and sitting down for a coffee instead of rushing to your next destination.

With overtourism pushing locals out of Barcelona, some fear that the Catalan way of life is becoming endangered. Curious about whether the absence of tourists could help bring this culture back, I reached out to Jose Mansilla, Ph.D. in social anthropology and member of the Observatori dAntropologia del Conflicte Urb (OACU), a research group based in Barcelona.

You cannot take a photograph of Catalan culture, says Mansilla. It is not simply a spectacle or a production. As a whole, Catalan culture aligns with Mediterranean culture: enjoyment and socialization in public spaces. In short, this is how overtourism has most impacted the local way of living. Gentrification has essentially acted as cultural deforestation, choking out the physical spaces in which local communities can congregate.

The silver lining, Mansilla says, is that the travel bans resulting from COVID-19 have already begun reversing some of the damage. If the streets become empty of tourists, then yes, there is an opportunity for Barcelonans to reclaim them. We saw this over the summer when children were playing in the streets of the Gothic Quarter like they hadnt in years.

As Barcelonas quietest summer in decades comes to a close, I realize how fortunate I am to be among a small handful of Americans experiencing the rare and beautiful resurgence of Catalan culture firsthand. But the real challenge will be turning these short-term trends into permanent changes. How can the city continue to preserve its identity once travel restrictions are lifted and tourists return in full force?

1. Small groups of European tourists feed the pigeons in Plaa Catalunya.2. Locals play a game of beach volleyball in Barceloneta. With fewer vacationing beachgoers, residents have had more room to enjoy social activities like sports.

We have to change the type of tourism, says Josep Maria Raya, head of the Tecnocampus School of Business at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a public Catalan university. This has been heavily discussed during government efforts to tackle the overtourism problem; Barcelona has a worldwide reputation as a cheap vacation spot, and the average tourist only spends $158 every day. Shifting the focus to business, educational, and medical tourism could bring in the same amount of revenue while reducing the number of people who visit the city.

Even if this is successful, the citys residents need to figure out how to coexist with some level of tourism. Like it or not, tourists will always be a part of life in Barcelona. The only way to return to 10 or 15 years ago is to change the area to one where tourism and local citizens can live together, says Raya. This will require prioritizing locally owned businesses and making sure short-term vacation rentals dont wipe out the supply of affordable housing.

At the same time, the pandemic has brought to light a pre-existing need to create opportunities for tourism workers to earn a living wage. Conditions for these employees have always been very, very uncomfortable, as Mansilla puts it, working long hours with contingent contracts, many times for fewer hours than they actually worked.

Thanks to the pandemic, says Mansilla, the city has an opportunity to pursue economic diversification by bringing in more sustainable industriesand jobs along with them. The employees who previously worked under poor conditions in the tourism industry now have the opportunity to find a different job with more dignified conditions. That would be the start of a solution.

Its a tall order, and only time will tell what the government will do once tourism demand returns in full force. In the meantime, all sides remain focused on attracting enough tourists from within Europe to survive the rest of the pandemic.

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Is One of the Most Overtouristed Cities in the World Better Off Without Them? - Fodor's Travel

This hotel was named the best in Boston and among the top in the world – Boston.com

A luxury boutique hotel in Boston described as a tucked-away haven of serenity and relaxation was just named the top accommodation in the city and among the best hotels in the world, according to Conde Nast Traveler.

The publication revealed its list of best hotels on Tuesday as part of its 2020 Readers Choice Awards and XV Beacon ranked No. 1 among the 10 best hotels in Boston, No. 3 among the 10 best hotels in the U.S., and No. 13 among the 50 best hotels in the world. Olema House Point Reyes in Olema, Calif. ranked No. 1 in the U.S., and Baur Au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland ranked No. 1 in the world.

Some hotel stays are utterly forgettabledecent food, standard sheets, and a middle-of-the-road location, wrote CNT editors. But some, youll remember for the rest of your life.

Heres what the publication wrote about XV Beacon:

Located just a few minutes walk from Beacon Hill, the Massachusetts State House, and the bustling financial district, XV Beacon is truly transportive, a tucked-away haven of serenity and relaxation. The vibe is sexylots of dark-stained woods, crimson accents, and contemporary furniturebut the ethos is entirelyBoston. The fact that each room comes with its own fireplace speaks to the degree of cozinessand luxuryyoull find here. With only seven guest rooms per floor, XV Beacon has a distinctly residential feel, and the rooms themselves are spacious, but still intimate.

Other New England hotels were recognized as well.

Twin Farms in Barnard, Vermont ranked No. 2 among the top 10 resorts in the U.S. and No. 6 among the 50 best resorts in the world. LHorizon Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, Calif. topped both of those lists.

The Vanderbilt, Auberge Resorts Collection in Newport, R.I. claimed the No. 1 spot among the 20 best hotels in New England, and Canyon Ranch in Lenox ranked No. 8 among the 20 best destination spa resorts in the U.S. The top-ranked destination spa resort in the U.S. is The Ranch Malibu in Malibu, Calif.

Editors compiled the Readers Choice Awards based on the results of an online survey available to CNT readers between April 1 and June 30, 2020. The awards rank the best hotels, resorts, destination spas, countries, cities, islands, trains, airlines, airports, and cruise lines in the world.More than 715,000 readers submitted ratings, according to the publication.

View the results of the 2020 Readers Choice Awards.

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This hotel was named the best in Boston and among the top in the world - Boston.com

New Zealand passport is now the most powerful in the world; India secures 58th position – Happytrips

Earlier, New Zealand shared the top position with Japan. However, it has now claimed the position solely, and has secured a definitive top spot. In fact, a New Zealand passport can now get you visa-free access to more than 120 countries.

The second spot is shared by passports of Japan, along with Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, South Korea, and Australia. The third spot is shared by Sweden, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, and Finland. Meanwhile, India secured 58th position on the list, and shares the position with Algeria, Jordan, Benin, and Gabon.

Also, European countries manage to be in the top 10 list majorly, because most retain access to the Schengen 'free movement' zone with few COVID-19 restrictions.

By securing the numero uno position, New Zealand is expected to be in a better position to attract talent, as well as lure tourists post-COVID.

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New Zealand passport is now the most powerful in the world; India secures 58th position - Happytrips

Why future missions to Venus will not be as easy as they look – Mint

The discovery could be a hint of life, a biomarker, on a planet known for its hellish environment and volcanic surface. While a great deal of research will have to be conducted before anything can be confirmed, the announcement has come as an added bonus for the many missions that could explore one of Earths closest planetary neighbours in the near future.

But first, a look at the missions that have tried something similar in the past. Every country and agency, from the European Space Agency to those of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the US, has sent missions to Venus over the last few decadesthere have been more than 40 such missions. In 1962, US space agency Nasas deep space probe Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to conduct a successful planetary flyby. It also sent back temperature readings and other information about Venus.

The Soviet Unions Venera programme saw a series of unmanned planetary probes to Venus being launched between 1961-84. While some of these probes never made it past Earths orbit, others crash-landed on Venus, like the Venera 3. Other missions analysed the chemical composition of the planets upper atmosphere. Venera 9 and 10 sent back the first black and white images of Venus surface in 1975; Venera 13 was the first lander to transmit colour images in 1982.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agencys (Jaxas) Akatsuki, launched in 2010, is currently orbiting the planet. It studies weather patterns and signs of active volcanism on the planet through high-speed imagery, radio science and camera instruments.

Everything we learn about the atmosphere of Venus, and the chemical cycles there, broadens our knowledge of how Earth-like planets in the universe evolve, and how other planets have diverged from Earths path. Thus, if we really want to deeply understand climate change, geological history and the nature of planets in general, we need to understand how we should interpret these findings," says David Grinspoon, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, a US-based non-profit that focuses on planetary science and exploration of the solar system. Grinspoon, who studies surface-atmospheric interactions on terrestrial planets, atmospheric evolution and habitability, says the discovery of phosphine offers additional impetus for more missions to the planet and seek answers to some fundamental questions. We already had a lot of important reasons to further explore Venus. But now we have even more reason to go," he adds on email.

One proposed mission is Indias Shukrayaan-1an Indian Space Research Organisation orbiter that will aim to study the planets surface and atmosphere. It has a tentative launch date of 2023, which could be extended to 2025, and will carry science instruments from India and other countries. One such instrument could come from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, which announced in July that its Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (or VNA), which would be aboard Shukrayaan-1, would study how charged particles from the sun interact with the atmosphere and exosphere of the planet.

Nasas VERITAS (short for Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) mission is under consideration for its Discovery programme, a series of missions to explore the Solar System that has been running since 1992. According to an official statement, the VERITAS spacecraft, proposed for a 2026 launch, would orbit Venus and peer through the planets obscuring clouds with the help of a powerful radar system to create 3D global maps and a near-infrared spectrometer to figure out what the surface is made of. It would also measure the planets gravitational field to determine the structure of Venus interior. Together, the instruments would offer clues about the planets past and present geologic processes, from its core to its surface," the release explains. The last mission that studied Venus surface was Magellan, which ended in 1994.

Like VERITAS, the DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus) mission is another candidate for studying the planets atmosphere and trying to decode whether Venus ever had an ocean.

Studying our sister planet" is one of the most important topics in modern-day comparative planetology but any future missions will not be without significant challenges, says Siddharth Pandey, head of the Centre of Excellence in Astrobiology, Amity University, Mumbai. You need high-temperature electronics because when you are moving towards the sun, the energy levels are quite high. All the probes that normally go towards the suneither Mercury or Venusthey tend to have very strong thermal protection systems, which take up a lot of space inside a spacecraft," says Pandey. For anything that is going towards Venus, it will need a similar kind of thermal insulation as well as electronics, systems like cameras, communication units that can operate in that high-energy environment," he adds.

While the surface environment of Venus is extremely hot, dry and harsh, the clouds are made of concentrated sulphuric acid. So any vehicle we send there has to be made to withstand the acid environment," explains Grinspoon, describing the announcement on phosphine as an exciting development". It needs to be confirmed with follow-up observations," he adds. But if it is really phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, then it is telling us something we dont know about the processes occurring in the atmosphere. Even if it is not a sign of biology, we stand to learn something from this, and it will be important to sort it out since we are hoping to use similar observations to test for the presence of life on exoplanets around other stars."

*****

Phosphine Fact-Sheet

What is this molecule?

Phosphine is a colourless, toxic gas made of phosphorous and hydrogen.

What makes the discovery so interesting?

On Earth, phosphine is generated through natural processeslightning and volcanic activitybut only in small amounts. The only known processes that produce phosphine on Earth in similar quantities are biological in origin. The amount of phosphine detected in the Venusian clouds is relatively large.

Whats next?

To understand whether this is happening biologically through the possible presence of micro-organismsby taking measurements in the planets atmosphere and potentially bringing back samples to Earth for further analysis.

Source: Royal Astronomical Society

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Another Mass. school district to drop its mascot of Native American origin – Boston.com

Another Massachusetts school district is retiring a mascot that references Native Americans, citing harmful Native American stereotypes.

The Pentucket School Committee voted to retire the districts Sachem mascot during a meeting Tuesday night following a presentation back in late July by Sag8tmo Paul Pouliot and Denise Pouliot, leaders of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki People.

At that presentation, the couple discussed Native American history in the area, and how the Sachem mascot, which has been in use at Pentucket since 1958, impacts them, according to a news release.

Pentucket is the latest school district to retire a mascot of Native American origin, or one with problematic history. In June, Walpole school officials unanimously decided to drop its Rebels mascot. At the state level, Charlie Baker has said hes open to discussions of removing and redesigning the states seal and flag, which feature an illustration of a Native American person.

From the meeting in July, school officials learned that Native Americans who lived in the area near the school district did not have Sachems, though other nearby tribes did. Sachems were either heads of families, or served as the speakers for a tribe. Officials also learned about the problematic use of Native American headdresses, which the districts mascot has used in the past, the release said.

A lot of thought and consideration went into this decision, and ultimately the School Committee has decided this is the right path for our district to take, schools Superintendent Justin Bartholomew said. When the mascot first was selected it was done so out of respect for what they believed a Sachem represented. We know today that there are myriad reasons why it is not appropriate to have a Sachem mascot, and this is an opportunity for Pentucket to start a new chapter.

For now, the school district will refer to its sports teams simply as Pentucket. Current school uniforms will continue to be used until the time comes to replace them, and the high school gym floor, which has Sachem on it, will be changed when the new Pentucket Regional Middle High School building opens, scheduled for 2022.

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Clerks to send out mail-in ballots by midmonth – The Daily News of Newburyport

NEWBURYPORT Localcity and town clerkswill soon send out mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election, but Greater Newburyport residents will also be able to head to the polls in less than two weeks.

Voterscan cast ballots by mail and will have the option to do so in person during a 14-day early voting period or on Election Day.

Earlyin-person voting in Massachusetts runs from Oct. 17to Oct. 30.

Newburyport City Clerk Richard Jones said his office will send mail-in ballots to voters by midmonth, about a week after they are received by the city. He added that his office will have "close to 7,000 (ballots) to collate, package, label, seal and send."

Jones urged residents to "please be patient" as the city mails out the ballots, noting the time it may take for all of them to be prepared.

Jones said he expects the election to have a similar turnoutas the September primary, which saw an unexpectedly highnumber of voters at the polls following a slow early voting period.

In September,3,125 city residents voted early by mail, while only 451 people voted early in person. On primary day, 3,196 city voters went to their polling places. Overall, the primary drew 44% of the citys roughly 15,000 registered voters to the polls.

"We thought that a lot of people had already voted by mail or early in person, but then all of a sudden, a lot of people showed up on Election Day ... I expect it to be the same (in November)," Jones said. "There are a lot of people concerned about early voting and mail-in voting, so they're going to go the tried-and-true route."

Amesbury City Clerk Amanda Haggstrom said the city saw a large turnout inSeptember compared to past primaries because of the mail-in ballot option.Haggstromsaid she isn't quite sure how Amesbury residents will prefer to vote in November.

"I'm expecting a high turnout for this election, but I can't guarantee if it will be more mail-ins or in-person," Haggstrom said, adding that she has beenreceiving lots of questions from residents about the city's voting options.

In Newburyport, early voting will be at the Senior Community Center, 331 High St., during the following dates and times:

Saturday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.;Sunday, Oct. 18, 10a.m. to 2 p.m.; Monday, Oct. 19, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 20, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 21, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.;Thursday, Oct. 22, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 23, 8 a.m. to noon; Saturday, Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 25, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Monday, Oct. 26, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 27, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 28, 8 am to 4 p.m.; Thursday, Oct. 29, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 30, 8 a.m. to noon.

On Election Day, polling places across the state are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In Amesbury, Election Day voting takes place at Amesbury City Hall on Friend Street.

Voters can head to the polls for early voting at Amesbury High School, 5 Highland St., during the following dates and times:

Saturday, Oct. 17, andSunday, Oct. 18, 8 a.m. to noon; Monday, Oct. 19, throughWednesday, Oct. 21, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday, Oct. 22, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 23, 8 a.m. to noon;Saturday, Oct. 24, 8 a.m. to noon; Sunday, Oct. 25, 8a.m. to noon; Monday, Oct. 26, 8 a.m.to 4 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 27, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 28, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday, Oct. 29, 8a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 30, 8 a.m. to noon.

Salisbury voters may cast ballots early atSalisbury Town Hall in the Colchester Room, 5 Beach Road, during the following dates and times:

Saturday, Oct. 17, and Sunday, Oct. 18, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Monday, Oct. 19, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 20through Thursday, Oct. 22, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 23, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 25, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Monday, Oct. 26, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 27, through Thursday, Oct. 29, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 30, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Staff writer Jack Shea covers Newburyport City Hall. He can be reached via email at jshea@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3154. Follow him on Twitter@iamjackshea.

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Clerks to send out mail-in ballots by midmonth - The Daily News of Newburyport

Global and Asia Pacific Myristyl Alcohol (CAS 112 72 1) Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2027 Best Companies included in report KLK OLEO, KAO…

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Global and Asia Pacific Myristyl Alcohol (CAS 112 72 1) Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2027 Best Companies included in report KLK OLEO, KAO...

The Ancient City of Ur – HeritageDaily

Ur is an ancient city-state of Mesopotamia located in the Dhi Qar Governorate of southern Iraq.

The earliest period of occupation dates from the prehistoric Ubaid period sometime between 6500 to 3800 BC, when the landscape was flooded regularly by the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, which some scholars suggest is the source of the Mesopotamian floods from mythology.

During the 4th millennium BC, the region was settled by the Sumerians, a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European agglutinative language isolate that developed a close cultural symbiosis with the East-Semitic Akkadians by the 3rd millennium BC.

The first royal dynasty of Ur was established during the Early Bronze Age, with Ur becoming the capital of southern Mesopotamia around 2500 BC. The city would come under Akkadian influence with the rise of the Akkadian Empire between 2400 and 2200 BC, before coming under Gutian rule with the empires collapse during the mid-22nd century BC.

Image Credit : Hardnfast CC BY 3.0

Ur would once again come under Sumerian rule with the founding of the Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire by King Ur-Nammu around 2047 BC. This period would see a renaissance of Ur, reaching a population of 65,000 inhabitants and an empire that controlled the cities of Isin, Larsa, and Eshnunna, and extended as far north as Upper Mesopotamia.

The state was organised into a highly centralised bureaucratic system in which the Code of Ur-Nammu was written, the oldest known law code that survives today. Various large-scale building projects were also constructed, most notably the Ziggurat of Ur in dedication to Nanna/Sn, and an intricate system of irrigation channels to improve crop yields.

By the late Bronze Age, the city came under the first dynasty of (Amorite) of Babylonia, but fell to the native Akkadian ruled Sealand Dynasty for over 270 years, and was reconquered into Babylonia by the successors of the Amorites, the Kassites in the 16th century BC.

Over the centuries, the rulers of Ur would change hands several times, but the power and wealth of Ur would eventually decline around 530 BC with the fall of Babylonia to the Persian Archaemenid Empire, and was abandoned by the early 5th century BC (possibly as a result of the changing river patterns in the region).

Header Image Credit : M.Lubinski CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Ancient City of Ur - HeritageDaily

‘Realpolitiks II’ To Be Released In November – Entertainment Focus

Timed nicely around the US Presidential elections 1C Entertainment have just announced that their real-time grand strategy game Realpolitiks II will be launching on PC on 5th November 2020. You can already add the game to your wishlist on Steam.

Realpolitiks II puts you in the shoes of a modern-day world leader as you attempt to take your nation on a journey of world dominance. The road to supremacy is filled with modern world issues as you manage your nations economy, command armies, conduct diplomatic and espionage actions, and tackle global threats such as terrorism, pandemics, famine, and more.

Watch the Realpolitiks II announcement trailer below:

Realpolitiks II expands its gameplay with a set of new features, tools and strategies that you can use in order to achieve your goals. Intelligence mechanics have been enhanced with the addition of spy units that can play a crucial role in knowing what your opponents are up to, a redesigned combat system that provides even more options to plan your military actions, an advanced management system, and a lot more.

Modding tools have also been added allowing you to create your own content, campaigns, scenarios, units, even new nations.

Realpolitiks II key features:

Check out some screenshots in our gallery below:

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'Realpolitiks II' To Be Released In November - Entertainment Focus

On the Road During a Pandemic, From Austin, Texas, to Metro D.C. – The Nation

Matthew Gossage with his new baby. (Abby Batko-Taylor)

Before. Nope. Youve now just infected your other clean hand with germs, my wifes OB/GYN dryly instructed. She then put on her own latex gloves and demonstrated how to put them on and take them off while keeping your hands sterile.Ad Policy

We were in my wife and newborn sons hospital room the day after his birth, on Leap Day, February 29. CNN, muted on the TV above us, was showing the same three b-roll shots of ambulances in front of a nursing home in King County, Wash., outside of Seattle; over and over again.

My wife had given birth to our son a week before all hospitals in Austin closed to visitors. I had been able to be in the delivery room and attempt to sleep in their room with them. Our doctors were on daily calls about the pandemic and preparing for it: Get ready. This is going to be serious.

Yeah, you should probably just stay home and not leave the house, the OB/GYN recommended in her usual inconclusively sarcastic tone, which previously had always been reassuring.

Three days later, people at the supermarket glanced at my purple latex gloves, not wanting to make eye contact afterward. Hes brought the germs. Or maybe my hands were simply another reminder that unforeseen change was coming. Ordinary life was unraveling. Or fleeting.

There were no reported cases yet in Austin. Yet the sense was Its coming

It was 3 am, and the grocery store was busier than a Saturday afternoon. Going to the store at that hour had always been so relaxing for me. I had been able to take my time, getting stoned beforehand and going slowly through the aisles. This night carts were everywhere. Family members and college roommates yelled at one another across other carts.

They got baked beans.

Yeah! Get em all.

Freshly printed signs from the customer service desk were Scotch-taped to some shelves: Limit 2.

I had a detached perspective, still ecstatic over the healthy birth of our second son.

No diapers. OK.

No wipes. OK.

My family had entered a nurturing and joyous bubble that was about to overlap with a global and collective bubble of sickness, hundreds of thousands of deaths, a foreseeable yet unstoppable economic depression, disruption, and anxiety.

I strolled down the aisles away from the shelves that formerly held canned goods and pasta and toilet paper, and tried out the produce section. I crossed paths with a fellow bemused middle-aged man, and we shared a smile.

Time to get creative, I said as we both looked on a large shelf with nothing but cucumbers.

The composting toilet got here! Another brown box had arrived on our porch.

Months into the pandemic now, I felt I should be getting an honorary mention from Jeff Bezos for doing my part to get him to $200 billion in wealth. (I know hes been busy, so a Christmas card would be fine.)

I opened the Luggable Loo box and put the portable toilet in our Front of moving truck pile in our moving staging area. It shared a plastic bin with gloves, hand sanitizer, wipes, and granola bars, so it wouldnt get mixed up with our stuff that would be packed into the back of the moving truck.

We were leaving Austin after 15 years, moving outside Washington, D.C., to be close to family who could help with our domestic chaos, which had yet to become normalized. To minimize sharing germs (as our oldest son, a 4-year old, understood this new world), we planned our driving route to avoid going inside, anywhere.

Well, there are some unintended benefits to this now. Somewhere between Texarkana and Little Rock, this crossed my mind as I sat with my pants down at my ankles, using our new toilet in an empty parking lot behind a permanently closed Mexican restaurant: There are a lot of closed businesses now to privately take a shit outside of.Current Issue

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I am not alone in finding time on the john to be one of the more relaxing and thought-provoking daily activities. (In this case, the john is a seat on a bucket, with a bag, which you seal and then keep in the bucket until it can be disposed.) It was an unseasonably cool afternoon. A thunderstorm had passed, and I watched as a portly raccoon stumbled out of the dumpster across the lot from me. Maybe the place had just closed

The swirl of recent events went through my head again on that toilet outside the restaurant. A new healthy son, a global pandemic, shutdowns, working from home with no day care for our oldest son, a cross-country move with no one helping, so my wife and I could try to stay healthy and be able to take care of young children.

After I had my turn on the toilet, it was my wifes turn, and I took over holding the baby. I thought of the people we knew and worked with in Austin who had had Covid-19 already. A young woman with two children had just come out of a fever that kept her on the couch for days. Her oldest son is 12, and had been taking care of the baby while the mom lay prostrate. He kissed his mother on her forehead when she got up for the first time. I thought you were dying, he told her through tears.

I kissed my sons forehead, then his cheeks, knees, and belly, I said to him, Well, I knew we were heading for interesting times, before handing him back, packing up the Luggable Loo, and buckling up for the drive.

Scenes From a Pandemic is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind, who from 198294 was the magazines chief political writer and analyst. This series of dispatches from Kopkinds far-flung network of participants, advisers, guests, and friends is edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski, and appears weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org.

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On the Road During a Pandemic, From Austin, Texas, to Metro D.C. - The Nation

Dole effect as a measurement of the low-latitude hydrological cycle over the past 800 ka – Science Advances

INTRODUCTION

A variety of geological proxies has been developed to reconstruct the history of the low-latitude hydrological cycle, which plays a crucial role in the global moisture and heat transport. In the past decade, the strong similarity of 18O variations between atmospheric O2 (18Oatm) and Chinese stalagmite, either on orbital or on millennial time scales, has raised the debate on the correlation between 18Oatm and the low-latitude hydrology (15). As a chemical signal of the atmosphere, 18Oatm is an integrated result of different processes that occurred over the globe, which is able to reflect biogeochemical and thus climatic changes at a planetary scale compared with regional proxies.

Interpreting the climate significance of 18Oatm, however, turns out not to be straightforward. The 18Oatm value is determined by the oxygen isotopic fractionation associated with photosynthesis and respiration of biosphere as well as the hydrological cycle, which is today more enriched by 23.5 0.3 than oceanic water. This isotopic offset is traditionally referred to as the Dole effect. The respiration of both terrestrial and marine biosphere preferentially consumes 16O over 18O, causing a nearly equivalent isotope effect of ~19 [e.g., (6)]. This is the biggest source of the Dole effect. On land, plant transpiration can cause an isotopic enrichment of leaf water relative to soil water, resulting in a globally integrated photosynthetic Dole effect of 4 to 8 [e.g., (6, 7)]. In the marine realm, O2 produced by phytoplankton shows an 18O enrichment of less than 6 with respect to ambient seawater (8). The hydrological cycle, however, changes 18Oatm in an opposite direction to the aforementioned two processes. This is because the ocean-to-land moisture transfer can always result in an isotopic depletion of terrestrial rainfall with respect to seawater. Rainwater is subsequently used by the terrestrial biosphere, which thus decreases the Dole effect (2, 6).

The fluctuation of the Dole effect (DE) over the past 800 thousand years (ka) has been reconstructed by removing the imprint of seawater 18O from ice corederived 18Oatm records [e.g., (3, 6)]. During the mid-to-late Pleistocene, varying global ice volume is the first-order reason causing mean oceanic water 18O changes. Accordingly, the reconstructed or the modeled ice-volume isotopic effect (18Osw) (9, 10) was subtracted from 18Oatm to obtain the DE [e.g., (3)]. Using this approach, the reconstructed DE shows strong variance in the precession bands with an amplitude of ~1.2, believed related to low-latitude hydrological changes (3, 6). However, the DE record contains additional and important variance at the ~100-ka periodicity, suggesting a substantial influence of ice-sheet volume on the DE, possibly via changing terrestrial productivity at mid-to-high latitudes (3). This, therefore, impedes the use of the DE as a proxy for the low-latitude hydroclimate.

In this study, we generated a new DE* (to distinguish from the traditional definition of DE) record by removing the globally stacked sea surface 18O (18Osurf) from 18Oatm, which shows pronounced precession cycles (~23 and ~19 ka) but almost no ~100-ka periodicity over the past 800 ka. Furthermore, we used the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) to perform a 300-ka transient simulation of global climate change. The modeled terrestrial rainfall changes between 30N and 30S strongly resemble the DE*. We therefore propose that the low-latitude hydrology is the only important forcing for the DE* on orbital time scales, while the influence of other climate factors, if any, should be minor.

We argue that 18Oatm has a stronger relevance with isotopic values of sea surface compared with those of the entire ocean because (i) the terrestrial biosphere uses waters originally evaporated from sea surface and (ii) nearly 100% photosynthesis and 95% respiration of the marine biosphere occur within ocean mixed layers (7). Therefore, it is more reasonable to use 18Osurf rather than 18Osw (or mean oceanic water 18O) to calculate the DE*. 18Osurf is different from 18Osw, because in addition to varying ice volume, hydrological changes at mid-to-low latitudes can also exert substantial influence on 18Osurf through altering evaporation, precipitation, runoff, and reservoir size of liquid water on land. Moreover, 18Osurf can be reliably reconstructed by removing temperature effect from planktonic foraminiferal 18O. Through compiling parallel measurements of planktonic foraminiferal 18O and sea surface temperature (SST) from marine sediment cores, a global 18Osurf stack over the past 800 ka has been generated by Shakun et al. (11) (Figs. 1 and 2A). We update the 24 to 0 ka BP (Before Present) interval of this stack by using high-resolution and 14C-constrained reconstructions with Mg/Ca-SST results (Materials and Methods as well as the Supplementary Materials, Fig. 1, and fig. S1).

Monsoon domain (green) was defined by Wang and Ding (1). Blue and red lines indicate the mean position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone for August and February, respectively (solid for monsoon trough and dashed for trade wind convergence) (24). Blue (11) and red (this study) dots indicate 18Osurf reconstructions used for the generation of a global stack. WAIS, West Antarctic Ice Sheet; EPICA, European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.

(A) A global stack of 18Osurf (blue, with 1 standard error) [this study, (11)] and the modeled 18Osw (red) (10). (B) Normalized 18Osurf and 18Osw are obtained by the z-standard method, which are further used to calculate the difference. (C) A composite 18Oatm record from Antarctic ice cores, including the WAIS Divide and the Siple Dome (50 to 0 ka BP) (2, 5), the Vostok (100 to 50 ka BP) (12), and the EPICA Dome C (800 to 100 ka BP) (1317). (D) Chinese stalagmite 18O, compiled by Cheng et al. (18). (E) A compilation of Bornean stalagmite 18O (1922). The duration of terminations I to V is marked by yellow bars. In (B) to (E), dashed lines indicate the linear regression of each proxy record over the past 430 ka.

Discrepancies between the 18Osurf stack and the modeled 18Osw (10) are described in the Supplementary Materials (figs. S1 to S4). Briefly, the 18Osurf and the 18Osw show three robust discrepancies over the past 430 ka (Fig. 2). First, with respect to 18Osw, isotopic values of several interstadials within an interglacial period are more comparable in 18Osurf [marine isotope stage (MIS) 11c versus 11a, 9e versus 9c and 9a, 5e versus 5c and 5a, Fig. 2A]. Second, at the recent five glacial terminations, the rise of 18Osurf lags that of 18Osw by 3 to 4 ka (marked by yellow bars in Fig. 2; also, see figs. S1 to S3). Third, 18Osurf exhibits a long-term trend toward lighter isotopic values for the past 430 ka, which was also noted by Shakun et al. (11). This secular trend is clearly revealed in the difference between 18Osurf and 18Osw, showing a decreasing tendency over this period (Fig. 2B and fig. S4).

The aforementioned features of 18Osurf are shared by 18Oatm (1217) and tropical-subtropical stalagmite 18O (Fig. 2) (1822), including comparable amplitude of interstadials within an interglacial (MIS 11, 9, and 5), positive 18O excursions at glacial terminations, and the long-term trend over the past 430 ka. Together, the common features among different climate archives can be interpreted as that the distinct isotopic imprint of sea surface was transferred to continental precipitation and leaf water via the hydrological cycle, which was subsequently recorded by stalagmite and 18Oatm. Therefore, 18Osurf should be used to adjust precipitation isotopic records (e.g., stalagmite 18O, plant wax hydrogen isotope) and calculate the DE*.

As illustrated in Fig. 3, compared with the previous estimate of the DE (18Oatm 18Osw), the new DE* (18Oatm 18Osurf, Materials and Methods) displays a considerably better match with precession in amplitude over the past 800 ka. An evident mismatch between the previous DE and precession is found between 450 and 360 ka BP (Fig. 3A), which is improved between the DE* and precession but still exists to some extent (Fig. 3C). Note that during this period, 18Oatm and 18Osurf contain relatively less variance in the precession bands (Fig. 2, A and C), and astronomically tuned age models of both climate records have relatively large uncertainties (the establishment of chronologies are described in Materials and Methods) (17, 23). Therefore, the ambiguity of precession signals in climate reconstructions together with age model uncertainties may partly explain this mismatch.

(A) The previous estimate of DE (red) and precession (gray). (B) Eccentricity cycles. (C) The new estimate of DE* (blue, with 1 standard error) and precession (gray). (D) The global stack of benthic foraminiferal 18O (23). Eccentricity, obliquity, and precession are derived from Berger (41), which are further normalized to calculate the ETP (E + T-P). Cross-spectral analysis results of the ETP with the previous (E) and the new (F) estimate of DE, respectively, over the past 800 ka. In (E) and (F), the spectrum of each record is presented with the 95% confidence level (dashed lines). Below, coherency spectra are indicated by gray-filled curves associated with the 95% Monte Carlo false-alarm level (black dashed lines). The time-series analysis was performed using the REDFIT program (46). The numbers denote primary orbital cycles.

The DE* shows no evident imprint of an individual glacial-interglacial cycle, nor does it respond to an increase in the magnitude of glacial-interglacial cycles that occurred after glacial termination V, referred to as the Mid-Brunhes Event. In contrast to the previous estimate of DE, the spectrum of the DE* shows strong variance in the ~19-, ~23-, and ~41-ka bands but lacks variance in the ~100-ka bands (Fig. 3F). This suggests that the presence of the ~100-ka periodicity in the previous DE (Fig. 3E) (3) is an artificial signal. Together, precession and obliquity to a lesser extent are dominant forcing of the DE* over the past 800 ka, while the influence of 100-ka cycles (ice volume) seems negligible.

The DE* exhibits a remarkable similarity to Chinese stalagmite 18O (hereafter refers to the one adjusted for 18Osurf changes, simply by subtracting 18Osurf from stalagmite 18O) over the past 640 ka (R = 0.60; P < 0.001), both following the temporal rhythm of the Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (Fig. 4). Their spectra are also well matched, both showing strong variance in the precession bands (Fig. 4D). In addition, the Mid-Brunhes Event is not reflected in Chinese stalagmite 18O reconstructions, either (Fig. 4A) (18).

(A) The DE* (blue, with 1 standard error) and Chinese stalagmite 18O (orange, after adjusted for changes in 18Osurf) (17). (B) Simulated terrestrial rainfall changes between 30N and 30S (annual mean, green) and July 21 daily insolation at 20N (gray) (41). (C) Simulated terrestrial rainfall changes over 0 to 30N (annual mean, red) and 0 to 30S (annual mean, blue). Simulation results are from the experiment CCSM3_orb+ghg + ice (Materials and Methods), which are further fitted using the Savitzky-Golay algorithm with 15 points at second order. In (D) and (E), spectra of the 800-ka DE*, the 640-ka Chinese stalagmite 18O, and the 300-ka simulation output are presented with the 95% confidence level (dashed lines). Below, coherency spectra of their cross-spectral analysis are indicated by gray-filled curves associated with the 95% Monte Carlo false-alarm level (black dashed lines). The time-series analysis was performed using the REDFIT program (46). The numbers denote primary orbital cycles.

An accelerated simulation was performed using the CCSM3 from 300 to 0 ka BP, forced by orbital-driven insolation, greenhouse gases, and ice sheets (Exp_orb+ghg + ice; Materials and Methods and figs. S5 and S6). To evaluate the effect of different forcing on the hydrological cycle, two additional experiments were run, forced by orbital parameters (Exp_orb) and orbital parameters plus greenhouse gases (Exp_orb+ghg), respectively (Materials and Methods and figs. S5 and S7). Terrestrial rainfall changes in a specific region are indicated by their proportion in the global total.

In the model output of the Exp_orb+ghg + ice (fig. S6), except for those over 60S to 90S, terrestrial rainfall changes over other latitudes all contain strong variance in the precession bands. Especially over 0 to 30N, precession is the predominated cycle for the past 300 ka. Terrestrial rainfall changes over 30N to 60N and 60N to 90N also include additional but less important variance in the 100-ka bands. Our simulation successfully reproduces a fundamental feature of the global hydrological cycle as revealed in many geological records [e.g., (24)] that terrestrial rainfall changes between Northern and Southern Hemisphere low latitudes are antiphased in the precession bands (Fig. 4C and figs. S6 and S8).

Because terrestrial rainfall changes over 0 to 30N show stronger variations than over 0 to 30S (Fig. 4C), the combined rainfall changes between 30N and 30S show strong variance only in the precession bands and follow the temporal rhythm of the Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (Fig. 4B). Using cross-spectral analysis, simulated rainfall changes between 30N and 30S are strongly coherent with the DE* in the precession bands (Fig. 4E). Negative shifts of the DE* (and Chinese stalagmite 18O) are always concurrent with large terrestrial rainfall between 30N and 30S, and vice versa. Moreover, due to a high fraction of tropical rainfall in the global total, temporal changes of the global terrestrial rainfall are also highly similar to those over 0 to 30N, showing a domination of precession cycles (fig. S6).

A comparison of model output reveals that all three experiments generate similar results on terrestrial rainfall changes in tropics (fig. S7). This suggests that solar insolation is much more important than greenhouse gases and ice volume in regulating the temporal pattern of tropical hydroclimate. Including the ice-volume forcing in the model can enhance and weaken the variance in the precession bands over 0 to 30N and 0 to 30S, respectively (fig. S7).

Previously, three factors were considered important for causing the Dole effect fluctuation on orbital time scales: changes in the ratio of terrestrial to marine productivity (6, 7), vegetation changes induced respectively by ice volume (3), and the low-latitude hydrological cycle [e.g., (2, 6)]. Estimates of paleoproductivity are still subject to large uncertainties. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that changes in the global biogenic productivity were significantly affected by glacial-interglacial cycles during the late Quaternary (25). With respect to interglacial periods, a substantial reduction of terrestrial productivity and a slight increase (or unchanged) of marine productivity during glacial time have been found (25, 26). Because no evident imprint of glacial-interglacial cycles (100-ka periodicity) is detected in the DE* as aforementioned, past changes in the land/sea productivity ratio seem not critical for the DE*. This inference is supported by recent studies that suggest a nearly equivalent Dole effect value generated by modern terrestrial and marine biosphere [e.g., (8)]. This is in contrast to the previous estimate, which considered a higher terrestrial Dole effect than the marine value (6, 7).

The absence of 100-ka glacial-interglacial cycles in the DE* also excludes an important role of the ice volume. In high latitudes, the photosynthetic Dole effect of boreal biomes is partially canceled out by the respiratory effect in soils (27). Therefore, pronounced changes in the amount of boreal biomes due to the expansion and the retreat of ice sheets are inferred to exert limited influence on the global DE* (8).

The dominance of precession cycles in the new DE*, however, highlights the role of the low-latitude hydrology and vegetation as previously thought [e.g., (2, 6)]. Tropical and subtropical vegetation comprises the major part of the global productivity on land (4). On one hand, the respiratory Dole effect in low latitudes is considered lower than the global mean value due to slow diffusion of O2 in wet soils [e.g., (28)]. A strengthened hydrological cycle and subsequently an expansion of wetlands can therefore decrease the global respiratory Dole effect. On the other hand, a strengthened hydrological cycle is associated with the enhanced convection intensity over oceanic moisture source areas, the increased isotopic fractionation during the ocean-to-land moisture transfer, and the expansion of monsoon realms [e.g., (29)]. All these processes can result in the isotopic depletion of meteoric waters on land. The substantial impact of precipitation isotope composition on 18Oatm has been clearly revealed by the strong similarity between Chinese stalagmite 18O and the DE* (Fig. 4). Furthermore, elevated humidity levels over vegetated areas can decrease the evaporative enrichment of leaf water 18O [e.g., (6)]. Together, the respiratory and the photosynthetic Dole effect of the low latitude both decrease during periods with a strengthened hydrological cycle.

Apparently, our simulation supports the correlation between the tropical hydroclimate and the DE* on orbital time scales. Given its high proportion in the global terrestrial rainfall and its spectral distribution, the tropical hydrological cycle can most likely explain the DE* (fig. S7). In addition to stronger rainfall changes over 0 to 30N than over 0 to 30S, generally stronger continentality and higher altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere can decrease meteoric water 18O values to a greater extent due to the moisture isotopic fractionation along transport paths (2). Therefore, the northern low-latitude Dole effect signal should overwhelm the southern counterpart, and the global DE thus follows the temporal pattern of the Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (Fig. 4).

The obliquity cycle is recognizable in the DE* but nearly undetectable in Chinese stalagmite 18O (Fig. 4D), suggesting that meteoric water 18O is a very important but not the only cause for the DE* as aforementioned. Although terrestrial rainfall changes over northern and southern high latitudes include weak variance in the obliquity bands as shown in our model output (figs. S6 and S9), they unlikely can account for the obliquity cycle of the DE* because of their small contribution to the global terrestrial rainfall (figs. S6). We thus exclude high latitude-sourced causes for the obliquity cycle in the DE*.

In contrast to our transient simulation, some equilibrium simulations have revealed that large obliquity can enhance summer monsoon intensity in both hemispheres, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere [e.g., (30)]. Although it is model dependent, the effect of obliquity has been clearly observed in some regional monsoon reconstructions [e.g., (30)]. Therefore, the obliquity cycle of the DE* can also be interpreted in the context of the low-latitude hydrology. High-obliquity values should correspond to relatively low Dole effect values, as confirmed by our data analysis (fig. S9). To summarize, the hydroclimate over low-latitude vegetated areas should be the only dominant cause for the orbital-scale DE* over the past 800 ka.

Among a few different but interrelated forms of the low-latitude hydrological cycle (e.g., the El NioSouthern Oscillations and the Intertropical Convergence Zone), monsoons are recognized as the most mutable component and represent the dominant mode of annual low-latitude variation (Fig. 1) (1). Moreover, a compilation of geological records has confirmed the coherent variability of regional monsoons across orbital to millennial time scales (Fig. 1) (24). This has further led to an evolving concept, the geological evolution of global monsoon [e.g., (24)]. Because monsoons are viewed as a planetary-scale rather than a regional phenomenon, it would be significant if a common proxy could be found to describe the global monsoon or low-latitude hydrological changes. Because of its global character and strong correlation with simulated tropical rainfall changes (Fig. 4), the DE* is suggested as such a potential proxy on orbital time scales.

The low-latitude hydrological cycle as a whole, as revealed by the DE*, appears to be governed by insolation forcing only. This differs from regional hydroclimate reconstructions, which show substantial response to a set of other factors besides solar insolation, including changing ice volumes, greenhouse gas concentrations, SST, sea-land distribution, and orography (31). Therefore, a global proxy is in favor of going beyond regional character and complexity and is advantageous to identify common and most fundamental mechanisms for the operation of the low-latitude hydroclimate at a large spatial extent.

The idea of questing for a global monsoon proxy is similar to using benthic foraminiferal 18O as an indicator for the global glacial-interglacial cycles. Although regional ice sheets can have different timing of advance and retreat, benthic foraminiferal 18O has been used as a globally integrated proxy to depict the cyclicality, duration, and transition of Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate. Likewise, the DE* may become a benchmark to measure the dynamics of the low-latitude hydrological cycle during the Quaternary.

Paired measurements of planktonic foraminiferal 18O (18Oc) and Mg/Ca-SST with 14C-constrained chronology from 36 cores were compiled to generate a global stack of 18Osurf (Fig. 1, fig. S1, and table S1). We excluded published alkenone-SST reconstructions. Although, in many regions, Mg/Ca-SST and alkenone-SST records are largely consistent on orbital time scales, they show discrepancies on millennial time scales mainly due to their different seasonal preferences (32). 18Oc and Mg/Ca-SST are both sourced from calcareous shells, which can therefore provide more robust reconstructions of 18Osurf than using alkenone-SST. Through applying the Marine13 dataset to recalibrate 14C dates (33), the age model of nearly all records was readjusted. One record was left on its original 14C and ice-core tuned age model (MD97-2120). The time resolution of most reconstructions is <500 years (n = 32), while four other records range between 520 and 580 years. In each core, 18Osurf [, SMOW (Standard Mean Ocean Water)] was calculated by (SST-16.5)/4.8 + 18Oc [, PDB (Pee Dee Belemnite)] + 0.27 (34). An evenly spaced 18Osurf with a resolution of 500 years was further produced by averaging data in 1000-year bins. For stacking, each 18Osurf record was shifted to a mean of zero and combined as unweighted global averages. Last, because only the amplitude of 18Osurf changes is concerned, both 18Osurf stacks produced in this study and by Shakun et al. (11) were shifted with a late Holocene value of zero (Fig. 2). Considered propagating uncertainties of 18Oc and Mg/Ca measurements, the Mg/Ca-SST calibration, and the seawater 18O-paleotemperature equation, the standard error (1) of a single 18Osurf estimate is approximately 0.30 (35). The standard error (1) of the 18Osurf stack is between 0.06 and 0.08, depending on the number of available data points.

The chronology of Chinese stalagmite records was established by radiometric dating, with a typical error of <1 and 1 to 3.5 ka (1), respectively, for the interval 400 to 0 ka BP and 640 to 400 ka BP (18). Age models of marine and ice-core records are basically derived from the astronomical tuning, with an uncertainty less than 4 ka for most periods of the past 800 ka (23, 36, 37). The global stack of 18Osurf (800 to 23.5 ka BP) (11) and the modeled 18Osw (800 to 0 ka BP) (10) are both plotted against the LR04 age model (23). The 18Oatm record is plotted against the AICC2012 age model (36, 37), with that between 640 and 100 ka BP being retuned to the Chinese stalagmite chronology according to the similarity between 18Oatm and stalagmite 18O (17). Applying the AICC2012 age model to the entire 18Oatm record, however, would not change the spectral analysis results of the DE and the DE* and thus the conclusions of this study. Because the 18Oatm record contains strong variance in the precession bands, and the recognition of precession cycles in 18Oatm is additionally constrained by a few discrete absolute dating results (36, 37), the spectral analysis of 18Oatm and the DE* does not seem to be substantially influenced by the tuning method.

We followed the approach of Extier et al. (17). Series of 18Osw, 18Osurf, and 18Oatm were first interpolated to 100-year resolution and then fitted using the Savitzky-Golay algorithm with 31 points at second order. Fitted curves of 18Osw and 18Osurf were extracted from that of 18Oatm, respectively, to calculate the DE and the DE*. Given the standard error of the 18Osurf stack (0.05 to 0.12, 1) [this study, (11)] and the 18Oatm measurement (0.04, 1) (13), the standard error of the DE* was estimated to be around 0.07 to 0.15 (1).

The CCSM3 includes dynamically coupled atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice components (38, 39). The atmosphere model has a ~3.75 horizontal resolution (T31, varying from 340 km at the equator to 40 km around Greenland) and 26 hybrid coordinate levels in the vertical. The land model has the same T31 resolution. The ocean model has a 3 horizontal resolution with 25 vertical levels. The resolution of the sea ice model is identical to that of the ocean model, including a subgrid-scale ice thickness distribution.

To distinguish the effect of each forcing on the global climate, three experiments were designed, forced by orbital parameters (Exp_orb), orbital parameters combined with greenhouse gases (Exp_orb+ghg), and orbital parameters combined with greenhouse gases and ice volume (Exp_orb+ghg + ice), respectively (figs. S5 and S7). In the first two experiments, orbital parameters and greenhouse gases were advanced by 100 years at the end of each model year. In the third experiment, the continental ice-sheet volume and the position of coastlines were altered at steps of an equivalent 40-m sea level rise or fall to reconfigure and restart the model. The upper ocean and the atmosphere are considered to reach quasi-equilibrium in these accelerated simulations (40). Annual-mean rainfall changes over lands of six latitude bins, 90N to 60N, 60N to 30N, 30N to 0, 0 to 30S, 30S to 60S, and 60S to 90S, were calculated and shown in this study. Terrestrial rainfall changes in a specific region were represented by their proportion in the global total (Fig. 4 and figs. S6 and S7).

As shown in fig. S5, the orbital and greenhouse gases forcing were reconstructed from Berger (41) and the Antarctic ice core records (42, 43), respectively. Continental ice-volume and sea-level changes were calculated by scaling the ICE-5G ice distributions for the past 21 ka (44) to the globally stacked benthic foraminiferal 18O record (23). A part of simulation results has been published by Lu et al. (45).

We note that the Exp_orb+ghg + ice output contains some suspicious signals, including pulsed changes during the recent three glacial terminations (fig. S7, A and B), and relatively weak terrestrial rainfall during interglacial peaks (MIS 7e, 5e, and 1) over 0 to 30N (fig. S7A). The former is induced by a rapid jump in the ice-volume forcing (fig. S5), and the atmosphere and surface ocean in the model need time to reach quasi-equilibrium. The latter seems to contradict with climate reconstructions, which indicate that interglacial peaks were always characterized by very humid conditions over the Northern Hemisphere tropical lands [e.g., (36)]. In this study, we mainly focus on astronomical cycles of simulation output, which is therefore not subject to these unreal signals.

Acknowledgments: Funding: This research is funded by the National Science Foundation of China (nos. 41776054, 41525020, 91128208, 41606045, and 41976047) and the National Key Research and Development Program (2018YFE0202401). Author contributions: E.H. conceived the study, compiled all data shown in this study, and wrote the manuscript. M.Y. and Y.W. analyzed the CCSM3 simulation results. S.L. generated the global stack of sea surface oxygen isotope record. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.

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Dole effect as a measurement of the low-latitude hydrological cycle over the past 800 ka - Science Advances

Unilux unveils UVX portable inspection strobes – Labels and Labeling

Unilux, a stroboscopic inspection lighting specialist has introduced UVX, a new line of portable UV inspection strobes with improved efficiency and optical brighteners allowing defects detection at full production speed.

New UVX inspection strobes excite UV-visible inks and optical brighteners over a wider area, making it easy to spot issues across the entire web width confirming the quality without slowing production. By spreading the usable illumination more evenly, UVX strobes provide a true representation of quality by eliminating hot spots.

Portable LED9 and LED12 UVX strobes provide the ability to inspect anywhere on the press and feature quick-change batteries for added convenience. Stationary LED2000 UV inspection systems provide full-width inspection and feature Smart Assist controls, which allow to daisy-chain multiple units for the simultaneous inspection of standard and UV-visible inks and coatings.

UV LED technology has improved since our award-winning LEDUV inspection strobes, said Mike Simonis, president of Unilux. With UVX, weve leveraged those improvements using experience that only comes from decades of problem solving in security printing, cold seal, and coating to meet customers evolving requirements.

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Unilux unveils UVX portable inspection strobes - Labels and Labeling

Opinion: Congress must investigate reports of forced hysterectomies of migrant women – Pocono Record

Drs. Max Cooper and Asanthi Ratnasekera pennlive.com (TNS)| Pennlive.com

As doctors, we believe forced hysterectomies, as alleged by a whistle blower at an ICE facility in Georgia, against detained migrant women is a violation of every medical value we swore to uphold as physicians. And every healthcare professional who went into medicine to heal others has a duty to speak up and support a full investigation into this horrific mutilation of women.

From the whistleblower's allegations, migrant women detained at a facility in Georgia did not give informed consent to have hysterectomies performed on them. As detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, held behind bars with little to no rights or freedom, they most likely followed orders out of fear. They were coerced into hysterectomies. This procedure entails the removal of all or part of a woman's uterus, which can be indicated for a host of medical reasons but has the end effect of stopping any future pregnancy.

From a medical perspective, the that must be answered, and they revolve around whether the women were fully informed about the procedure, risks and benefits, potential complications and alternatives. This sharing of information and transparency is the foundation of the ethical practice of medicine.

The most grotesque moments in medicine occurred due to the absence of informed, non-coerced consent.

Between 1933 and its abolition in 1977, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina oversaw the sterilization of roughly 7,500 people. By law, the board could order the sterilization of "mentally diseased, feeble-minded, or epileptic patients" for the goal of preventing them from having children who may become a burden on taxpayers. The victims were overwhelmingly black, poor and disabled people.

In 1973, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Reif were sterilized at the ages of 12 and 14 in Alabama after their mother, who couldn't read and thought she consented to her daughters getting "shots", signed the surgical consent for a tubal ligation with an "X."

In 1932, 600 men were promised free medical care if they took part in a study of "bad blood." But, they were deceived and for the roughly 400 with latent syphilis, medical care was actively withheld to observe the natural course of the disease. The men were black, poor, and many of them were sharecroppers and had never seen a doctor. The Tuskegee experiment tracked the men over decades. They were given placebos, not penicillin, which was a recommended cure by 1947. The men slowly went mad and blind, and 128 of them died from syphilis. At no time did they give their informed consent.

Today, if physicians did any of these things to a patient, even if that patient were a detainee, we would be sued, lose our medical license, or go to jail. If we encounter communication barriers, language differences or a patient is deaf or blind, we use official translators to ensure all aspects of a treatment or procedure are communicated clearly. The treating physician or performing surgeon must document this communication. A patient's request for a second opinion must be granted.

In emergency medicine, immediate intervention may be necessary to save a patient's life. Informed consent may not be possible in life-threatening situations where the patient isn't conscious. If the patient were, then we explain usually on the walk to the operating room their injuries could kill them unless we intervene with surgery.

After the surgery, we explain to patients and their families all the procedures we performed on them to save their lives, potential complications, outcomes, and next steps as needed. In non-life-threatening situations, we go through all the steps to ensure the patient provides informed consent. In all cases, we document the time we spend explaining treatment and procedures to patients. Anything less before a physician performs a medical procedure on a patient would be unethical and inhumane.

The allegations that hysterectomies were performed on detained migrant women rightfully provokes our public outrage. The U.S. House of Representatives is right to investigate whether the women gave informed, non-coerced consent.

Modern medicine should have moved well past our past barbarities. Yet if the allegations of forced hysterectomies are true allegations that the physician implicated has denied then what happened to these migrant women is an atrocity.

Under international law, "imposing measures intended to prevent births" within a group is an element in genocide. (The next item international law defines as an element in genocide is "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group," another atrocity associated with ICE and the Trump Administration.)

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Opinion: Congress must investigate reports of forced hysterectomies of migrant women - Pocono Record

Has Trump endorsed ‘racehorse theory’? POTUS likely a believer in controversial notion about ‘superior people’ – MEAWW

President Donald Trump recently made a reference to the controversial "racehorse theory" of human breeding, which has become a subject of scrutiny by critics as many wonder whether the Republican actually endorses it. The "racehorse theory" is an offensive and dangerous notion that selective breeding can boost a particular nation in certain ways. The controversial "racehorse theory," infamously practiced by the Nazis when they massacred millions of Jews, involves selective breeding and eugenics. The theory, which was initially used for horses and breeding, was later used to justify the selective breeding of humans. The unfounded theory espouses that human race can be made better by selective breeding, a claim which has been widely discredited.

Trump, on September 18, the night Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, made a campaign appearance in Bemidji, Minnesota, and made an alarming reference to eugenics and the racehorse theory. "You have good genes, you know that right? the president said to a nearly all-white crowd. A lot of it is about the genes, isnt it? Dont you believe? The racehorse theory, Trump said. You think were so different? You have good genes in Minnesota."

Author of 'NeuroTribes', Steve Silberman, also slammed Trump's reference to the theory, likening it to the Nazis. Silberman tweeted: "As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I'll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us."

As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I'll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us. https://t.co/CHMLg804mp

President Trump also appeared to make a reference to eugenics during the first 2020 presidential debate against his political rival, Democratic nominee Joe Biden on September 29. Trump told Biden: "You could never have done the job we did. You dont have it in your blood."

The Republican has also referred to the "racehorse theory" before he won the presidency. Trump, while talking to CNN's Larry King in 2007, had said: "You can absolutely be taught things. Absolutely. You can get a lot better. But there is something. You know, the racehorse theory, there is something to the genes. And I mean, when I say something, I mean a lot."

This is not the first time Trump's reference to eugenics has come under the scanner and has been analyzed. The Republican's biographer, Michael D'Antonio, the author of 'The Truth About Trump', had previously stated that the Trump family has a "very deep attraction" to eugenics. D'Antonio, while talking to Rolling Stone, had said: "The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development, that they believe that there are superior people, and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get superior offspring."

President Trump, who contracted the novel coronavirus last week, came back to the White House from the Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday, October 5. However, he is still believed to be infectious and received widespread backlash for removing his mask when he returned to the White House, and urged Americans to not to fear the COVID-19 disease that has killed over 209,000 people in the country.

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Has Trump endorsed 'racehorse theory'? POTUS likely a believer in controversial notion about 'superior people' - MEAWW

Freaks Is the Granddaddy of Disabled Horror, for Better and Worse – IndieWire

[Editors Note: This is Part 1 in a four-part series on disability and horror.]

Watching horror films is a disabling experience, Angela M. Smith, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies for the University of Utah and author of the book Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema, said. Its a controlled encounter with discomfort, with the vulnerability of our minds and bodies to images and suggestions that opens us to unwilled transformations.

The horror film revels in the world of deformity and grotesqueness and, to a disabled viewer, that can be confusing in how relatable it is. For many, to be disabled is also to look different, so how does a person with a disability approach the horror genre when the presented thing to fear is themselves?

Smith said people werent ready for Freaks in the 1930s, and shes absolutely correct. Freaks, for better and worse, remains one of the only U.S. features to have a predominately disabled cast despite being released 88 years ago. Directed by Dracula helmer Tod Browning, Freaks tells the story of a circus troupe and what happens when they discover that little person Hans (Harry Earles) is being poisoned and duped by the able-bodied Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova).

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Freaks, weirdly enough, feels like an authentic horror feature. Even now, the majority of films see able-bodied actors portraying disability that, coupled with able-bodied screenwriters and directors, presents a tableau of disability an imitation. Freaks is the story of a close-knit family, a group of outcasts who support and love each other.

I want to be part of that community, Salome Chasnoff, director of the documentary on disability in horror, Code of the Freaks said to IndieWire. I love the affection and commitment they have to each other. I want to live in a world where people are that committed to me.

Much of this comes from the fact that Browning himself was a part of a traveling circus in his youth. He saw the disabled people that commonly populated what were then called freak shows and wanted to find a way to pay tribute to them. So when star Earles brought up to Browning that he should adapt the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins, the director made MGM buy it for Browning to direct. The basic tenets of the story in Spurs remain, namely the relationship between Hans and Cleopatra, but Browning and a series of directors worked to create a depiction that, at the time, presented the circus performers as people.

Everett Collection (freaks1932-fsct08)

And that warmth is found in snatches throughout Freaks. Outside of the community Chasnoff refers to, there are various storylines showing the day-to-day world of these performers. Frances OConner, who has no arms, is seen casually eating with her feet while performer Prince Randian, known as The Living Torso, rolls a cigarette with his mouth. These scenes, presented so matter-of-factly, display disability as normal. What looks unconventional to an able-bodied person is basic and unspectacular. In these scenes Browning tries to destigmatize the disabled and remind them, in 1932, that theyre people.

Its one of the few films where we can see our disabled ancestors before they were excised from the movies, Carrie Sandhal, Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago said. We got to see them as actors as well as people.

For many disabled people who grew up without others like them, Freaks became a gateway feature to champion. The shooting process was difficult, unaided by the fact that the circus performers were forced to eat outside the MGM commissary, due to complaints from the studios stars about seeing them. And once the film was finished, head of production Irving Thalberg was not happy with what he saw. Test screenings were rumored to have audiences fleeing the theater. One woman allegedly threatened to sue MGM because the sight of the disabled actors on-screen caused her to have a miscarriage. Its unclear whether much of this was created by MGM itself in order to better sell Freaks as a horror feature.

Regardless, the studio immediately excised 30 minutes out of the movie, much of which were scenes showing the circus performers in a positive light. Its a classic film tragedy that still stings today, especially for disabled performers like Adam Pearson who believe Freaks is a masterpiece.

Its so unfortunate that half of it is on the cutting room floor, he said. It got completely bastardized and diluted by the studio.

After further cuts, many of which are now lost, the feature was transformed into a horror movie aimed at able-bodied audiences. Reviews were negative and Freaks was a box office bomb. Not only did it effectively end Brownings career as a director, many of the able-bodied actors were blacklisted. The actors with disabilities, like the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, were left purely making features that treated them as the freaks MGM wanted them to be.

Courtesy Everett Collection

As Smith lays out, the way Freaks turned out was par for the course in 1930s cinema. As she explained, eugenics was a huge element of not just horror films at the time but within society.

There wasa [belief] in external appearance as something thatcould reveal inner pathology, she said. So visible disability or difference was interpreted as a sign of this inner deviance, which was also interpreted in terms of immorality and criminality.

That theme is seen in 1930s features such as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but its not so clear-cut in Freaks.

In the 1930s, audiences didnt want to confront difference and accept human variability, and so they condemned Freaks, Smith said.

The characters arent aesthetically conventional, but for over half the movie we see them as kind-hearted, normal people. In fact, the irony Browning presents is that for all of Cleopatras beauty she is so cold-hearted that shes willing to kill Hans for his money. The film languished for several decades until the 1960s when it was embraced by the counterculture as an example of oppression, injustice, and rebellion. And within the last few decades the movie has been the subject of fierce discussion by disabled advocates, critics, and movie lovers about whether its genius or exploitative.

It definitely exploits the sensationalistic thrills of the freak show, presenting these bodies as deviant and threatening, but only after it shows us that these performers are quite ordinary people, driven to defend themselves against supposedly normal individuals who prey on and harm them, Smith said.

But it also forces the viewer, more able-bodied than not, to confront the nature of difference and realize how we view those who are different, and disability by extension, has more to do with societal norms and our prejudices than the person themselves.

[Tod Browning] was a huckster. He had come from exploitation, Tommy Heffron, film and video artist and an Assistant Professorin the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University, said. But for all of Brownings hucksterism, Heffron said the director still created empathy in his characters while simultaneously making a film so shocking it was banned in England for 32 years. More importantly, for Heffron especially, the fact that audiences are still talking about it 88 years later speaks volumes. Its something Pearson seconds, especially factoring in that it remains the only U.S. film to have a predominately disabled cast.

Freaks is divisive, its dated, but its also groundbreaking, entertaining, and frustrating. Have we necessarily improved when it comes to disability in horror? The answer is uncertain. But this Halloween season it might be worth diving deeper into the world of horror to find out the disability narratives underneath.

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History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States – Teen Vogue

News broke last week of an official complaint filed against immigration officials alleging a pattern of hysterectomies without informed consent on women from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Georgia. Dawn Wooten, the nurse who blew the whistle on the allegations of abuse, and who legal advocacy groups filed the complaint on her behalf, had worked at the privately-operated Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, for three years. During that time, she alleged multiple hysterectomies were performed on Spanish-speaking immigrants, many of whom said they did not understand the procedure. ICE has denied the claims, the doctor accused of performing the procedures has denied the claims through attorneys, and the hospital where the procedures would have taken place, said it only has records showing that two hysterectomies were performed on those in immigration custody since 2017, according to the Washington Post.

While the cruelty of the allegations came as a shock to many, coerced sterilization is not unprecedented in the broader history of reproductive injustice and violence against people considered "undesirable" in the United Statesoften disabled and indigenous people, people of color, and immigrants.

Racism has been part and parcel of American reproductive healthcare from its beginning. J. Marion Sims, the man known as the "father of modern gynecology," exemplifies this. Sims garnered acclaim for groundbreaking gynecological surgical techniques that he perfected after performing dozens of experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women in Montgomery, Alabama, beginning in 1845. Sims operated on Black women without anesthesia, even though he used it during surgeries on white patients during the period. Sims's decision to operate on Black women without anesthesia went beyond a lack of care for the women; it was tied to pernicious assumptions that Black people were not susceptible to pain. "There was a belief at the time that Black people did not feel pain in the same way," explained Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and professor of medical humanities, in an interview with NPR in 2018. "Their pain was ignored," Gamble says. Baseless theories like these continue to inform modern medicine in measurable ways. Racial biases and false beliefs are associated with Black patients receiving less pain medication for broken bones and cancer than white patients, according to research published in 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences.

A generation after Sims built his career on the backs of Black women, the eugenics movement was growing popular in the United States. With it, States began to pass laws mandating compulsory sterilization for specific populations. The state of Indiana is widely considered to have adopted the world's first eugenic sterilization law in 1907, and similar laws were later adopted in 31 other states across the country during the 20th century. The target populations of these laws were defined in legal or pseudo-medical terms"imbeciles," the "feeble-minded"but the laws were deployed in ways that disproportionately victimized poor women and women of color.

Rather than pushing back on eugenic policies during the progressive era that ensued, physicians, legislators, and social reformers further legitimized their prejudiced pseudo-medical norms. American magnates like the Carnegie Foundation and John D. Rockefeller shelled out to fund projects at the Eugenics Record Office, a private research institute that openly supported sterilization as a solution to what it called "defective and delinquent classes of the community." In 1927, when the constitutional legality of compulsory sterilization was questioned in Buck v Bell, the Supreme Court also affirmed that permitting compulsory sterilization of "those who are manifestly unfit" did not violate the constitutional rights of those persons, by a vote of eight to one. Carrie Buck, the plaintiff, was classified at the time as "feeble-minded," but as has been noted, it was actually societal prejudice that earned her this unclear label. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who authored the majority opinion in Buck v Bell, went so far as to claim that compulsory sterilization policies were "better for all the world." Rhetoric like this that framed eugenic sterilization as a positive public health strategy helped ensure the longevity and widespread impact of shameful coerced sterilization policies across the country.

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History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States - Teen Vogue

The ICE Detention Facility Sterilizations Are Nothing New in US History – Study Breaks

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Are we Nazi Germany? This is the incredulous response when people hear that an American detention facility has been accused of performing nonconsensual hysterectomies the surgical removal of the uterus on women. Because of the terror associated with Hitlers reign, people tend to connect any extreme systemic violence to that period of history. While it is certainly true that the human rights violations of Nazi Germany were abhorrent, there is just as much violent oppression throughout American history. In fact, the sterilization of women of color has been a huge problem in the United States since the 19th century. The sterilizations that took place at Irwin County Detention Center do not constitute a terrible exception; instead, such occurrences are the norm.

America is a country with a deeply racist past, built through the labor of slaves. While chattel slavery is the most obviously violent form that racism has taken throughout Americas history, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) have faced oppression in a multitude of ways throughout the decades.

Often undergirding the rationale for racist oppression is eugenics, the belief that reproduction should be encouraged in certain desirable groups and discouraged in other undesirable groups. Of course, desirable, in most cases, refers to white, particularly white upper-class people. On the other hand, undesirable generally refers to people of color. Essentially, eugenics calls for the population of people of color to be reduced or at the very least not increased by any means necessary.

Even before the term eugenics was commonly known, plantation owners during American slavery controlled the reproductive lives of their female slaves. Enslaved women were often beaten to the point of infertility, and those who did carry out successful pregnancies were often separated from their children. As the field of eugenics became more popular, doctors and scientists tried different methods to discourage certain groups from reproducing while encouraging others.

In the early to mid 1900s, they frequently blocked upper-class white women from accessing birth control or voluntary hysterectomies, due to their desirable genetics. Around the same time, large numbers of Black women who visited hospitals left without their reproductive organs intact. These women almost never gave consent to the procedure, and were often not even notified that it was happening. After coming to the hospital for routine checkups or minor emergencies, hundreds of women left confused and irreparably harmed by doctors who were supposed to care for them.

According to the whistleblowers report, the women at the Irwin County Detention Center reacted in much the same way when asked about what had happened to them: confused and hurt. Many of the women at the facility visited an outside gynecologist who performed hysterectomies even when the womens medical issues did not call for the surgery. One woman explained that she went into the gynecologists office to have a cyst removed, but he performed a hysterectomy and she left without her uterus.

The gynecologist sterilized women at the facility in other ways as well. One section of the report describes the predicament of a woman who was scheduled to have her left ovary removed, but the gynecologist removed the right one mistakenly. He then went back in to correct the mistake by removing the left one. By the end of her time in the gynecologists office, she was infertile. Whether by medical incompetence or intentional harm, the gynecologist destroyed her reproductive future. At the time of the report, he had become so notorious among the women of the detention center for his sterilizations that he had been nicknamed the uterus collector.

In the world of medicine, patients must be fully informed about what a procedure entails before they can consent to it. As written in the report, the women who visited the gynecologist often expressed that they did not understand why they needed a hysterectomy. In the case of the first woman described above, she went in for a cyst removal and yet received a hysterectomy. Her doctors were not clear with regard to what procedure she needed and why. These women did not and could not have given proper informed consent.

If such gross negligence occurred at a hospital in a predominantly white, upper-class neighborhood, there would be severe and swift consequences for the doctors involved. Yet the Irwin County Detention Centers gynecologist was permitted to continue practicing. Presumably, he was allowed to mistreat these women and perform these sterilizations because, as immigrants and women of color, they are undesirable. Essentially, the Irwin County Detention Center facilitated the practice of eugenics by preventing women of color from reproducing.

There is no doubt that the information coming from the Irwin County Detention Center is disturbing and horrifying. However, it is important to note that none of the atrocities detailed in the report are new or different from what has been happening all over America for centuries. In the last 100 years alone, tens of thousands of Black, Latina and Indigenous women have endured forcible sterilizations because people in power do not believe that they should be able to reproduce. The actions of the gynecologist at the Irwin County facility are not a blip, or an exception; they are part of a long pattern in the history of eugenics. Yet, perhaps the outrage that people are demonstrating in reaction to the whistleblowers report of the detention center sterilizations is exactly what is needed; it is, above all, vital that those fighting for justice never become numb to the racist atrocities of America.

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The ICE Detention Facility Sterilizations Are Nothing New in US History - Study Breaks

Trump’s ‘racehorse theory’ is divisive and dangerous – SC Times

Patrick Henry, Times columnist Published 5:01 p.m. CT Oct. 2, 2020

On Sept. 18, Donald Trump was in Bemidji,153 miles from here, but we were on his mind.

"From St. Paul to St. Cloud, from Rochester to Duluth, and from Minneapolis, thank God we still have Minneapolis, to right here, right here with all of you great people, this state was pioneered by men and women who braved the wilderness and the winters to build a better life for themselves and for their families. They were tough and they were strong."

Standard political oratory salute the audience with the narrative they like to tell about themselves (though thank God we still have Minneapolis refers back to his preposterous claim, earlier in the speech,that if Joe Biden wins, people will be saying of that city, It used to be over there. Its all ashes now).

Patrick Henry(Photo: Times photo)

But Trump didnt stop there. What he said next was not just a dog whistle, but as one commentator has noted, a train whistle.

You have good genes. You know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of its about the genes, isnt it? Dont you believe? The racehorse theory you think was so different? You have good genes in Minnesota. (The voice recognition software at rev.com, where the transcription of the speech can be found, misheard and produced resource theory. In the video of the speech its perfectly clear: racehorse.)

The audience at Bemidji Aviation Services was overwhelmingly white. Standing right behind Trump were people who are looking for our votes: Rep. Tom Emmer, for CD6;Michelle Fischbach, for CD7;Jason Lewis, for U.S. Senate. When the president made his genes remark, all three of them smiled approvingly and Fischbach applauded while grinning.

Earlier in the speech Trump had detonated his usual blast at recent arrivals to Minnesota. Dripping with sarcasm, he said, Lots of luck. Youre having a good time with the refugees. He then, of course, singled out Somalis.

By the time he got to genes, his meaning couldnt have been more evident. Its white people who are tough and strong, who deserve to build a better life for themselves and for their families. People of color are a threat.

Do we believe in the gene thing? I mean, I do, Trump is on tape saying on another occasion. And he also said this: "All men are created equal. Well, it's not true. Because some are smart; some aren't."

Youd think that conservative Americans, who pledge allegiance to the Founders, would recoil from such a blatant contradiction of a central theme of the Declaration of Independence.

Of course some people are smarter than others, but Thomas Jeffersons point is that in all matters of public policy, everyone is on an equal footing. IQ has nothing nothing to do with it.

Donald Trumps adherence to eugenics the racehorse theory of breeding for people is among the scariest of his authoritarian inclinations. We need to be wary of it the way Germans needed to be wary in the early 1930s. Its not just that You [white Minnesotans] have good genes. Its the clear implication that other peoples genes are bad, which easily slips over into dangerous meaning such people must be kept out, deported, eliminated one way or another.

Trumps gene theory, which grounds his admiration for the pioneers who braved the wilderness and the winters, spills over into his convictions about education.

He has recently condemned the New York Times 1619 Project, which brings into focus the central role of slavery in American history. He proposes withholding federal funding from California until it jettisons the 1619 Project from school curricula. He has decried what he calls ideological poison, that if not removed will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,and has said that under his plan, Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.

To say that the only way youth will love America with all of their heart and all of their soul is to be taught exclusively about the good things the good genes did to be Minnesota specific: overlooking the decimation of Native peoples; forgetting the Duluth lynching; disregarding the research of St. Cloud State professor Christopher Lehman in Slaverys Reach: Southern Slaveholders and the North Star State is to treat youth (and those of us no longer young, too) with condescension and contempt. The civic bonds that tie us together are threatened far more by Trumps 20,000+ documented lies than by the truth about our history.

Recent Times interviews with local candidates were instructive, but the questions thrown were mostly Wiffle Balls. Given Trumps total takeover of the GOP, every Republican candidate at every level, state and federal, must be asked on the record Do you endorse or repudiate Donald Trumps racehorse theory? There is no middle ground.

This is the opinion of Patrick Henry, retired executive director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research and author of the forthcoming Flashes of Grace: 33 Encounters with God. His column is published the first Sunday of the month.

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Trump's 'racehorse theory' is divisive and dangerous - SC Times