Investigative Journalist Roohollah Zam Tops November Ranking Of The One Free Press Coalitions 10 Most Urgent Press Freedom Cases – Forbes

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The One Free Press Coalition Publishes Its November 2021 "10 Most Urgent" List.

NEW YORK November 1, 2021 Investigative journalistRoohollah Zam,who was executed by Iranian authorities in December 2020 after facing anti-state charges for his coverage of 2017 protests, tops the November rankingof the One Free Press Coalitions 10 Most Urgent list of press freedom cases. The 10 Most Urgent list, issued today by a united group of pre-eminent editors and publishers, spotlights journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice.

To coincide with The UN-recognizedInternational Day to End Impunityon November 2nd, this months list highlights cases of journalist murders around the world where the victims perpetrators have not been held to account. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists2021 Global Impunity Index, there hasbeen impunity in 81% of journalist murders during the last ten years.Ending impunity for crimes against journalists is one of the most pressing issues to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information for all citizens.

Published this morning atwww.onefreepresscoalition.comand by all Coalition members, the 33rd10 Most Urgent list includes the following journalists, ranked in order of urgency:

1.Roohollah Zam(Iran)

Iranian authorities executed journalist Zam by hanging in December of 2020 after sentencing him to death on anti-state charges for his coverage of 2017 protests. Intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) lured Zam out of exile to Iraq, where he was abducted in 2019 and taken to Iran.

2.Tara Singh Hayer(Canada)

Hayer, publisher ofIndo-Canadian Times, Canadas largest and oldest Punjabi weekly, was shot dead in his home garage in Vancouver in 1998. Ten years prior, he had been partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after an assassination attempt. In the months prior, Hayer let the police know he had received multiple threats.

3.Valrio Luiz de Oliveira(Brazil)

The sports journalist and commentator at Radio Jornal was killed in July 2012 after being shot four times by an unidentified gunman on a motorcycle. The trials for the suspected perpetrators have been repeatedly delayed and were suspended in 2020, with no future court dates set.

4.Regina Martnez Prez(Mexico)

Martnez, a veteran reporter at national magazineProceso,known for her in-depth reporting on drug cartels and the links between organized crime and government officials, was killed in 2012 after covering several high-profile arrests. A2021 report from A Safer World For The Truthfound strong indications for obstruction of justice by local authorities in her case.

5.Nikolai Andrushchenko(Russia)

Veteran journalist Andrushchenko died in 2017 related to injuries sustained in a beating from unknown assailants, and there has been little progress in the investigation. He was known for his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and his investigative reports alleging corruption and human rights abuses. He had suffered similar attacks in the past.

6.Sardasht Osman(Iraq)

Osman, a contributor to multiple independent news sites, was found shot to death in 2010. Prior to his murder, he had received threatening phone calls telling him to stop writing about the Kurdistan Regional Government. Authorities claim he was killed by a member of extremist group Ansar al-Islam; however, CPJ and other press groups have said the report lacked credibility.

7.Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela(Ghana)

Divela, a member of the investigative journalism outlet Tiger Eye Private Investigations who reported on issues such as sports, corruption and human rights, was shot by two unidentified men on a motorcycle in 2019. Divela told CPJ in 2018 that people had attempted to attack him and that he feared for his life after a politician made comments about him on TV.

8.Sisay Fida(Ethiopia)

Sisay, a coordinator and reporter with the Oromia Broadcasting Network, was walking home from a wedding when he was shot and killed in May this year. There has been little progress in his case, and colleagues believe he was murdered in retaliation for his reporting.

9.Gauri Lankesh(India)

Unidentified assailants shot and killed Lankesh outside her home in Bangalore in 2017, as she returned from work. Lankesh published and editedGauri Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada-language weekly tabloid known for its criticism of right-wing extremism and the establishment. While arrests have been made of those suspected to have ties to her killing, impunity remains.

10.Sagal Salad Osman(Somalia)

A university student and producer of a childrens program on state-run Radio Mogadishu, Osman was killed in 2016. She was leaving campus when three gunmen shot her in the head. Somalia ranks worst among countries for impunity in cases of journalist murders.

The One Free Press Coalition is comprised of 32 prominent international members including:AgenciaEfe; Al Jazeera Media Network,AmricaEconoma; The Associated Press; Bloomberg News; The Boston Globe; Corriere Della Sera; De Standaard; Deutsche Welle; Estado; EURACTIV; The Financial Times; Forbes; Fortune; HuffPost; India Today; Insider Inc.; Le Temps; Middle East Broadcasting Networks; Office of Cuba Broadcasting; Quartz; Radio Free Asia; Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty; Republik; Reuters; The Straits Times; Sddeutsche Zeitung; TIME; TV Azteca; Voice of America; The Washington Post;andYahoo News.

One Free Press Coalition partners with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Womens Media Foundation (IWMF) to identify the most-urgent cases for the list, which is updated and published on the first business day of every month.

The mission of the Coalition is to use the collective voices of its members which reach more than 1 billion people worldwide to stand up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth. News organizations throughout the world can join the Coalition by emailinginfo@onefreepresscoalition.com.

Members of the public are also encouraged to join the conversation using the hashtag #OneFreePress and following developments on Twitter @OneFreePress.

One Free Press Coalition

The One Free Press Coalition every month spotlights the 10 Most Urgent journalists whose press freedoms are under threat worldwide. The Coalition uses the collective voices of participating news organizations to spotlight brave journalists whose voices are being silenced or have been silenced by standing up for journalists under attack for pursing the truth. To see the 10 Most Urgent list every month and to view a complete list of participating news organizations and supporting partners, please visitonefreepresscoalition.comor @OneFreePress on Twitter.

Contacts:

One Free Press Coalition PR:pr@onefreepresscoalition.com

Committee to Protect Journalists: Bebe Santa-Wood,press@cpj.com

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Investigative Journalist Roohollah Zam Tops November Ranking Of The One Free Press Coalitions 10 Most Urgent Press Freedom Cases - Forbes

Stalin inaugurates exhibition on freedom struggle – The Hindu

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Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday inaugurated an exhibition of photographs titled Viduthalai Poril Thamizhagam to commemorate the 75th year of Independence.

The exhibition, being organised by the Department of Information and Public Relations at Koyambedu Bus Terminus, is open to public from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will be on till November 7.

The exhibition has prints of cartoons drawn by poet Subramanya Bharathi in the India magazine, a section on the contribution of women in the freedom struggle, a section from the archives showing old maps of Chennai, Rock Fort in Tiruchi, Cuddalore Fort and Vellore Fort, pictures of all manimandapams of freedom fighters maintained by the department and a section on visits of Mahatma Gandhi to Tamil Nadu with contributions from the Roja Muthiah Research Library.

The section of photographs published in The Hindu include those of Mahatma Gandhis meeting in January 1937 at the Hindi Prachar Sabha; C. Rajagopalachary, popularly known as Rajaji, presenting his first Budget in the Assembly in September 1937; a protest by women at Rattan Bazaar where police dragged and arrested them in March 1931.

Photographs relating to the Salt March to Vedaranyam in Tiruchi and at Thiruvaiyaru too find a place on this panel.

TNPSC aspirant B. Akshaya, who hails from Dindigul, said she was impressed by the coins section and the one on women freedom fighters.

I have learnt about some of them, but this exhibition wants me to learn more about the lives of people like Mayakka, Anjalai ammal, Leelavathi and K.P. Janaki ammal.

Mr. Stalin flagged off a mobile exhibition on the life and contributions of freedom fighter V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, which would be taken to schools and colleges.

The vehicle, apart from carrying photographs, would have short documentaries that would be shown to students during weekdays.

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Stalin inaugurates exhibition on freedom struggle - The Hindu

G-20 Needs a Freedom and Prosperity Agenda More Than Ever – Heritage.org

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The first in-person gathering of the worlds 20 biggest economies, theGroup of 20, since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic will take place in Rome, Italy, from Oct. 30 to 31. To say the least, the summit should not be business as usual. Regrettably, theres reason to believe that the meeting will fail to address the issues that are most relevant to the G-20.

Italys climate-focused G-20 has billed people, planet, and prosperity as the top priorities for the summit, largely echoing the themes of the G-20 talks in the past.

When G-20 heads first congregated about a decade ago in November 2008, the trigger of the gathering was the global financial crisis, with the composition of the group reflecting the shift in the worlds economic center of gravity towards Asia and the emerging economies around the world. Unfortunately, G-20 summit meetings since then have been long on wordsmountains of the same wordsbut short on real, concrete accomplishments.

President Joe Biden will attend this years G-20 gathering to promote his big government build back better agendaand agenda chock full of issues that are not pragmatically relevant to restoring optimal conditions for global economic recovery and growth.

The focus of the G-20 meeting, in which Bidens national security adviser Jake Sullivansaidthe U.S. and Europe would be energized, united, and driving the agenda, is expected to be about whether and how to undertake an economic rearrangement with climate change and social equity at the core.

Equallynotableis that Chinese president Xi Jinping, who hasnt leftChinasince early 2020, will participate just virtually, along with his comrade Russian President Vladimir Putin. Japans new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obradorwill be also absent. And the United States, Australia and France will be at the same table for the first time since Washingtons recentannouncementof the U.S.-Australia-U.K. trilateral security partnership that made Frances Emmanuel Macron quite unhappy.

Despite the less than optimal setting of the upcoming G-20 meeting, the U.S. needs to be clear in its principles at the summit, particularly based on the foundations ofeconomic freedomanddemocratic values.

Unambiguously, the past months since early 2020 have been extraordinary for the global economy, with slowing growth and turmoil gravely inflicted by the ongoing pandemic.

The principles of economic freedom have always been questioned by dictators, autocrats, and others who might benefit from centralized planning and control.Now, however, populist attacks on the free marketfueled by politics in the United States and other countries, as well as by actual coronavirus-related setbacks to the economyhave gained notable momentum.

More than ever, however, it should be reminded that fundamentally a nations capacity to grow and prosper hinges on the quality of its institutions and economic system. As documented by The Heritage Foundations annualIndex of Economic Freedomthat evaluates the extent and effectiveness of policies in four key areas of rule of law, size of government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets, countries with higher degrees of economic freedom tend to measurably prosper in far morelasting and resilientways.

Thats because they capitalize more fully on the ability of the free market system to not only generate, but also to reinforce, dynamic growth through efficient resource allocation, value creation, and innovation.

Regrettably, some of the policy measures undertaken or planned by governments around the world in response to the global health crisis run the risk of undermining economic freedom and, thus, long-term economic growth and prosperity.

Policymakers in Washington and around the globe cannot simply spend their way back to prosperity after the toll public health responses have taken on local economies. For a meaningful economic recovery, its essential that economic freedom is not curtailed by extended government emergency powers.

The path by which the global economy can emerge from this pandemic stronger than we were before runs through a recommitment to the proven ideas of the free market system. It would be a tragic mistake to assume that in a time of crisis we must abandonour commitment to economic freedomin the hope of politically resetting the situation.

That freedom has unambiguously made our societies vibrant as well as flourishing.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

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G-20 Needs a Freedom and Prosperity Agenda More Than Ever - Heritage.org

When Jane Johnson jeopardized her freedom for the people who aided her to escape from slavery – Face2Face Africa

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On July 18, 1855, Colonel John H. Wheeler, who had just been appointed U.S. Minister to Nicaragua, arrived in Philadelphia with plans to travel on to New York City and then by ship to Central America. A well-known North Carolina slaveholder, he was accompanied by his family and three of his slaves Jane Johnson and her two sons.

Wheeler knew very well that traveling with Johnson and her two sons was not a good idea as they were enslaved property and could be freed at any time in Philadephia, where slavery was illegal. Pennsylvania had in 1780 passed what was the countrys first emancipation law, making the state the first place in the history of the world to begin the end of slavery, according to historians.

Per a clause under the 1780 law, slaveowners visiting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were allowed to keep an individual enslaved for six months. But in 1847, some years before Johnson and her slaveowner arrived in Philadelphia, authorities in Pennsylvania repealed that clause. That meant that now, the moment someone brought the slave into the state, that slave was free, Paul Finkelman, an American legal historian, was quoted by Smithsonian Magazine.

All in all, the 1780 law turned Philadelphia into a mecca for free Blacks in America. History says that throughout the early 1800s, many Black migrants who wanted to escape southern slavery fled into the Pennsylvania counties, where many of them were helped by conductors on the Underground Railroad towards New York and on to Canada. But this became difficult following the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, which compelled northern citizens to help in tracking and returning fugitive slaves back to their southern owners. The law threatened anyone who assisted runaway slaves with prosecution and imprisonment.

And it was during this period that antislavery societies including the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia (later the Vigilant Committee) emerged in Pennsylvania, aiding people seeking freedom with shelter, food and direction. Kidnappers at the same time searched for runaway slaves and freed Black people to sell them back into slavery.

In July 1855 when Wheeler and Johnson alongside her children arrived in Philadelphia, Wheeler knew that per the laws, the moment someone brought a slave into the state, that slave was free. So, he told Johnson that if anyone asked her who she was, she should say she was a free Black woman traveling with a minister.

On July 18, before Wheeler made plans to move with his family including Johnson and her two children to Central America by way of New York, he decided to have dinner at the Bloodgoods Hotel on the river next to the ferry that would take them to Camden and on to New York. Even though he dined away from Johnson and her sons, he watched them closely.

Johnsons plan at the time was to escape in New York but she realized she could do that now. I and my children are slaves, and we want liberty, she told a Black restaurant worker at the hotel, who promised to help, an article by the Smithsonian Magazine said. By 4:30 p.m. on July 18, 1855, the young Black restaurant worker rushed to the office of the Vigilance Committee, which was within the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society (PASS) office.

The worker had drafted a note about Johnsons plea. He sent the note to abolitionist William Still, who worked as a clerk at PASS and was the leader of a team of four that aided those seeking freedom. With just 30 minutes for Wheeler to leave Philadelphia, Still told Passmore Williamson, the only White man on his team, of Johnsons plea. By the time Still and Williamson, alongside five Black dockworkers, got to Johnson, she was about to leave with Wheeler and her two sons, aged six and 10.

She was seated on a steamboats upper hurricane deck with her two boys. Johnson, according to the article by Smithsonian Magazine, later testified to the following exchange under oath.

Are you traveling with someone? Still asked Johnson.

Johnson said Yes.

I want to speak to your servant and tell her of her rights, Williamson told Wheeler.

If you have anything to say, say it to me. She knows her rights, Wheeler said.

Williamson asked Johnson if she wanted her freedom. She said she did but belonged to Wheeler. You are as free as your master, Williamson told her. If you want your freedom, come now. If you go back to Washington, you may never get it.

Wheeler, who began protesting, was restrained by the dockworkers. Still rushed Johnson and her sons to a waiting carriage that drove them to his home in the city in what Williamson later described as a quick operation. Wheeler appealed to his friend, Judge John Kane of the Federal District Court, who summoned Williamson before him with a writ of habeas corpus ordering him to bring Johnson and her two sons before the bench.

Williamson told the judge it was impossible since Still had only told him that Johnson was safe without revealing where she was. Kane, after a week, charged Williamson with contempt and sent him to federal prison. Newspapers for over three months carried Williamsons story, reporting that a federal judge was unlawfully keeping him in prison. At the same time, Wheeler had also named Williamson in a civil case after he filed charges of riot, assault and battery against Still and the dock workers who came for Johnson.

Wheeler had claimed that the group threatened to slit his throat and the defense knew that this will not help them in court. At that moment, they had to get a defendant. Johnson risked her freedom and emerged from hiding. On August 29, 1855, she appeared as a surprise witness at the trial of Still and the five dockworkers who had been accused of assault and battery.

She came alongside a police officer and four Quaker women who accompanied her to the crowded courtroom. There, she told the court that she had not been forcibly abducted. I went away of my own free will, she testified. Thanks to her testimony, Still and three of the men were acquitted. Two others were convicted of assault but received fines of $10 and jail sentences of one week.

While Johnson and her team were leaving the courthouse, they were followed by federal marshals determined to arrest her. But state and local officials were there to protect her from federal custody. Records show that her carriage moved quickly through the streets, followed by police officers protecting her. She even had to change carriages many times on her way out of Philadelphia.

And after more than three months in prison, Williamson, who had become almost a national hero in the anti-slavery movement, was released by Kane. Johnson, after a brief stay in New York, moved to Boston, where she married and lived as a free woman until her death in 1872 at the age of 59.

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When Jane Johnson jeopardized her freedom for the people who aided her to escape from slavery - Face2Face Africa

Positive Vibes Only: Mayorkun Performs Liberating Track "Freedom" From His New Album ‘Back In Office’ – grammy.com

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It's nearly impossible to define what exactly counts as neo-souland that's how it should be. A subgenre known for its all-encompassing elements and unshackled structure can't be put in a box.

The best definitions of neo-soul come from examples Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Jhen Aiko, and early SZA. In the newest episode of Positive Vibes Only, Canadian singer-songwriter a l l i eadds her soothing performance of "Alchemy" to the ever-growing list of examples that help explain the indescribable subgenre.

Watch the Toronto native's calming performance below.

"Alchemy" served as the final track on a l l ie's 2021 album Tabula Rasa, which roughly translates from Latin to English as "clean slate." The term stems from an ancient Greek theory that humans are born with no mental expertise and all knowledge comes from experience.

The philosophical title is fitting since a l l i edescribes the 11-track album as "an amalgamation of her collective experiences, two years worth of material, a trip across Europe, and a cathartic homecoming to Jamaica."

Check down below for more episodes of the Positive Vibes Only performance series.

Didn't Cha Know?: 20 Years of Erykah Badu's 'Mama's Gun'

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Positive Vibes Only: Mayorkun Performs Liberating Track "Freedom" From His New Album 'Back In Office' - grammy.com

Letter: Responsibility of Freedom | Opinion | thepilot.com – Southern Pines Pilot

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Many thanks to Karla Keating of Pinehurst, who wrote so well recently about the price of freedom. It was even more apropos published in the shadow of Nick Lasalas piece on risk, yet another tantrum concerning the attack of personal liberties during the COVID crisis.

Lasala states, Risk can only be managed effectively at the individual level, and is completely subjective, as it should be in a constitutional republic.

If we all truly lived in a society existing only of ourselves, Mr. Lasala might have a platform to speak from, but then again no one would be around to hear him. But the personal risk he talks about is not just his, as we all well know how the virus is transmitted from one person to another.

I think its safe to say if the unvaccinated werent a risk to others, most of us would happily want them to exercise their personal liberties to risk catching the virus and let the pieces fall where they may. But, as Ms. Keating quotes Eleanor Roosevelt, With freedom comes responsibility.

Mrs. Roosevelt went on to say, For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. We shoulder that responsibility when we put aside our personal risk-taking and care about the potential risks to all Americans.

Publishers Note: This is a letter to the editor, submitted by a reader, and reflects the opinion of the author. The Pilot welcomes letters from readers on its Opinion page, which serves as a public forum. The Pilot is not in the business of suppressing public opinion. We are a forum for community debate, and publish almost every letter we receive. For information on how to make a submission, visit this page: https://www.thepilot.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/

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Letter: Responsibility of Freedom | Opinion | thepilot.com - Southern Pines Pilot

Do vaccine mandates violate or support our freedom? Avoid anyone who thinks this question is easy – The Dallas Morning News

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The whole world, its like its Ghostbusters II.

Everyones miserable and angry, like theres something in the sewers, some sludge underneath us making us mad at each other. You could be forgiven for thinking it a little supernatural, although it isnt. Its all too human. This time, however, its not Vigo the Carpathian but wherever we are on all these pandemic rules and regs about masks and vaccines.

How one behaves at the store or at church or at school or work, its all confused. Different rules, or the absence of any, in different places, all of it together day after day, wears on body and mind. Nearly two years in, it makes sense were all a bit worn out, many on edge.

Me, running a large church, I take it in the shorts daily from both sides. Some days Ive about had it with all of them. It has got a little better, though, and I think Ive chilled out a bit. But I am exhausted, like Ive been in the middle of some drawn-out family fight. Perhaps you understand me, especially if you run any sort of organization.

And it all comes to a head it seems, the tension most acute, when we start talking about vaccine mandates. All over the country, fights have broken out about it, from Maine to New York City to Alabama and beyond. Its an emotional, moral and complex fight, and one for which we are, I suggest, quite ill-equipped. Not only psychologically are we ill-equipped, worn out as we all are, but philosophically so. The problem, you see, is that not only are we tired, were also lost.

Heres what I mean: After these long, tired pandemic days, were now confronted by a first-order problem about freedom, and we dont know what to think or do. Can a COVID-19 vaccine be required by legitimate authority, or does that violate an individuals freedom? This isnt an easy question to answer; avoid, please, those who think it is.

Rather, underneath the specific question about vaccine mandates, at its root, its a riddled and ancient question about freedom; which, I am convinced, we as a society will not be able to answer any more clearly than our ancestors. Freedom either as detachment or domination, the ancients wrestled with the idea of freedom, too, and with equally limited success. At issue is not our philosophically degraded modernity; this is just a very difficult question. Again, steer clear of those who dont think so.

By one account, admittedly Christian, a person is truly free only when she freely acts according to her undeceived intellect and well-formed will. To choose something foolish or contrary to truth, by this line of thought, is but some form of ignorant enslavement. This, applied to our present predicament, becomes a question about the vaccine itself. Is it moral, and is it good for physical and public health?

On this, outside the fantasies of social media, the Catholic Church (to which Im obedient) is clear: Yes, it is. But can it then be required? To this, the Church hasnt said yes. Rather, I assume, both out of pastoral wisdom and solicitude and because of what Catholics believe about conscience, the Church here is rightfully reticent.

What this means for the many other mandates the Church accepts for example, the many other vaccines required in Catholic schools well, thats a big question. It cant be the case that vaccines, like many other things in the public interest, may never be required. To suggest that would be to step away from Catholic moral thought and, to say the least, public health. As I said, this isnt an easy question.

Henning Jacobson famously took his case against a smallpox vaccine requirement to the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1904. At some level, I appreciate his hesitancy; rolling out vaccines in his day wasnt like waiting in line at CVS. Vaccinations sometimes were exercises in brutal coercion for frightened immigrants and people of color. Philosophically, Jacobson thought mandating a vaccine was a violation of his freedom. But the Supreme Court, ruling in 1905, disagreed.

The court likened smallpox to an invading army; as in times of war, the state could compel a person to serve in the military and risk bodily health and even life, so too when fighting disease, the state does have interest in mandating vaccines. This, aside from our nice impotent theological and philosophical discussion, is the real question.

Will the heirs of Henning Jacobson be denied again? And if so, is it a violation of their freedom? But what if, like other sometimes necessary coercive measures, its in the public interest? Again, would that all people saw the good of vaccinations and willfully and joyfully rolled up their sleeves, but what if they dont? Is freedom at stake?

Again, not an easy question. Aristotle said that freedom does not mean doing what a man likes. That superficial notion is all wrong, he said. Freedom is not free will; thats a dangerous, socially destructive idea and one shared by plainly too many people across the political spectrum. But how do we think all this through when were so worn out and angry, when the body politic and the social imaginary are so degraded and sick?

Honestly, I dont know. Which is why Ive personally decided to get vaccinated, to adapt myself to the comfort of others, to love gently, and to be willfully friendly to the vaccinated like me and the unvaccinated, too. Especially them. Because this isnt an easy question.

Yet no matter how confused I am, I can at least still love the other.

Joshua J. Whitfield is pastoral administrator for St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and a frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News. Email: jwhitfield@stritaparish.net

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Do vaccine mandates violate or support our freedom? Avoid anyone who thinks this question is easy - The Dallas Morning News

Passing reveals pursuit of happiness, freedom and safety – District

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Written by Sarah Elizabeth McVicker, Image courtesy of Netflix

When I was a few weeks old, my parents went to shop at a department store. A Black woman mistook my mother for my fathers maid while she was holding me. In grade school, my fellow students constantly asked me, What are you? This question taught me that people didnt know how to see me and this made me unsure of myself.

Although I am a light-skinned, biracial woman, it took me years to understand what passing was and how I could use it in my own life if I chose to. The film Passing posed a central question of what it means to be happy, safe and free.

Passing is Nella Larsens 1929 novella about two long lost friends who reconnect and experience the world differently through the act of passing as white. Director Rebecca Hall uses black and white cinematography to beautifully juxtapose both Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Bellews (Ruth Negga) world.

The act of passing is creating ambiguity.

For Irene, the idea or acceptance of passing isnt black or white but a mixture of the two. We see this from the very first sequence. Irene is uncomfortable with passing for fear of getting caught, but will use it when she feels it is necessary. The opposite can be said for Clare. For her, passing is a strict black and white. There is no right and there is no wrong. It just is. Clare enjoys the thrill and treats passing as a way of life and as a means for survival. This is not to say she is completely without some fear. She is married to John Bellew (Alexander Skarsgrd), a racist white man who is unaware of her ancestry.

As I grew up, I must have taken passing a bit too seriously and denied my heritage in a sense. One day, my godmother sat me down and said, Here watch this. This is how you act. She played the 1959 Imitation of Life to show me that my behavior was similar to the protagonist, Sarah Jane, who passes for white. At the time, it was hard for me to accept that I could act that way.

Passing is sometimes seen as a way of denying not only ones heritage, but themselves. Clare seemed to be so happy and free amongst Black people. She no longer had to pretend. This is why Clare craved to be around Irene, because she secretly wanted more freedom and happiness. Their relationship is truly a yin and yang where Clare is the bold free spirit and Irene is level-headed. It creates a balance between them. They need each other to feel happy, free and safe. I remember it wasnt until my second year of college that I finally felt happy in my skin, free in my thoughts and safe among the world because I had accepted both sides of my heritage.

Nella Larsens novel is at the peak of a hundred year anniversary and her story is still relevant today. Clare and Irene are living in a world where they are trying to achieve the happiness, freedom and security within themselves and the world they move through. Ruth Negga, Savannah Film Festivals Spotlight Award Honoree said, The act of passing is creating ambiguity. The passer may be unclear of who they are or where they truly fit in society or they may mold to the situation. On the other hand, they may be open and fluid to the idea of passing and accept all that comes along.

Passing has graciously opened the door for more understanding of these characters experiences and those alike in todays world who still choose to pass.

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Passing reveals pursuit of happiness, freedom and safety - District

Freedom to Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration – Folk Radio UK

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A swallow awakens in Africa, its journey northwards knows no borders.A green shoot bursts from the ground, reaching upwards towards the sky.A child leaves home, seeking safer shores.

The rhythms of migrations have no boundaries.Freedom to roam is nature.Our humanity, wildlife and biodiversity undeniably connected.

Freedom to Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration

Goatskin Records 26 November 2021

Sometimes a piece of music transcends being merely a listening experience, however excellent a listen it may be, and The Rhythms Of Migration, certainly far in excess of being merely excellent, is one such creation. The album is one element of a triptych, the two other components being a film documentary by multi-award-winning director Nicholas Jones (A Greenlander, You Are Here) and an album launch concert, hosted by, and in aid of, the Born Free Foundation, whose founder, Virginia McKenna, along with her son Bill Travers, have been its champions.

The Freedom To Roam project is the brainchild of Eliza Marshall, flautist with Ranagri, whose genre-crossing work has seen her perform with the likes of The Divine Comedy, Paul McCartney, The Who and a plethora of orchestras in a variety of shows such as The Lion King, Les Misrables and Miss Saigon, together with recording numerous soundtracks for the likes of Ridley Scott, Peter Johnson and David Attenborough. Originally conceived just over a couple of years ago from the germ of an idea during a visit to the Isle of Coll in the Outer Hebrides, music was to be used as a platform, harnessing fresh ideas related to the environment, wildlife and humanitarian concerns. The COVID 19 lockdown provided both the catalyst and opportunity for time to focus on it and the pandemics associated lost freedoms gave even more resonance and poignancy to the projects title.

As a result of discussions with musicians and others, there was a realisation that there was an interconnection between the, often enforced, migration of humans seeking to cross borders to ameliorate their lives, and the unbridled migration of animals in the natural world, and that the two impacted upon each other, although not always symbiotically. To reflect this as a soundscape in The Rhythms Of Migration, Eliza has garnered the talents of eight leading exponents from the realms of folk, classical and world music and between them, they have created a migratory musical masterpiece.

Given the circumstances under which the album evolved, physically getting the musicians together for rehearsals proved problematic, despite a supportive St. Georges in Bristol, which necessitated learning new technical skills and adapting to different working patterns, not least the use of the internet to collaborate. Perhaps ironically, this is perfectly in keeping with the central tenet of the album, for as Eliza says, online there are literally no borders. Kickstarter funding ensured that the project could proceed, and the album was eventually recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

In addition to Elizas own contributions on flutes, whistles and Indian bansuri, which underpin the album, the award-winning record producer, pioneer of the British Bhangra sound and breaker of boundaries of the Indian tradition, Kenyan-born Kuljit Bhamra MBE, plays tabla and electronic tanpura and is joined by diverse percussionist Joby Burgess, with additional bodhran from Evan Carson (Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys, and more recently Ranagri). Catrin Finch, with whom Eliza studied at the Royal Academy of Music, former Royal Harpist to HRH The Prince of Wales, and more recently no stranger herself to the theme of migration with her 2018 SOAR collaboration with Seckou Keita, provides harp and piano. Other strings are provided by another award-winner, Robert Irvine (Director, Red Note Ensemble, Da Vinci Piano Trio, Kyle Quartet) on cello and Lydia Lowndes-Northcott, who has vast experience in the orchestral sphere and is currently a member of the English Chamber Orchestra, on viola. Andrew Morgan adds additional percussion and synth and is also the albums producer, whilst Dnal Rogers (much sought after multi-instrumentalist, lead singer and writer in Ranagri), contributes bass guitars, piano and percussion. Completing the octet on violin and piano is another Royal Academy graduate, Jackie Shave, leader of The Britten Sinfonia, a musician with vast experience who also toured alongside Eliza with Peter Gabriel.

With such an array of talent pooling their resources, it is hardly surprising that the result is a totally mesmeric hour-long aural experience of transcendent quality, in which African, Celtic and Indian influences coalesce as classical fuses with folk, with just a hint of electronic. The soundscape created is widescreen and cinematic in its effect, akin to the visual equivalent of a painter utilising a vast palette of colours. The fourteen tracks on the album, some of which flow seamlessly from one to the next, are all original tracks composed by Marshall, Finch, Shave and Rogers. Their compositions pretty much appear in that order, a reflection of the fact that rather than just a set of disconnected tracks, there is a story threading through the whole album, a little like the aforementioned Peter Gabriel with his Last Temptation Of Christ.

Our journey begins, appropriately, with Awakenings. Elizas piece perfectly captures the quietness of the dawn, with its peaceful tranquillity suggesting that both time and space are standing still, before a change of tempo and mood is introduced with the title track, The Rhythms of Migration, in which the movement and rhythms suggest the awakening world is moving on, a journey is about to begin. The melding of the various instruments creates an immensely uplifting, joyous feeling, but one which, reflecting the reality of life and the fragile eco-system, is to be immediately shattered in Arctic Lament. An improvised piece, melting ice caps, disappearing landscapes, and the vast expanses of ocean are explored in a sobering, melancholic track. However, is there a ray of hope to be found in Catrins solo, which concludes the track?

The following two compositions, both by Catrin, possibly allude to tentative optimism. The former of these, Turning Tides, certainly has within its title the possibility of being interpreted as an indication that with appropriate action from humanity, the raising of awareness and a more altruistic approach, then a change for good could be affected. In terms of sentiment, I am drawn to make a comparison with Ian Andersons What-ifs, Maybes and Might-have-beens from Thick As A Brick 2. Musically, the introductory harp melody is gorgeous; before other instruments weave their magic; there is no escaping the rippling tide evinced by the sound created. The latter track, Freedom, a word encapsulating one of the albums central themes, not only for humanity but also for nature and wildlife, initially with piano and strings to the fore, embrace interesting chords changes, intriguing vocalisations and a tremendous electric guitar solo from Dnal, and immediately transported me to Attenboroughs Serengeti and the great migration of wildebeest and zebra.

Our journey pauses, momentarily, with A Quiet Place, the first of Jackies seven compositions, as we are given a brief opportunity to collect our thoughts, possibly unaware of the gathering rain clouds, before the rain finally comes, by way of Rain Coming. Another joyous, upbeat, celebratory offering, the violin and cello parts reflecting the life-giving energy and relief felt by those in Africa when it arrives. The rain passes, and the sun sets. Below, the growth of tiny shoots, above the desert sky. Green Shoots and Galaxies, written for the tabla, initially gentle and lilting, before, at around one minute thirty seconds in, it bursts into percussive, rhythmic life before returning to a calm serenity reflecting the awe and wonder of the stars above.

The haunting cello which underscores Leaving My Homeland creates a mood that echoes the grief, fear, hardship, and often terror that accompanies having to flee ones home because of climate change, conflict, famine or persecution, but this hardly prepares the listener for the following track, Brutal. Appositely titled, mans inhumanity to his fellow humans, and indeed the earth is perfectly encapsulated in this angry, relentless, aggressive piece, which runs straight into Run Wild! Again the title is pertinent, as the ferociously fast, Moroccan influenced tune, exhilarating, feral and raw, suggests escape, flight and freedom. In complete contrast, the gentle, delicate Cherish creates the impression of calm after the turbulence of the preceding three tracks; safety, refuge and a safe haven have been attained.

The two remaining tracks, credited to Dnal, reflect optimism and enthusiasm. Jazz-tinged piano introduces Seekers, an open, uplifting composition which, to these ears, continues the journey incorporating different influences and flavours, Cuban, South American, Middle-Eastern, Indian sub-continent, pastoral Britain, before the destination is reached in the final track, Coming Home. Partially inspired by watching the Perseverance Rover landing on Mars, five minutes of cheerful, musical ebullience give a reminder of the importance of home to both man and beast and the percussive beats that conclude the album affirms the heartbeat of compassion and hope for a sustainable planet Earth.

The Rhythms of Migration is an outstanding album. If academics, or others, wished to exemplify the power and ability of music to touch and affect the range of human emotions, then they need look no further than this release.

A drink from this global watering hole will leave you enriched, enlightened and, hopefully, a more altruistic, compassionate being.

Watch the accompanying video to The Rhythms of Migration:

Freedom to Roam Launch Concert: 18 December 2021 at Cecil Sharp House, London (Tickets)

Freedom To Roam is released on 26 November 2021. Pre-Order here: https://smarturl.it/fiv7rw

More details:

https://www.freedomtoroam.earth/album/

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Freedom to Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration - Folk Radio UK

WISekeys Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira was Interviewed by Steve Bannon on Warroom.org About The transHuman Code Bestseller Book and the Need to…

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WISekeys Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira was Interviewed by Steve Bannon on Warroom.org About The transHuman Code Bestseller Book and the Need to Humanize Technology

Video Interview at https://rumble.com/vodsq7-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-and-your-place-in-it.htmlBook available at https://www.amazon.com/transHuman-Code-Program-Your-Future/dp/1626346291

GENEVA / New York October 29, 2021: WISeKey International Holding Ltd. (WISeKey) (SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading global cybersecurity, AI, Blockchain, and IoT company, today announced its Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira had the opportunity of discussing, in this interview with Steve Banon, the content on The transHuman Code bestseller book that was debated at the Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting on October 23, 2021.

In stark contrast to the transhumanism movement whose desire is to create the ultimate superhuman by modifying the person with innovative technology, The transHuman Code was written to initiate the most important conversation of our lives how to keep people at the center of gravity in their relationship with technology and ensure that humans have the final decision and control of the switch.

The risks are so great, but the opportunities are even greater, if the two can exist in harmony. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of collaboration in the development, financing, and use of technology for our future. Organizing the wisdom and initiatives of technology innovators is essential so that everyone understands and stays at the forefront of The transHuman Codes mandate.

Mr. Moreira, noted, The book was published before the technology threat awareness movement, which is now underway, the importance of the conversation has only been accelerated and amplified. Our assembly at the Vatican last week, brought together business, financial and spiritual leaders to discuss how we can program our future for good using the principles of The transHuman Code, provided clear evidence of this.

One critical subplot to the global pandemic is that the very thing we hoped would save us technological innovation has fallen short. But our inability to slow or stop COVID-19 any sooner has not been a technological failure. The real failure is that our global wherewithal is more clearly fractured than it has ever been. Humanity has the tools we seek to solve the issues we currently face, and many others. We just havent figured out how to work as one. But there is still a straightforward way to solve both current and future challenges.

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Mr. Moreira added, In our bestselling 2019 book, The transHuman Code, we offered the world a carefully curated take on the essential conversations that will determine whether our relationship with technology will upgrade or undermine our humanity. It ignited a global dialogue. Now its time for the next step: taking tangible action to ensure that the highest human values are coded into the technologies that are defining how we will live in what is now commonly called the metaverse the digital world in which we will increasingly work, communicate, relate, and reside as global, digital citizens.

This go round, we are not merely curating conversation. We aim to identify and ignite the technological tools and solutions required right now. The transHuman Code 2.0 will establish, clearly and compellingly, the steps the world must take, and the specific areas in which we must take them, to ensure that the metaverse presented to us is designed for the greatest common good and monitor its evolution so it is human-centric and under Human control.

As humans HomoSapiens we can view this in three ways, concurrently:

First, through the lens of a citizen of the physical universe, who desires that humanity flourish through the upholding of our highest values, and the triumph over our greatest struggles.

Second, through the lens of a beneficiary of the digital metaverse, one who enjoys its many benefits but also understands that technology can do great harm if not stewarded well.

Third, through the lens of a fellow innovator whose ideas, convictions, and actions will help usher in the brightest future for our physical and digital world.

Technology is a visible force and an invisible one. We must be aware of both, to ensure human values remain at the helm. A powerful cautionary tale of what happens when human values arent at the helm of technological advancement comes from the late nineteenth century.

To avoid catastrophic consequences, humanity must have more than a few hundred thousand savvy tech entrepreneurs making decisions on the metaverse. We are all protagonists in this global drama. We dont need to look any further than the pandemic were still fighting to know that these digital decisions affect us all.

Mr. Moreira concluded, So the big question is how can we elevate life as we know it, in both the physical and digital realms in which we exist? It starts with an acknowledgment that innovation is both good and bad and reaches us as an internal and an external process. In other words, it comes from someplace inside our hearts, minds, and souls that we cant fully explain. Who really comprehends the birth of an idea? No one. We just know it comes from somewhere inside of us. But innovation also originates from the outside, through the external context in which we find ourselves: members of a large, equally incomprehensible universe. The nature of innovation has never changed. Ideas come from everywhere. How we approach them, proactively as human co-creators with technology not reactively as mere consumers, will determine our future. In the end, what we the world collectively seek is to co-create a future that is both immediately fulfilling and filled with the prospect of greater fulfillment to come. Humanity has always suffered challenges. How we solve them today, in our dual reality of the universe and metaverse, will frame the lives we lead for centuries to come.

About WISeKeyWISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large-scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI, and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an installed base of over 1.6 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens, etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the leading edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKeys Swiss-based cryptographic Root of Trust (RoT) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit http://www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:WISeKey International Holding LtdCompany Contact: Carlos MoreiraChairman & CEOTel: +41 22 594 3000info@wisekey.comWISeKey Investor Relations (US)Contact: Lena CatiThe Equity Group Inc.Tel: +1 212 836-9611lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey

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WISekeys Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira was Interviewed by Steve Bannon on Warroom.org About The transHuman Code Bestseller Book and the Need to...

From clothes and shoes to home and beauty, these are the Nordstrom Rack deals you dont want to miss this weekend – Yahoo Finance UK

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It was Queen night on Mondays Dancing With the Stars, and Olympic gold medal gymnast Suni Lee performed a fantastic paso doble with her partner Sasha Farber. However immediately after her performance she ran offstage. The show was live but host Tyra Banks explained the situation. Suni is not feeling so good, Banks said. Not covid! Not covid at all! But she's not feeling well so she danced sick and she had to leave. But she's okay. Earlier in the day, Suni told fans on Twitter that she wasnt feeling well, but she gritted out a performance, and the judges applauded her for it. Oh, you did so well, honey, judge Bruno Tonioli said. In spite of not feeling well, you rocked that paso Doble. I don't know where you are. Sharp -- it was fantastic. Despite being sick, the gymnast leapt back into action during the relay competition, performing a Viennese waltz to We Are the Champions. Afterwards she was proud of herself for coming back on stage. It's very scary because it's like, I've never done that before so I was kind of embarrassed and I knew that if I didn't come out here I'd be very disappointed in myself, Lee said.

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From clothes and shoes to home and beauty, these are the Nordstrom Rack deals you dont want to miss this weekend - Yahoo Finance UK

ECB survey shows euro zone inflation just below goal in 2022 – Yahoo Finance UK

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Euro zone inflation will be higher in the coming years than earlier predicted and will come in just below the European Central Bank's 2% target in 2022, a survey by the ECB showed on Friday.

Consumer price growth is now seen averaging 2.3% this year and 1.9% the next, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, a key input in ECB deliberations, showed. This compared to 1.9% and 1.5% respectively in the last edition of the SPF three months ago.

"Respondents attributed the upward revisions mainly to higher energy prices and the impact of supply chain tensions," the ECB said.

"Although both these factors were also cited in the previous round, the recent developments were seen to have been more intense and were expected to be more persistent than previously anticipated."

Already close to twice the ECB's target, inflation is set to accelerate further and possibly hit 4% in the coming months, on soaring commodity prices and industrial supply bottlenecks, keeping pressure on both producer and consumer prices.

It will then decline but many policymakers see it remaining above the ECB's 2% target in 2022, making ultra easy monetary policy more difficult to justify.

Abandoning her long standing stance that inflation is "largely temporary," ECB President Christine Lagarde admitted on Thursday that consumer price growth will be high for longer, putting possible upward pressure on wages.

But she maintained that no policy response was needed as inflation would still sink back below the ECB's target once the stress in the global economy, mostly a result of its reopening after the pandemic, is resolved.

In the longer term, defined as 2026, inflation was seen at 1.9%, above the previous projection of 1.8%.

Projections for growth were raised to 5.1% this year from 4.7% seen previously, while 2022 growth is now expected at 4.5%, broadly in line with the previous, 4.6% figure.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Francesco Canepa)

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ECB survey shows euro zone inflation just below goal in 2022 - Yahoo Finance UK

When Foundation Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Isaac Asimovs Vision Gets Lost – The New Yorker

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An innocent viewer of the new Apple TV+ series Foundationa lavish production complete with clone emperors, a haunted starship, and a killer android who tears off her own facemight be surprised to learn that the novels its based on inspired Paul Krugman to become an economist. Isaac Asimovs classic saga revolves around the dismal science of psychohistory, a hybrid of math and psychology that can predict the future. Its inventor, Hari Seldon, lives in a twelve-thousand-year-old galactic empire, which, his equations reveal, is about to collapse. Interstellar wars will be endless, he warns. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now.

His followers establish a Foundation on the frontier world of Terminusa colony tasked with conserving all human knowledgewhere they spend the next millennium fulfilling Seldons plan to reunite the galaxy. Left ignorant of its details (such knowledge would play havoc with prediction), each generation must solve its own crises. The Foundation confronts barbarian kingdoms, imperial revanchists, and shadowy telepaths who elude psychohistorys grasp.

The novels conspicuously lack aliens, mysticism, and other space-opera standbys, not least battle scenes. (I was so sorry afterward I had not counted the number of spaceships that had exploded, Asimov wrote in a withering review of the 1978 movie Battlestar Galactica.) Their appeal is subtler, relying on the tension between Seldons plan and the individuals caught in its weave. They are ordinary scholars, traders, politicians, and scientists: the tale spans light-years and millennia, but never forgets its human proportions.

This is no invitation to cinematic extravagance. Asimovs saga has been enormously popular since the publication of its first trilogyFoundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953)which sold millions of copies. (Asimov kept writing prequels and sequels until his death, in 1992.) Yet the series onscreen presence has been restricted to its influence on other science-fiction sagas, especially Star Wars. Zealously noting these homages, Asimov fans have waited decades for their own epic.

Now DavidS. Goyerwhos best known for co-writing The Dark Knight with Christopher Nolanhas not only adapted Asimovs saga but overhauled it. Planned for eight seasons, and just renewed for a second, Foundation gathers the originals far-flung strands into an action-packed morality play about agency and legacy, freedom and fate. The series attempts to rescue the novels from their atomic-age limitations but largely squanders its material on a clone of every other blockbuster fantasy quest. Though sprinkled with timely allusions, its hero-centered narrative obscures Asimovs most pressing question for an era of political and ecological precarity: What does it mean to engage in a survival struggle that lasts far longer than any individual life?

The TV series has three arcs, each dramatizing an orientation toward the future. The first centers on Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), the Warden of Terminus, who defends its fledgling settlement from invasion. Shes agnostic about the plan (Seldons gone. When are you all going to start thinking for yourselves?). But her uncanny visionslinked to a portentous diamond-shaped vaultunwittingly advance its trajectory. A few decades earlier: Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) enlists Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), a math prodigy from a backwater world, to work on psychohistory, and then, by a cunning stratagem, arranges for their exile to Terminus. The gambit opens Asimovs novel, but in the series it sparks a season-long argument. Gaal lambastes Seldons deterministic saviorism, shouting, You didnt care what we wanted, as long as your plan was safe!

A third narrative unfolds at the imperial palace on the city-world of Trantor, a galactic capital where a genetic dynasty of clones has reigned for nearly four centuries. If Gaal, Hari, and Salvor enact an uneasy dance between progress and freedom, the emperors, all named Cleon, stand for unyielding continuity. They are a royal family of three, each at a different stage of life: Brother Dawn, a boy, who learns; Brother Day, an adult, who rules; and Brother Dusk, a retiree, who, naturally, paints, documenting the dynastys exploits by adding them to a vast mural. (Its grainy, ever-shifting surface exemplifies the shows distinctively particulate aesthetican Ozymandias of nanobots.) Even at the dinner table, the clones mirror one another, synchronizing their every gesture with neurotic precision.

Lee Pace, with a dulcet voice and a conspicuous chest, gives a mesmerizing performance as Brother Day, whose faltering serenity suggests a man beginning to lose his erection as he bestrides worlds. Day spends his time berating Dusk, molding Dawn in his image, and tyrannizing Eto Demerzel, his robot adviser-mother-wife-slave. Played with cunning and world-weariness by Laura Birn, Demerzel has tended Cleon egos for centuries. But her ministrations arent quite enough to salve the imperial insecurities, as unrest threatens to unravel man and state.

Trantor suffers its 9/11 moment when terrorists attack the Star Bridge, a colossal spire that serves as its umbilical connection to the larger galaxy; its fall destroys a swath of the densely populated planet. Brother Day retaliates by publicly executing dignitaries from the suspects home worlds; in a mashup of Caesars thumbs-down in Gladiator and the Death Stars annihilation of Alderaan in Star Wars, a crowd jeers at the blubbering emissaries as he nukes their planets with a two-finger flick of the wrist.

Asimovs saga has no such clone-emperor theatrics. The empires death agonies are dispersed among more oblique episodesa loss of contact with the inner worlds; a superstitious tech-man guarding an ancient nuclear plantwhich gather momentum over chapters and centuries. Still, the Brothers Cleon are among Goyers more effective innovations, giving the original theme of imperial inertia three all too human avatars. In what may be the seasons most compelling episode, Brother Day endures a trial by ordeal to refute a charismatic priestess, Zephyr Halima (TNia Miller), who preaches that the emperors have no soul.

Foundation is much clumsier, alas, when it comes to the Foundation; Goyer dilutes psychohistory from a detective story about the future to a cottony utopian ideal. Jared Harriss Seldon is a bland thought leader who delivers speeches that wouldnt feel out of place at a political convention. In one scene, he shows up to praise starstruck laundry workers on the colony ship. Your names will be memorialized, he says, as believers who threw their lot in with an eccentric, that pinned the fate of the galaxy on the back of a theorem so abstract, well, it might as well have been a prayer. You can almost see the yard signs on Terminus: In this house, we believe that psychohistory is real.

Gaal and Salvor, who are men in the Asimov saga, are both portrayed by Black women actorsa welcome revision of the originals first installment, in which exclusively male principals smoke long cigars of Vegan tobacco. Yet Gaal, portrayed by Lou Llobell with precocious gravity, is burdened with a strangely racialized origin story: Synnax, her home world, seems to be populated by dark-skinned people who reject the empire and science with neo-primitivist ardor. (The planets Atlantean vistas combine a reference to our climate crisis with an opportunistic seasoning of off-brand Afrofuturism.) She defies tradition for psychohistory and Seldon, as if she were born to claim the mantle and correct the blind spots of a problematic white male genius. Its a winking allusion to the shows own self-consciously diverse update of Asimovand exactly the kind of earthbound pigeonholing that limits Black actors in imaginary realms.

A more martial update is foisted on Salvor, played by Harvey with a striking flattop, a black jumpsuit, and an unremitting attitude of frowning concentration. Shes an anxious loner who emerges as a sort of gunslinging sheriff. In Asimovs novel, by contrast, Salvor is a savvy mayor, who overthrows the Foundations pedantic director and forestalls an invasion through shrewd demagoguery. The original Salvors motto is that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent; the TV show gives the line to her father, and has Salvor march into the Terminus armory to see what violence we can muster. Its a characteristic revision for the series, which strategically bundles amped-up diversity with amped-up action. But why not cast a Black woman in the original role of a crafty pol, instead of as another wide-eyed underdog who grows into an action figure?

The larger problem is that Goyers Foundation seems bored with its source material. The plot is carefully tailored to Joseph Campbells The Heros Journey, with many of its fantasy embellishments cribbed from better-known sagas. There are transhuman starship pilots la Dune. Math plays a feeble cousin of the Force; Jared Harriss Seldon looks like Alec Guinnesss Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Gaal, the young outworlder evading her destiny, is an updated Luke Skywalker. Everyone seems to have a special ability, and, where Asimovs protagonists drew urgency from the brevity of their lives, Goyers cheat their way across the centuries with clones, cryogenic capsules, and uploaded consciousness. They are supersized heroes gallivanting through a diminished galaxy.

Whats lost is Asimovs talent for conveying our fragility in the cosmos. His first novel, Pebble in the Sky, takes place on a colonized, irradiated Earth, where imperial soldiers mock the local belief that the planet is humanitys world of origin. Nightfall, his most celebrated story, is set on a world with multiple suns, where an eclipse makes the stars visible for the first time in millennia, and creates a planet-wide existential crisis. The Foundation saga achieves a yet larger sense of scale through its episodic structure: Trantor, a sprawling city-planet that dazzles Gaal in the opening volume, returns in the next as a world of farmers who sell scrap metal from the endless ruins.

The Apple TV+ series could have tried to craft a new template to encompass these constellations. Instead, it falls back on a sturdily familiar one: a ragtag band facing down a mighty empire, with the fate of the universe pivoting on the actions of a gifted few. Its an approach that would have appealed to Asimovs Lord Dorwin, a dilettantish dignitary obsessed with identifying humanitys original solar system. Rather than search for it himself, though, Dorwin relies on the findings of long-dead archeologists. When Salvor suggests that he do his own field work, Dorwin is incredulous: Why blunder about in far-flung solar systems when the old masters have covered the ground so much better than we could ever hope to?

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When Foundation Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Isaac Asimovs Vision Gets Lost - The New Yorker

BIPOC or POC? Equity or Equality? Debating Words on the Left – The New York Times

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Some activists defend the focus on language, saying that the way people use words is not mere symbolism but is necessary to achieving justice.

Saying something like, Black people are less likely to get a loan from the bank, instead of saying, Banks are less likely to give loans to Black people, might feel like its just me wording it differently, Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice organization Color of Change, said. But Black people are less likely to get a loan from the bank makes people ask themselves, Whats wrong with Black people? Lets get them financial literacy programs. The other way is saying, Whats wrong with the banks?

Mr. Robinson added, When youve been on the margin, being able to claim a language and a narrative and a set of words to express yourself is incredibly important.

Still, some other self-identified liberals who said they care deeply about social justice feel uncomfortable with some of the changes and the pressure that can be associated with them.

Ms. ODonnell of Chicago said that, especially when she is among other white, college-educated liberals, Im exhausted by the constant need to be wary or youll instantly be labeled racist or anti-trans.

And Stephen Paisley of Ithaca, N.Y., said he cringed at hearing libraries described at an academic conference as sites of violence, which is intended to reflect biases in how their rare books collections are curated. Rather than language that tries to guilt people into action, he said, he wishes the message was white people, too, suffer from living in a society in which racial injustices and inequities persist.

Many of the words surfacing in todays language debates are not new.

Implicit bias traces to the work of psychologists in the 1990s, when the field began to document the subconscious associations that cause people to harbor stereotypes. The effort to substitute enslaved people for slaves has been long advocated by many Black academics to emphasize the violence that defined American slavery and the humanity of those subjected to it, said Anne Charity Hudley, a linguist at Stanford.

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BIPOC or POC? Equity or Equality? Debating Words on the Left - The New York Times

Two WNY Towns Land On Best Places To Live In New York List – wyrk.com

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Anytime you move you want to make sure that the town you are moving to has everything that you are looking for.

Niche.com recently ranked all the towns and villages in New York State and two towns here in Western New York landed in the Top 15 on the list.

Williamsville was ranked as the 8th best place to live in New York State. Williamsville got high marks for public schools and for being a good place to raise families. Williamsville also got A's for housing and nightlife.

With a population of just over 5200 residents, Williamsville's median home price is $170,800 while the average income is just over $71,000.

Williamsville's lowest grade in the ranking system was a B for residents. Nearly a quarter of the residents in Williams are 65 or older which is not great for the long-term future of the area.

Williamsville was also ranked the 7th place suburb in New York State to live.

The other Western New York town to land in the Top 15 was Eggertsville which was rated as the 14th overall best town to live in New York State. Eggertsville got A+ rankings for nightlife and being good for families.

Eggertsville has a population of 15,721 and the median home price is just under $160,000. The average income for Eggertsville was $72,652 per year, which is around $7000 more than the national average.

Eggertsville was also ranked in the Top 5 for places for young professionals and the best places to buy a home in New York State.

You can see the entire list of Best Places to Live in New York State HERE.

Best Places To Raise Families In WNY

There are so many things to do in Western New York, but here are 13 things that every person from Buffalo should do at least once in their life.

Buffalo is known as the home of the Chicken Wing, but did you know there were a lot more things invented in the Queen City.

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Two WNY Towns Land On Best Places To Live In New York List - wyrk.com

The answer to business rates? A tax on land – The Guardian

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Britains business leaders are demonstrably the modern Bourbons, forgetting nothing and learning nothing. They permanently complain about the manifest iniquities of business rates, but completely fail to grasp the obvious alternative despite it being regularly set out and available for more than a hundred years (Retailers warn budget will cause unnecessary loss of jobs and shops, 27 October).

Very simply one taxes land, not property. When one reads of property prices rising it is not that bricks and mortar have increased in value but the land. Why? Because they stopped making it aeons ago and its supply is limited. Also, the value of a site is largely dependent on the planning permission it holds, ie the decision of the public authority. The value of my house in Leeds is double what it would be if one applied general inflation rather than land value inflation. Why should I have this potential windfall?

If a business increases its profitability it is penalised by an increase in its business rate, whereas taxing land encourages its profitable use as its valuation is on its maximum permitted use. Furthermore, taxing property encourages huge enterprises and many public utilities to hold land banks for future use because they pay nothing in rates. Taxing land values discourages such unprofitable holdings and encourages their use. Spreading the tax base reduces the rate of tax charged.

The practicalities of valuing land are relatively straightforward, even with transitional arrangements during a changeover. The switch lacks only the political will to introduce it. It became Liberal party policy in 1893 and Lloyd George put it into his radical 1909 budget, only to see it defeated in the Lords. It is high time the Confederation of British Industry, Chambers of Commerce and other organisations for business stopped mere complaining and put all their weight behind this much overdue change.Michael MeadowcroftLeeds

In the rush (including from the opposition) to redress the apparent iniquity represented by business rates, I havent seen any suggestions for making up the consequent shortfall in income for already cash-strapped local authorities. Can anyone enlighten me?Mike WakeWortley, Sheffield

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The answer to business rates? A tax on land - The Guardian

NDP MLA Anderson says the dissolution of the Municipality of Jumbo Glacier is a win for people, environment – The Nelson Daily

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The Mountain Resort Municipality of Jumbo Glacier is no more.

In a media release Tuesday, the NDP Government said it took the step to dissolve the municipality in the Legislature with changes toBill 26.

People across the Kootenays and the Ktunaxa Nation fought the development of Jumbo from the start, and todays announcement is a win shared by everyone who worked so hard to keep Jumbo wild, said Brittny Anderson, NDP MLA for Nelson-Creston in a media release.

From the beginning, Jumbo was a clear example of disregard by the BC Liberals for the environment and surrounding communities.

Our government is dissolving the fake municipality, and finally putting an end to this saga.

Prior to Mountain Resort Municipality of Jumbo Glacier, a municipality could not be created without residents.

However, the BC Liberals changed the legislation to allow the creation of the Mountain Resort Municipality of Jumbo Glacier in 2013.

Anderson said the Liberal government was so brazen as to award grants to a municipality with no residents while then BC Premier Christy Clark appointed mayor and council.

Despite having no residents to benefit from municipal services, Jumbo was slated to receive over $1 million in grants from the BC Liberal government over a five-year period.

In response, the Union of BC Municipalities passed amotionin 2014 opposing the funding of any municipalities without residents.

This is a huge win for our communities and people across B.C., said Anderson. Jumbo should never have been allowed to proceed to begin with, and the BC Liberals intention to appoint their friends and then give them public money reminds us all of what they truly stand for.

The Jumbo Glacier area is one of the largest remaining swathes of land in B.C. without paved roads and is important habitat for many species, including grizzlies.

The area was protected by the BC NDP, working with the federal government and Ktunaxa Nation, in January 2020 and will be known as Qatmuk, the Ktunaxa name meaningHome of the Grizzly Bear Spirit

Jumbo is the first local government to be dissolved in the province in roughly 100 years.

Anderson said these amendments in the legislation prevent future governments from creating Mountain Resort Municipalities with no residents again.

Background:

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NDP MLA Anderson says the dissolution of the Municipality of Jumbo Glacier is a win for people, environment - The Nelson Daily

Gladys Berejiklians Icac performance has horrified federal Liberals but only for exposing normal political practice – The Guardian Australia

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Gladys Berejiklians performance at Icac has been watched in horror by her federal Liberal colleagues.

Not her lack of curiosity while her lover mapped out his plans for corrupt profit from a land deal; nor the way this fastidious lister of potential conflicts failed to see or declare the conflict in front of her, in the wheeler-dealer man she loved; nor even the way she revealed again how routinely pork-barrelling is woven into political practice.

The revulsion is that all this is being revealed.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption is an obscenity, Berejiklians fellow north shore Liberal federal MP Jason Falinski told ABC radio. It is star chamber, kangaroo court, crowd-sourced McCarthyism all rolled into one.

Falinski claims to support a national integrity commission but sees more value in a beefed-up auditor general.

You will tend to pick up corruption not in intercepted phone calls, but when you see money transactions happening that dont make sense, he says.

Never mind that it was intercepts that flushed out Berejiklians corrupt former lover Daryl Maguire. The tapes left him no option but to reply with a curt yes when counsel assisting the commission Scott Robertson invited him to agree that hed used his position to benefit yourself and those close to you.

In a moment of grim comedy, one chat with Berejiklian captured Maguire railing against Icac. Its worse than the Spanish Inquisition, he moaned. They could be taping your conversation with me right now and you wouldnt know.

The lesson Scott Morrison has taken is that an Icac brings down leaders who are otherwise doing a good enough job.

Berejiklians plight has reinforced his distaste for a properly functioning national integrity commission. The model offered up, initially by Christian Porter, is much tougher on corrupt law enforcement officials than politicians. Its design gives the government of the day exclusive control over which MPs, senators and staff might face investigation.

The Centre for Public Integrity calls it a sham designed to hide corruption.

If you no longer care about corruption, then you are corrupt, says Centre director Geoffrey Watson SC, a former senior counsel with the NSW Icac.

Trust is the glue, he says. If you start losing that, you are taking a step towards losing why were bonded together as a community.

Icac put corrupt former NSW Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald in jail. Labor is still paying the price for failing to face down those sucking at its teat. In Victoria, Labor is yet to get the final bill for the branch-stacking scandal working its way through Ibac.

The Morrison government is trailing a dismal chain of scandals. But no one seems to get called to account. Ministers refuse to be interviewed by the AFP. Even a debate about referring Porter to the privileges committee over the secret sources of his legal funding is voted down by the government numbers.

No wonder cynics stalk the land.

So far there has been no knock-out punch against Berejiklian. It may never come. But Robertson, in his relentless way, is expected to quiz her more persistently next week on how she could have missed the signs her lover was corrupt. She claims she wasnt really listening when he let slip his expected $1.5m payday from a property deal in which he was neither the buyer nor the seller.

The Icac Act requires ministers to report any matter where there is a reasonable suspicion that corrupt conduct has occurred or may occur.

Berejiklians reputation will rest on whether the commissioner ultimately believes her.

Then theres the pork barrelling.

Stop calling it that! insists Geoffrey Watson. Start calling it misuse of public money.

As premier, Berejiklian passed it off as normal political business.

Its not an illegal practice, she said last November. The Icac tapes show how blithely she overruled bureaucratic processes and even her treasurer and successor, Dom Perrottet.

He just does what I ask him to, she said, promising Maguire he would get his $140m $170m whatever he wanted. Ill fix it.

Right now there is a mighty battle in NSW over legislation to reform the way developers pay contributions to councils, which in turn provide community infrastructure like parks, pools, community halls and the like.

A Productivity Commission report argued there were efficiencies if that money was instead fed into a centralised state government controlled fund.

Its a cash grab, retorts Sydneys lord mayor, Clover Moore.

They intend to possibly pocket $1bn a year $20bn over 20 years and that will be at the expense of our communities, says Blacktown mayor Tony Bleasdale, whose council area is expected to absorb another 250,000 people over the next 15 years.

I certainly dont believe in pork barrelling; I dont think its a practice that should be condoned, says planning minister Rob Stokes, the defeated NSW Liberal leadership contender but seen very much as a future potential leader. His planned state government development fund certainly wont be a vehicle to allow for that sort of activity.

But the trust is gone. The councils are in revolt. The Upper House has stalled the legislation. What might, in perfect hands, be good economic reform, right now has scant prospects for success. Blame that on the casual corruption of our times.

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Gladys Berejiklians Icac performance has horrified federal Liberals but only for exposing normal political practice - The Guardian Australia

Opposition to the National Heritage Area gets a new boogeyman: Bidens 30 x 30 conservation plan – Great Falls Tribune

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It was a rainy October evening at the Heritage Inn in southwest Great Falls when about 20 or so people filed into the ballroom for a presentation, not a mask in sight.

It was the day after the New York Times published a story surrounding the misinformation campaign regarding the Big Sky County National Heritage Area that had swept through the town in 2020 and saw a resurgence in the summer of 2021.

However, folks werent there to talk about the BSCBA, they were there to learn about what was advertised as the 30 x 30 Land Grab, another conspiracy surrounding the federal government and land acquisition.

"30 x 30" refers to a goal set forth by President Joe Bidens administration to conserve 30% of Americas lands and waters by the year 2030 in an effort to combat climate change. Currently, about 12% of U.S. lands and 11% of freshwater ecosystems are protected.

The goal was included in an executive order issued in January with scant details. Months later, the National Climate Task Force published a preliminary report titled America the Beautiful'' which outlined principles towards achieving the goal, but not much on how it will follow through on them.

This ambiguity presented fertile ground for Margaret Byfield of American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), a non-profit working to protect private property rights and the liberties they secure, per their website.

The Colorado Sun reported the organization received $170,000 between 2015 and 2019 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, which serves to muddy the waters of political donations from right-wing billionaire donors like the Koch brothers and the DeVos family.

The group has made presentations in multiple states and already started making ground in Montana when Byfield went to Livingston earlier this year.

This is not about conservation, Byfield told the group of Montanans, claiming the program was from socialist countries, that the models used in climate science are informed with bias and funded with money from George Soros, a billionaire who often donates to Democratic causes. This is about control.

She also claimed private land was a target in the plan and that it would be naive to believe conservation easements would allow property owners to retain control of the land.

She said that when Biden was elected that her organization started to look at his environmental policies, but as she continued a voice from the crowd said loudly, He wasnt elected! the conspiracy that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

30 x 30is supported by 73 countries around the world that have also pledged to conserve 30% of their lands by 2030. The 30 x 30 initiative was kicked off by Hansjrg Wyss, a Swiss native now living in Wyoming whose Washington, D.C.-based foundation launched a billion-dollar campaign surrounding this conservation effort in 2018, according to the foundation website.

Byfield said that all of the science surrounding 30 x 30 tied back to a report from the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute that receives funding from Soros. However, neither the executive order nor the America the Beautiful report cite the report or the Center for American Progress directly.

Byfield included a quote in her presentation from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack as an example of the administration having to "defend itself" and the conservation plan. The quotewas reported in Farm Journal in Aprilwhere he said: I can assure you this: Theres no intention to have a land grab, Vilsack told reporters. Theres no intention to take something away from folks.

And what I really like about that is to explain to the press that it is not a land grab, that he has to say, land grab, Byfield said. That's how you frame a debate.

Byfields goal in this presentation was to foster a grassroots movement in the community to push local officials to oppose 30 x 30. She noted other communities and states that have already drafted resolutions in opposition and showed a map with four Montana counties that had already done so, including Valley County, Richland County, Fergus County and Pondera County.

However, three Montana mayors signed a letter in support of 30 x 30: Cynthia Andrusof Bozeman,Wilmot Collins of Helena and John Engen of Missoula.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte was one of 14 governors to sign a letter to President Biden that questioned his authority to conserve 30% of lands, arguing it would infringe on property rights and hurt the economy.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts passed his own Executive Order in opposition to the 30 x 30 plan in June, which among other objectives sets up training to help local governments push back on 30 x 30.

In the Heritage Inn ballroom, Byfield invited those present to attend a $50 coordination class that would run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. the following day. ASL describes coordination on their website as a process for reconciliation of conflicts between federal and local policies that provides local government with an equal seat at the negotiating table.

She noted a previous coordination meeting she held with local officials at the U.S. border with Mexico, saying the community was overrun and needed boots on the ground. She said the meeting got the Texas Department of Emergency Management to cooperate but didnt specify how that cooperation changed anything.

At the end of her presentation Byfield also promoted giving donations to the organization with a photo of a postcard reading Give $30 to fight to Land Grab! and advertising memberships running from $35 to $1,000, with the Chairman Councils level advertising an American flag print with the John Adams quote Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.

Executive compensation accounted for 63% of the organizations 2019 tax filing, with Margaret and her husband Daniel raking in a total of $192,381 between the both of them.

During a question and answer session, Jeni Dodd, a local advocate against the National Heritage Area, asked Byfield if there was any relation between the National Heritage Area and the 30 x 30 plan.

Byfield described it as a boiling frog approach.

These little innocuous things that this really isn't any impact to your private property, you can opt out of it, this is just to help, you know, promote tourism, all of these kinds of things, Byfield said. Those are the things you have to really be careful about.

Anytime there's going to be any kind of federal oversight, federal funding tied to it, Federal management, National Park Service, you have to be very concerned especially, under the Biden administration, because we know what their ultimate agenda is," Byfield added.

BSCNHA is a non-profit working to bring the NHA designation to Cascade and Chouteaucounties. Its chair, Jane Weber, said that the NHA and the 30 x 30 goal are not related.

There are people that attempt to tie them together, but they're not part of NHA designation, Weber said.

Weber also referenced a Government Office of Accountability report which found that Heritage Areas did not impact property rights.

Heritage area officials, Park Service headquarters and regional staff, and representatives of national property rights groups that we contacted were unable to provide us with any examples of a heritage area directly affecting positively or negatively private property values or use, the 2004 report said.

It's just unfortunate that the political climate right now uses innuendo to try to sway people's minds on something that is a good thing to build economic development for our communities and help us with people who want to do something about interpretation or the preservation of historic buildings and historic places, and historic stories and our culture, Weber said.

An important note on the history of this land being discussed is that Cascade and Chouteau counties include homelands of the Salish Kootenai, Ochethi Sakowin, Crow, Metis, Blackfoot and Niitsitapitribes. The Little Shell Tribe is headquartered in Great Falls.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) described NHAs as partnerships among the National Park Service (NPS), states, and local communities, in which the NPS supports state and local conservation through federal recognition, seed money, and technical assistance. Since 1985, 55 NHAs have been established across the U.S.

Unlike lands within the National Park System, which are federally owned and managed, lands within heritage areas typically remain in state, local, or private ownership or a combination thereof, a CRS report from March of 2021 read.

There are no consistent standards across NHAs for funding and management. When a member of congress passes legislation to create an NHA, thats where the particulars for each area are determined including the management entity, usually non federal per the report, to coordinate the work of the partners. The plan must then be approved by the Secretary of Interior.

Rae Grulkowski, another local activist against the NHA who was prominently featured in the Times story, told the audience gathered that this was an opportune time.

Don't look down on the liberal news because they did this, this, that, the other, Grulkowski said. Let's pick it apart and get the good stuff going out in the community, use the energy, educate yourself and educate your community members, family and friends."

She said that after the Times story came out she disabled their Facebook page after obscene comments and Trump hater visuals became too much for her, but said their Facebook group is still active.

HB 554 was signed into law by Gianforte and requires the legislature to approve the designation of a NHA, but this doesnt go far enough for Grulkowski. She said she wants to tie their hands with funding to make sure that we're protected at any level that we can.

Richard Ecke, co-chair of BSCNHA, said that they are in the process of sending the feasibility study required to be considered for an NHA designation to the NPS soon and that hes not concerned about state approval.

Federal statutes trump state ones, and our attorney said it's very clear that it's unconstitutional, Ecke said of HB544. We're not concerned about it because it's a federal issue, not a state one.

This meeting comes as Montana experienced an intensefire season and drought.

Former legislator Kerry White, a Republican who represented Gallatin County, spoke during the meeting about how the smoke from fires affected Montanans this summer.

"This summer I counted the days, we had nine clear days down in the Gallatin," White said."I was born and raised here for generations. I have never seen our public lands in such a sad shape and it breaks my heart."

White asked Byfield at the end of his comments whether the bottom line agenda out there was to reduce the world population.

Byfield said in part that this was a spiritual battle.

Ive read the last chapter, and I like how it ends, Byfield said. That day is going to come, that doesn't mean that we aren't going to have a bumpy ride."

I absolutely believe this, there's two things you should do every day, read the Bible, read the newspaper, Byfield said. So that you know what both sides are doing, and you know which side you're on.

Former legislator and candidate for city commission in the Nov. 2 election Joe McKenney was in attendance as a member of the Great Falls Association of Realtors, which hosted the event. When asked afterward if he would support a draft proposal like what was passed in other counties if he was on the commission, he said it was too soon to tell.

I would say, if anyone wanted to bring it to the City Commission for discussion, I would welcome it, McKenney said.

The majority of candidates for city commission polled said they did not know enough about the 30 x 30 conservation goal to comment. Eric Hinebauch said he was familiar with it but did not have an opinion.

Fred Burow, candidate for mayor and former city commissioner, said he knew a little bit about 30 x 30.

To me, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why would you push to have that much more nontaxable land? Burow said. I mean, I guess I don't know enough about it, definitely to support it, But it just seems like it's more of a land grab than anything.

Burow also said he opposes the NHA.

I just think that it could be a situation where you have an unelected board overseeing all this and making decisions and it could eventually create an issue with property rights, Burow said.

He said that the NPS has complained for years about not being able to afford maintenance on the land it manages already.

Ecke of BSCNHA responded to Burows comment saying that there are hundreds of nonprofits that operate in Montana that dont have elected boards. He added that members of the U.S. Congress will have to make the ultimate decision on whether or not to approve it, so people can contact their representatives. He said the organization has hosted public meetings in the past and has their annual meeting in January which they welcome the public to attend.

In response to the claim about property rights, Ecke said theres been no evidence of property rights violations regarding NHAs since they were first established.

There's a history of heritage areas going back to the 1980s. So if they can't find anything in 35 years, any bad things that have happened, it really makes you question why they continue to say that, Ecke said These opponents ought to be doing accurate research. And if they can't put up any information about violations of property rights, then they ought to shut up. So they need to put up or shut up.

Incumbent candidate Mayor Bob Kelly was the sole candidate to express support for the NHA.

In my view, it represents an opportunity to define the community, for ourselves and for tourists who are looking to focus on the particulars of our area, Kelly said. I don't believe that this is a federal land grab or will bring horrible things to ranchers, farmers and families that are currently being discussed.

Candidates Josh Copeland and Paige Turoski said they were both in opposition to the National Heritage Area. Copeland said it was a violation of personal privacy rights and a backdoor for government control of private property.

If you look at what happens in Yellowstone on an annual basis with people out there messing with livestock and going places where they aren't supposed to be, that's not the kind of attention that we need to attract to our farms and ranches in Cascade County, Copeland said.

Turoski echoed Copelands concern over private property as it relates to the NHA. She added that she also opposes it because none of [the NHAs] have become self-sufficient since the first two were created in 1985, like they were supposed to, and they're still receiving government funding.

It seems like it's a strain on taxpayer dollars at a federal level, Turoski said.

The CRS report on NHAs said past presidential administrations, namely the Trump Administration, expressed interest in having NHAs become financially self-sufficient. The report outlined that the NPS evaluates certain heritage areas at least three years before the expiration of the authorization for federal funds, adding that NPS has completed evaluations of 19 NHAs and continues to evaluate others.

In 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law the first act to create an NHA since 2009, creating six NHAs across states in Maryland, West Virginia, Washington, California, Arizona and Pennsylvania. According to the CRS report, the law authorized appropriations of $10 million for each of these NHAs, of which not more than $1 million is to be made available for any fiscal year with a sunset date15 years after enactment.

Candidate for city commission Vanessa Hayden was not immediately available for comment.

Nicole Girten is a Government Watchdog Reporter at the Great Falls Tribune. You can email her at ngirten@greatfallstribune.com.To supportcoverage of Great Falls and Cascade County subscribe to the Tribune by finding the "Subscribe" link at the top of the page.

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Opposition to the National Heritage Area gets a new boogeyman: Bidens 30 x 30 conservation plan - Great Falls Tribune

More than 100 countries sign up to target to protect forests by 2030 – Yahoo News UK

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More than 100 world leaders will sign up to a landmark agreement to protect and restore the Earths forests, the UK Government has said.

On the second day of the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow on Tuesday, leaders covering 85% of the worlds forests will commit to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030.

Downing Street said the pledges were backed by 8.75 billion of public funding with a further 5.3 billion in private investment.

The commitment, to be formally announced at an event convened by Boris Johnson, has been welcomed by campaigners and experts, in particular the recognition of the role of indigenous people in protecting forests.

But there were warnings that commitments needed to be delivered on, and standing forests must be protected, as well as there being a focus on restoring forests.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking during the opening ceremony for the Cop26 summit (Jeff J Mitchell/PA)

The Prime Minister backed the move, saying it would support the Cop26 goal of restricting global warming to 1.5C through the absorption of carbon emissions by forests.

These great teeming ecosystems these cathedrals of nature are the lungs of our planet, he was expected to tell the event.

Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival.

With todays unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanitys long history as natures conqueror, and instead become its custodian.

The land covered by the agreement covers spans the northern forests of Canada and Russia to the tropical rain forests of Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo an area of more than 13 million square miles.

The UK is committing 1.5 billion over five years to support the forests pledge, including 350 million for tropical forests in Indonesia and 200 million for the Leaf Coalition.

(PA Graphics)

Britain is also contributing 200 million to a new 1.1 billion international fund to protect the Congo Basin.

Professor Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London, said tackling deforestation is an essential component of keeping global warming below 1.5C.

Story continues

It is good news to have a political commitment to end deforestation from so many countries, and significant funding to move forward on that journey, adding that it was particularly welcome that indigenous peoples are finally being acknowledged as key protectors of forests.

However, the real challenge is not in making the announcements, but in delivering synergistic and interlocking policies and actions that really do drive down deforestation globally.

Careful monitoring of the delivery of each initiative is essential for success, he said.

Roberto Waack, Brazilian business leader and biologist and visiting fellow at international affairs think tank Chatham House, said: The deal is a significant milestone on the road to protecting our precious forests and tackling the climate crisis.

The deal combines action to stop deforestation with support for indigenous peoples who are the forests staunchest defenders. It also includes action to establish stronger sustainable forest economies.

Today we celebrate tomorrow we will start pressing for the deal to be delivered.

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More than 100 countries sign up to target to protect forests by 2030 - Yahoo News UK