Chiefs Andy Reid: Thornhill, Rankin making good progress to return – Arrowhead Pride

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Saying the Kansas City Chiefs had turned in a good practice on Sunday morning, head coach Andy Reid then met with reporters through a Zoom conference call first fielding a question about when injured second-year safety Juan Thornhill would be ready to play.

Well have to see how and when that hes there, replied Reid. He is doing well at this time. Once we get into that phase where were moving him around the trainers are moving him around a little bit more well be able to tell. But hes not ready obviously right now.

Reid said he would say the same thing about offensive lineman Martinas Rankin, who is on the preseason physically-unable-to-perform list with Thornhill.

Theyre all making good progress, said Reid. Its just a matter of when they can come back. As we ramp them up the trainers well see. But neither one is ready to go right now.

But with regard to Rankin, Reid appears to be unconcerned at least for now.

I thought Brett Veach did a nice job of bringing a couple of veteran guys, said the head coach. So weve got numbers there. Weve got some young guys [and] these couple of veteran guys that are added into the mix. So I think well be OK number-wise as we go forward.

Besides, Reid said, there are 14 padded practices yet to come (beginning this Friday) where the team will be able to evaluate how the line fits together.

You know how [offensive line coach] Andy Heck does, anyways: he rotates everybody. They all play the different positions inside and outside.

So Thornhills status remains up in the air and us we have come to expect from the Chiefs during Reids tenure, the precise makeup of the line may remain unknown until the team lines up for the first offensive snap against the Houston Texans on Thursday, September 10.

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Chiefs Andy Reid: Thornhill, Rankin making good progress to return - Arrowhead Pride

UNICEF EAPRO COVID-19 Education Response: Snapshot of Gaps, Needs and Progress (05 August 2020) – World – ReliefWeb

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Update

UNICEF continues to support governments with their back to school campaigns. So far, 21 countries in the East Asia and Pacific region have started the gradual reopening of schools. In Malaysia and Vietnam,UNICEF supports the implementation of safe school protocols in over 54,000 schools. At the same time, schools in 6 countries remain fully closed impacting more than 28 million children. In countries where schools are not fully open, UNICEF supports the continued learning of over 68 million distance learner.

Situation overview

17 of 27 countries in the East Asia and Pacific region with schools completely or partially closed due to COVID-19

78% (121m) of enrolled children (excluding China) currently not or only partially attending face-to-face learning in the region

128 days on average schools are currently expected to stay closed in countries in the region (excluding Pacific islands)

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UNICEF EAPRO COVID-19 Education Response: Snapshot of Gaps, Needs and Progress (05 August 2020) - World - ReliefWeb

Saugus fire that grew to 130 acres has ‘progress halted’ – Los Angeles Times

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The Texas fire in Saugus, which started about 2 p.m. Thursday, has grown to 130 acres but has not caused any structural damage and forward progress has been stopped as of 4:30 p.m., officials said.

John Clearwater, a public affairs officer with the Angeles National Forest, said the fire, which began near Texas and Bouquet canyons on forest land, is 10% contained with 115 firefighters on the scene.

The flames have been boxed in by fire retardant, Clearwater said.

The firefighters are being aided by seven helicopters and three air tankers. A 747 VLAT, or very large air tanker, was also en route from San Bernardino.

No cause for the fire has been determined, but an investigation is underway.

The fire burned up the hillside and grew quickly with winds behind it, Clearwater said. It has pushed into the hill country, and firefighters on scene are working hard to protect structures.

The fire grew quickly from early reports of three aces to 130 acres within two hours.

Most structures in danger are homes, though Clearwater said that structures in the forest might also include barns or sheds. He added that no power lines had been affected.

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Saugus fire that grew to 130 acres has 'progress halted' - Los Angeles Times

Progress continues on the Regional Connector Transit Project – metro.net

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Construction activities continue to progress on the Regional Connector Transit Project. As part of the Federal governments Coronavirus Guidance for America, transportation infrastructure is considered an Essential Critical Infrastructure. Metros contractors are following safety precautions during the pandemic, including implementing social distancing when applicable and the use of masks and other PPE.

The above video shows some of the construction work thats taken place in DTLA recently. As you can see, the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station for the project is being built underground, which means the existing aboveground station, currently served by the L Line (Gold), will eventually be demolished as we near completion of the project. This station work is being completed ahead of the upcoming L Line (Gold) closure + bus shuttle activity set to take place this fall. We will have more information on that in the coming weeks.

The Regional Connector is a pair of 1.9-mile rail transit tunnels under downtown Los Angeles that will tie together the A Line (Blue), E Line (Expo) and L Line (Gold) to provide faster trips to and through DTLA with fewer transfers for riders. The project is scheduled to open in 2022. You can view additional project updates hereand sign up for email notifications.

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Progress continues on the Regional Connector Transit Project - metro.net

Does Progress-Werk Oberkirch (ETR:PWO) Have A Healthy Balance Sheet? – Simply Wall St

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Some say volatility, rather than debt, is the best way to think about risk as an investor, but Warren Buffett famously said that Volatility is far from synonymous with risk. When we think about how risky a company is, we always like to look at its use of debt, since debt overload can lead to ruin. As with many other companies Progress-Werk Oberkirch AG (ETR:PWO) makes use of debt. But is this debt a concern to shareholders?

Generally speaking, debt only becomes a real problem when a company cant easily pay it off, either by raising capital or with its own cash flow. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. While that is not too common, we often do see indebted companies permanently diluting shareholders because lenders force them to raise capital at a distressed price. Of course, plenty of companies use debt to fund growth, without any negative consequences. The first step when considering a companys debt levels is to consider its cash and debt together.

See our latest analysis for Progress-Werk Oberkirch

You can click the graphic below for the historical numbers, but it shows that Progress-Werk Oberkirch had 119.7m of debt in June 2020, down from 145.3m, one year before. However, it also had 18.6m in cash, and so its net debt is 101.1m.

The latest balance sheet data shows that Progress-Werk Oberkirch had liabilities of 137.0m due within a year, and liabilities of 127.6m falling due after that. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of 18.6m as well as receivables valued at 87.2m due within 12 months. So its liabilities total 158.9m more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.

This deficit casts a shadow over the 52.2m company, like a colossus towering over mere mortals. So wed watch its balance sheet closely, without a doubt. After all, Progress-Werk Oberkirch would likely require a major re-capitalisation if it had to pay its creditors today.

In order to size up a companys debt relative to its earnings, we calculate its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by its interest expense (its interest cover). This way, we consider both the absolute quantum of the debt, as well as the interest rates paid on it.

While Progress-Werk Oberkirchs debt to EBITDA ratio (2.9) suggests that it uses some debt, its interest cover is very weak, at 2.0, suggesting high leverage. In large part thats due to the companys significant depreciation and amortisation charges, which arguably mean its EBITDA is a very generous measure of earnings, and its debt may be more of a burden than it first appears. So shareholders should probably be aware that interest expenses appear to have really impacted the business lately. Even worse, Progress-Werk Oberkirch saw its EBIT tank 36% over the last 12 months. If earnings continue to follow that trajectory, paying off that debt load will be harder than convincing us to run a marathon in the rain. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if Progress-Werk Oberkirch can strengthen its balance sheet over time. So if you want to see what the professionals think, you might find this free report on analyst profit forecasts to be interesting.

But our final consideration is also important, because a company cannot pay debt with paper profits; it needs cold hard cash. So we always check how much of that EBIT is translated into free cash flow. Over the last three years, Progress-Werk Oberkirch actually produced more free cash flow than EBIT. That sort of strong cash generation warms our hearts like a puppy in a bumblebee suit.

On the face of it, Progress-Werk Oberkirchs EBIT growth rate left us tentative about the stock, and its level of total liabilities was no more enticing than the one empty restaurant on the busiest night of the year. But on the bright side, its conversion of EBIT to free cash flow is a good sign, and makes us more optimistic. Were quite clear that we consider Progress-Werk Oberkirch to be really rather risky, as a result of its balance sheet health. For this reason were pretty cautious about the stock, and we think shareholders should keep a close eye on its liquidity. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. But ultimately, every company can contain risks that exist outside of the balance sheet. Case in point: Weve spotted 4 warning signs for Progress-Werk Oberkirch you should be aware of, and 1 of them is significant.

When all is said and done, sometimes its easier to focus on companies that dont even need debt. Readers can access a list of growth stocks with zero net debt 100% free, right now.

PromotedIf youre looking to trade Progress-Werk Oberkirch, open an account with the lowest-cost* platform trusted by professionals, Interactive Brokers. Their clients from over 200 countries and territories trade stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds worldwide from a single integrated account.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. *Interactive Brokers Rated Lowest Cost Broker by StockBrokers.com Annual Online Review 2020

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

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Does Progress-Werk Oberkirch (ETR:PWO) Have A Healthy Balance Sheet? - Simply Wall St

Stimulus Talks Drag OnWith Little ProgressAfter Another Week Of Lapsed Unemployment Benefits And Eviction Protections – Forbes

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TOPLINE

One day before a Friday deadline to reach a deal on the next round of stimulus legislation, top policymakers in Washington are facing deep divisions and making little progress on the package.

U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to members of the press as Senate Minority ... [+] Leader Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) listens at the U.S. Capitol August 4, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Though it looks like the GOP may be willing to make some concessions, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday evening that the Trump Administration and top Democrats are still trillions of dollars apart on a deal.

That multi-trillion dollar gulfRepublicans want to keep the new bill under $1 trillion, while the Democratic plan is three times more expensivehas some leaders in the GOP expressing doubt over whether a deal will happen at all.

Even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that well certainly be in next weekmeaning that the Senate will stay in session instead of leaving for a scheduled recessmost Senators are headed home anyway on Thursday to await news of a deal, Politico reported Thursday.

President Trump, who along with McConnell has been absent from the negotiating table, doubled down on his threat Wednesday to bypass Congress by using executive orders to address eviction protections, unemployment benefits, and a term-limited payroll tax cut suspension.

I feel optimistic that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but how long that tunnel is remains to be seen, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday evening.

5.4 million. Thats how many Americans will be unable to cover their basic expenses this month without the CARES Acts $600-per-week federal unemployment supplement, according to a new Morning Consult poll. The studys authors also emphasized that its unlikely that these payments discourage workers from returning to their jobs, and that slashing the paymentsa major priority for the GOPprobably wont boost overall employment numbers. It is unlikely the decrease in [unemployment insurance] benefit payments in August will drive an increase in employment, the study says.

A critical meeting between Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled for Thursday evening. The meeting could be the determining factor in whether the negotiators have a deal tomorrowthe deadline they imposed for themselves earlier this weekor not.

McConnell Says Senate Will Delay Recess To Negotiate, But Some GOP Leaders Dont Think A Deal Is Coming (Forbes)

Second Stimulus: Heres What It Looks Like It Will Include (Forbes)

McConnell: Im Prepared To Support A Coronavirus Stimulus Bill That Includes $600 Unemployment Checks (Forbes)

A New Small Business Relief ProposalEven Bigger Than The PPPCould Be Part Of The Next Stimulus Bill (Forbes)

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Stimulus Talks Drag OnWith Little ProgressAfter Another Week Of Lapsed Unemployment Benefits And Eviction Protections - Forbes

Tesla Giga Austin Surprises With Fast Pace Of Progress: August 7, 2020 – InsideEVs

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We are accustomed to the fact that Tesla's gigafactory projects are massive and get built very fast, but work at the Tesla Giga Austin in Texas might raise the bar even higher.

It seems that the company has contracted a high number of people and equipment to clear the plot and prepare the site for construction. Things are changing quickly on a large scale, despite there being some serious swamps that have to be reclaimed. It's probably not the best ground to build on, but after removing the topsoil and then building up layer by layer, it should be fine to build massive structures.

Here we have two new videos, first from Terafactory Texas (record on August 7) and the second from Jeff Roberts (recorded on August 6), which both revealed huge progress compared to just several days ago.

The work has to progress at such a quick pace if Tesla really wants to produce Semi and Cybertruck before the end of 2021.

Tesla Gigafactory 5 in Austin, Texas - summary:

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Tesla Giga Austin Surprises With Fast Pace Of Progress: August 7, 2020 - InsideEVs

Seahawks targeting Clay Matthews, Everson Griffen after no progress on Jadeveon Clowney talks, per report – CBS Sports

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Watch Now: Pete Carroll 'Open' to Josh Gordon Coming Back (2:40)

Safety might not be the only position getting a big-name addition in Seattle. Months after allowing star pass rusher Jadeveon Clowney to hit free agency, the Seahawks "appear to have moved on" from their 2019 trade acquisition, according to NFL Network's Mike Silver. And they've got two names on their radar as potential replacements, per Silver: Clay Matthews and Everson Griffen.

Reports have long indicated that Clowney, who remains unsigned, turned down a sizable offer from the Seahawks to stay in Seattle. Silver indicates that deal would have paid him more than $15 million in 2020 -- a sign that the former No. 1 overall pick hasn't dropped his initial asking price as much as anticipated. Upon hitting the open market, Clowney was reportedly seeking upwards of $20 million per season, though some believed that demand fell to between $17-18 million early in free agency.

Either way, as has been speculated before, the Seahawks don't appear anywhere close to reuniting with the defensive lineman, hence their reported interest in Matthews and Griffen.

Griffen, the longtime Minnesota Vikings starter, has reportedly been on Seattle's wish list since March. The 32-year-old four-time Pro Bowler hasn't ruled out a return to Minnesota but reportedly elected not to sign with any team until the NFL finalized COVID-19 protocols and permitted him to physically visit team facilities.

Matthews, meanwhile, has had a quiet market since the Los Angeles Rams released him in March. A six-time Pro Bowler best known for his days with the Green Bay Packers, the 34-year-old has more experience standing up as a pass rusher and has played a full season just once in the last four years. But he's also fresh off an eight-sack season and would instantly give the Seahawks' defense another experienced front-seven presence.

The Seahawks are estimated to have just under $10 million in salary cap space entering the 2020 season.

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Seahawks targeting Clay Matthews, Everson Griffen after no progress on Jadeveon Clowney talks, per report - CBS Sports

New appointees to Franciss financial powerhouse signal progress of women – Crux: Covering all things Catholic

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ROME Pope Francis has long advocated for a more incisive presence of women in positions of authority and leadership in the Vatican, and while some have complained about the pace at which changes are being made, the recent appointment of six women to the Vaticans chief financial office has jolted things into warp drive.

On Thursday, the Vatican announced that Francis had named two women each from Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom to his 15-member Council for the Economy.

He also named one Italian layman and replaced six of the original eight cardinals on the council, naming Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark as the only American, and leaving in place German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich as the bodys coordinator.

Established by the pope in 2014 with a 5-year term for members, the body oversees Vatican finances. The bodys statutes stipulate that the majority of members must be either cardinals or bishops, who are always male, however, until yesterday no woman has ever been named to the council.

Last year rumors went out that the Vatican was searching for a woman to take the place of Australian Cardinal George Pell, who at the time was jailed on charges of historical sexual abuse but who has since been acquitted, as head of the Vaticans Secretariat for the Economy. However, in November 2019 Francis appointed Jesuit Father Juan Antonio Guerrero to the post.

The appointment of six women to the Council of the Economy now marks one of the most significant moves Pope Francis has made in making good on his many affirmations of the importance of women and their input.

In his speech to the Roman Curia right before Christmas in December 2016, Francis said that of great importance in Vatican reform is an enhanced role for women and lay people in the life of the Church and their integration into roles of leadership in the dicasteries, with particular attention to multiculturalism.

In a speech to consultants of the Vatican office for Laity, Family and Life in November 2019, he stressed that the Church must not be afraid to include women in advisory positions, also in governance.

At the time, he stressed that women are not mere functionaries, but that their advice is very important.

In 2017 Pope Francis named Barbara Jatta, an Italian art historian, as head of the Vatican Museums. Earlier this year, he appointed Francesca Di Giovanni, who has long been on staff at the Vaticans Secretariat of State, as an undersecretary in that office.

Francis has also appointed two laywomen, Gabriella Gambino and Linda Ghisoni, as undersecretaries for the Vatican office for Laity, Family and Life.

Women named to the Council for the Economy include German Professor Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof, a professor of law at Heinrich-Heine University Dusseldorf and chairperson of the Hildegaris Association, an organization of Catholic women in Germany dedicated to assisting female students in need, and Marija Kolak, a mother of three who currently serves as president of The National Association of German Cooperative Banks.

Members from Spain include Maria Concepcion Osacar Garaicoechea, a founding partner of the Azora Group assent management company and is a trustee of the Official credit Institute Foundation and a member of the Governing Board of the Association of management progress. A mother of two, Osacar Garaicoechea has also held numerous positions with banks and other investment companies.

Also from Spain is Eva Castillo Sanz, who holds a degree in Law and Business Studies from the Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid, and who sits on the board of directors for Spanish Bank Bankia S.A., and for the Zardoya Otis S.A. company developing equipment such as elevators, escalators and moving walkways.

She has held numerous other positions, including director of Merrill Lynch Private Banking for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and she also served as president of Merrill Lynch Spain and Portugal.

Ruth Mary Kelly, who served as the UK Secretary of State for Education from 2004-2008 before joining the HSBC Global Asset Management company as Global Head of Client Strategy is also a new member. Kelly is currently Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at St. Marys University, Twickenham in south-west London.

The last woman to be named to the council is also from Great Britain: Harvard-educated Lesile Jane Ferrar, who served as treasurer for Prince Charles from 2015-2017.

In addition, Italian layman Alberto Minali, who holds a degree in Political Economy from the Bocconi University in Verona and has held numerous positions at financial and insurance companies, has also been named to the council.

Aside from Tobin, new members of the hierarchy who were named include Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo of Budapest; Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Scherer of Sao Paolo; Canadian Cardinal Gerald Cyprien Lacroix of Quebec; Swedish Cardinal Anders Aborelius of Stockholm; and Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of LAquila.

While Francis has closed the door to womens priestly ordination and has punted on the question of women deacons, he has continued to speak out about the need for women in leadership, and has acknowledged the abuse of women religious at the hands of male clergy.

In a recent interview SomosCONFER, the official publication of the Conference of Spanish Religious, an umbrella organization for religious congregations in Spain, Brazilian Cardinal Braz de Aviz criticized what he said is a state of dominance that men often hold over women in the Catholic Church.

RELATED: Vatican official laments system of dominance, submission for women religious

In the interview, Braz de Aviz noted that, In many cases, the relationship between consecrated men and women represents a sick system of relations of submission and dominance that takes away the sense of freedom and joy, calling the dynamic, a misunderstood obedience.

In an interview published in the May edition of the Vatican newspapers monthly womens insert, Woman, Church, World, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet said there is a dysfunctional relationship between men and women in the Church, and called for more women to be involved not only in positions of leadership, but also priestly formation.

RELATED: Female theologians back Ouellet: Seminaries need women involved in formation

The real danger, are men who do not have a balanced relationship with women. This is what we must radically change, he said, insisting that frequent exchanges with women help seminarians interact with them in a natural way, and to face the challenges represented by the presence of women.

This must be taught and learned from the beginning, not isolating priests who then find themselves brutally in reality, [because] then they can lose control, he said.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on Twitter:@eliseannallen

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New appointees to Franciss financial powerhouse signal progress of women - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

Artist Abel Azcona Calls on His Native Spain to Atone for Its Colonial Legacy – Artsy

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Espaa os pide perdn has now become a collaborative project, where artists from over 20 Latin American cities so far have volunteered to place the posters in their countries of residence. The plan is to continue the installations journey through more cities until 2022. So far, the project includes Havana, Cuba; Mexico City, Mexico; Lima, Peru; Caracas, Venezuela; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago de Chile, Chile; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Montevideo, Uruguay; La Paz, Bolivia; Panama City, Panama; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Quito and Cuenca, Ecuador. Each group of collaborators has the freedom to decide exactly where to place the posters, often using strategic public spaces like historic monuments.

The ephemerality of the posters are preserved through photographs, which are widely shared on social media. By engaging both physical and online spaces, Azcona conceptualizes the piece as a collective performance where the audience becomes an active participant every time someone reacts or comments in real life, as well as on the internet.

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Artist Abel Azcona Calls on His Native Spain to Atone for Its Colonial Legacy - Artsy

The Coronavirus Could Be Controlled by October With the Right Steps – The New York Times

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Six to eight weeks. Thats how long some of the nations leading public health experts say it would take to finally get the United States coronavirus epidemic under control. If the country were to take the right steps, many thousands of people could be spared from the ravages of Covid-19. The economy could finally begin to repair itself, and Americans could start to enjoy something more like normal life.

Six to eight weeks. For proof, look at Germany. Or Thailand. Or France. Or nearly any other country in the world.

In the United States, after a brief period of multistate curve-flattening, case counts and death tolls are rising in so many places that Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administrations coronavirus response coordinator, described the collective uptick as a sprawling new phase of the pandemic. Rural communities are as troubled as urban ones, and even clear victories over the virus, in places like New York and Massachusetts, feel imperiled.

At the same time, Americans are fatigued from spending months under semi-lockdown. Bars and restaurants are reopening in some places, for indoor service and debates are underway over if and when and how to do the same for schools even as the virus continues to spread unchecked. Long delays in testing have become an accepted norm: It can still take up to two weeks to get results in some places. As the national death toll climbs above 160,000, mask wearing is still not universal.

Its no mystery how America got here. The Trump administrations response has been disjointed and often contradictory, indifferent to science, suffused with politics and eager to hand off responsibility to state leaders. Among the states, the response has also been wildly uneven.

Its also no surprise where the country is headed. Unless something changes quickly, millions more people will be sickened by the virus, and well over a million may ultimately die from it. The economy will contract further as new surges of viral spread overwhelm hospitals and force further shutdowns and compound suffering, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.

The path to avoiding those outcomes is as clear as the failures of the past several months.

Scientists have learned a lot about this coronavirus since the first cases were reported in the United States earlier this year. For instance, they know now that airborne transmission is a far greater risk than contaminated surfaces, that the virus spreads through singing and shouting as much as through coughing, and that while any infected person is a potential vector, superspreading events as in nursing homes, meatpacking plants, churches and bars are major drivers of the pandemic. By most estimates, just 10 to 20 percent of coronavirus infections account for 80 percent of transmissions.

Experts have also learned a lot about what it takes to get a coronavirus outbreak under control. Most of the necessary steps are the same ones public health experts have been urging for months.

Just because America has largely bungled these steps so far doesnt mean it cant turn things around. The nation can do better. It must.

President Trump and his closest advisers have repeatedly contradicted the scientific evidence, and even themselves, on the severity of the pandemic and the best ways to respond to it. Theyve sown confusion on the importance of mask wearing, the dangers of large gatherings, the potential of untested treatments, the availability of testing and the basic matter of who is in charge of what in the pandemic response.

That confusion seems to have bred a national apathy and a dangerous partisanship over public health measures that will be difficult to undo. But leaders at every level can improve the situation by coordinating their messaging: Masks are essential and will be required in all public places. Social distancing is a civic responsibility. The virus is not going away anytime soon, but we can get it under control quickly if we work together.

Such messaging works best when it comes from the very top, but state and local leaders dont have to wait for federal leaders to step up.

As Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has noted: The United States has a glut of data and a dearth of information.

Data on who is getting sick and where is not being used to guide interventions, and crucial figures like test result times and the portion of new cases that were found through contact tracing are not consistently or routinely reported. If scientists had better access to such figures, they could use it to forecast Covid-19 conditions the same way they forecast the weather: warning when a given outbreak is spreading and advising people to adjust their plans accordingly. State and local leaders can make all their data public, and the C.D.C. ought to help them get that data into a usable form.

In places like Melbourne, Australia, and Harris County, Texas, health officials have created numerical and color-coded threat assessments that tell officials and citizens exactly what to do, based on how extensively the coronavirus is spreading in their communities. The highest alert levels call for full-on shelter in place, while the lowest call for careful monitoring of high-risk establishments.

It would behoove the C.D.C. to create a similar, evidence-based scale and work with state and local leaders to employ it in individual communities. In places where the virus is still rampant, that would mean much more aggressive shutdowns than have been carried out in the past. (The United States has not had a true national lockdown, shuttering only about half the country, compared with 90 percent in other countries with more successful outbreak control.)

Smarter shutdowns may also mean closing bars and indoor dining in many places so schools there can reopen more safely; closing meat processing plants until better protections are in place; and tightening state borders in a sensible, as-needed fashion.

The most consistent mantra of experts trying to get the coronavirus pandemic under control has been that the nation needs much better testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine protocols. Despite examples across the globe for how to achieve all four, the United States has largely failed on these fronts. Testing delays make contact tracing not to mention isolation and quarantine impossible to execute.

To resolve the crisis, federal officials need to commandeer the intellectual property of companies that have developed effective rapid diagnostics and utilize the Defense Production Act to make and distribute as many of those tests as possible. As testing is brought up to speed, officials also need to expand contact tracing and quarantine programs so that once outbreaks are brought under control, states are prepared to keep them in check.

The causes of Americas great pandemic failure run deep, exacerbated by innumerable longstanding problems, from a weak public health infrastructure to institutional racism to systemic inequality in health care, housing and employment. If the pandemic forces the nation to meaningfully grapple with any of those issues, then perhaps all this suffering will not have been in vain. But that work cant really begin until Americans solve the problem thats right in front of them, with the tools that are already at their disposal.

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The Coronavirus Could Be Controlled by October With the Right Steps - The New York Times

Citizen Free Press, breaking away from other alt-Drudge sites – Washington Examiner

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Its a news website run out of a house in Bloomington, Indiana, by a secretive internet whiz who had a bit part in the classic Middle America movie Breaking Away. A mention of Citizen Free Press often brings a shrug even in news-hungry Washington.

But overnight, the site that calls itself an alternative to the once-conservative Drudge Report has shot past competitors and is now poised to dominate the right-leaning media space.

"It's fantastic. I love it. I'm breaking every rule in the modern digital news business with no social media, no Facebook, no branding, no email, and the site is succeeding beyond my wildest dreams, said the one-man operator who goes by Kane."

According to the web traffic counter SimilarWeb, he recorded 6.35 million visits and 45 million page views last month. Thats just a sliver of Drudges numbers, but it puts Citizen Free Press in the top of conservative news sites for page views. Plus, visitors stay a remarkable 17 minutes. And it happened during a period when CFP was briefly knocked off Google.

The shift by the Drudge Report from seemingly conservative, pro-President Trump, to anti-Trump, has opened the door to several conservative news aggregators to grow, and Citizen Free Press has jumped the furthest fastest.

Like Drudge and unlike traditional news sites, such as the Washington Examiner, it lists stories from other sites, often with edgy, sometimes rude headlines. Today, for example, headlines include When Obama cut the payroll tax, Pelosi loved it, and Cuomo begs fleeing New Yorkers Come back, I will cook for you

Unlike Drudge, Kane also writes his own posts from the stories of others, and that helps boost traffic because he includes eye-catching videos. And for posts that do well, he puts them in a library under his list.

While Drudge and many websites have stalled in recent weeks, CFP traffic is jumping, up 1,000% since January 2019, and he hopes to hit 100 million page views a month in a year. He told us that traffic is increasing 5,000-6,000 a month.

As with most new websites, building audiences can be hard, especially when there isnt any brand. Conservative pundit and podcaster Dan Bongino, for example, was able to get a quick start after launching his Drudge alternative site, the BonginoReport.com, in part because he is well known and has a following on conservative media circles.

For CFP, its been word of mouth, an organic type of growth that has given it about 160,000 regulars who help spread the word, said Kane.

"For context, in January of 2020, CFP had 100,000 daily regulars. Now in August, CFP has grown to 160,000 hardcore readers, who visit the site every single day, multiple times each, he said. These 'sticky' numbers are unheard of in the news website business for virtually every other site except Drudge Report itself, which boasts similar engagement numbers, he added.

Kane also credits his style of listing news stories, a primitive presentation even compared to the old school look of Drudge, though he copied the style of Drudge's banner.

It's all about the list. I designed CFP to be as user-friendly as possible, so readers can quickly find new stories, right at the top. I try to write creative headlines. I guess that helps somewhat. It's an alternative approach to news, he said.

With promotion and advertising, Kane said CFP is set to get bigger. Almost no one knows about the site. There is no Facebook page, on purpose, no advertising, no media appearances, no promotion, he said, though it is on a path of 50 million page views in August.

There's a lot of room for growth, said Kane.

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Citizen Free Press, breaking away from other alt-Drudge sites - Washington Examiner

Whats Left To Conserve? – The Bulwark

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Conservatism is in crisis. But we knew that.

With the exception of 2004a squeaker that came down to the wire in Ohio, almost necessitating a replay of Floridas dramatic 2000 recountthe conservative movement has not unambiguously won a presidential election by popular vote since 1988.

And that was before Trump came along. Since that time, of course, the conservative movement has been tarred by association not only with Trumps corruption, incompetence, and brutality, but also with the dangerous fanatics of the alt-right and similar white supremacist groups whom he has tolerated, even tacitly allied with. If the conservative movement had troubles already, a key guardrail had broken: the very people whom William F. Buckley and others had desperately tried to keep out of the movement, and who had been seen off again and again, in the persona of George Wallace, David Duke, Pat Buchanan, and others, had now taken control of the movement.

Amid the current culture war, and especially its latest and hardest-contested battleground, the understanding and commemoration of American history itself, traditional conservatives have a vital role to play. But only if they go back to first principles: reverence for the Constitution and its freedoms, and a commitment to implement them for all Americans, not just some. These core values, not a thoughtless and unqualified deification of the past, nor a Manichaean opposition to the ideas of others, will ensure that conservative values will endure.

A Zombie From The 80s

American conservatism has always had a spotty record on racial matters. Even though founders of the modern conservative movement like William F. Buckley sought to distance themselves from overt bigots, anti-Semites, and crackpots, their own record on matters of civil rights was spotty at best, checkered at worst. More recently, the law and order conservatism of the Reagan era, however sympathetically one reads it in light of the Boomer crime wave, carried with it a contempt for civil rights and a tolerance for abuse of power.

These problems look quaint in retrospect. Today, the conservative movement looks dated at the very least, and toxic at worst. Perhaps the biggest indicator of the conservative movements weakness was that, at the time Trump knocked it over in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, 16 other candidates had no real solution to Americas problems. Despite repeated allusions to a 1980s icon in the form of Ronald Reagan, there was no vision.

This is unfortunate not just for the conservative movement, but for America. Obscured by the fanaticism and partisanship brought on by Trump, the American left has gone crazy. The left has avoided the much-needed discussion on race and policing brought on by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and instead used his killing as a justification for the vandalism of monuments (not just Confederate ones), the renaming of major institutions, and the cancelling of those who disagree, all the while peddling the argument that the United States is irredeemable.

The response on the right has been inarticulate at best, but its most prominent voice has been a president who ordered the National Guard to use force on peaceful protesters outside the White House so that he could wave a Bible in front of a church whose minister he had just injured. The latest development in this increasingly alarming back and forth has been the attempted sacking of a federal courthouse followed by extrajudicial detention of citizens in Portland (and potentiallyelsewhere) by federal law enforcement with questionable jurisdiction and chains of command.

Amid all this, doomsayers are now all but openly pronouncing the imminentcollapse of the United States. Amid deconstructionism on the left and crushing authoritarianism on the right, we may fear that, as W.B. Yeats would put it, the center cannot hold.

A reasonable conservative, surveying the intellectual and social carnage, might reasonably ask, whats left to conserve?

Plenty, in fact.

On Rebuilding a Movement

There is, in fact, a historic opportunity for American conservatives to reclaim their core principles and build a winning political coalition. In the process, they can rebuild, rearticulate, and revive the American consensus about what our nation is, what it stands for, and where it can go.

What one is against can serve as the basis of what one is for. Indeed, as a conservative speaker pointed out to one of us in 2016, in the short to medium term, one can unite a squabbling party by pointing at something all of its factions find intolerable and reminding them that they oppose it. This, it was argued, was what Reagan had done in the 1980s and what Trump attempted to do and mostly failed.

Its quite debatable whether this was really the secret of past conservative coalitions success, and whether the lesson is applicable now. The real key to Reagans success may well have been the simple fecklessness of his, and his successor George H.W. Bushs, opposition, and the relative absence of partisanship that allowed for super coalitions to be built. But even if it is true, the limitations of this logic have become apparent.

Clearly, conservatives are going to need to articulate a real vision for the United States, and not just stand athwart history yelling, Stop! They are, moreover, going to have to look past Reagan and abandon Trump. They need a new vision, and a chance to articulate it.

The good news, though, is that the excesses of the left and the vacuousness of Trump offer an opportunity to rebuild. Cancel culture, with its internet mobs, digitized harassment and slurs, nihilistic reverse racism, and attempt to shift the climate of intolerance it has created from the college campus to the boardroom is not a viable way forward for America. Indeed, given its origins in postmodernist deconstructionism and its characterization of the United States as irredeemably oppressive, it does not seek to be. The reaction against this over-reach by the postmodern left has come from all cornersfrom the campus free speech movement, to online contrarians, to left-libertarians, to liberals and former Hillary Clintonsupporters, to NeverTrumpconservatives, to moderate free-marketersin addition to Trump supporters themselves.

A movement that can unite this many people across the political spectrum potentially signals the basis for a principled opposition. For conservatives who have historically styled themselves classical liberals, conserving the original liberal principles of Americas founding, this is an opportunity. The challenge for conservatives is not simply to oppose, but to lead.

It must be emphasized: this will not save conservatives or Republicans this election cyclenot in net terms anyway. The Republican Party and the conservative movement are too tainted by Trump and too disorganized to do much more than tread waterif they are lucky. There is no winning this time, and, in fairness, there probably should not be. The question is how to lay the groundwork for a reboot, and what the conservative vision for America would look like in that case.

It is here that we can offer some thoughts.

Preserving (The Right) History

The biggest issue in the current culture war is how America is to remember its history. Without some agreement, or at least give and take, on how to understand and value their shared experience as a nation, Americans have no reason to stick together at alla frightening prospect, doubly so in this age of division and hyper-partisanship.

We live at a time when historical figures are literally being pulled off pedestals, and when the ire of those doing it extends not only to Confederate leaders and soldiers but any historical figure whose views or practices were typical of another era. This has extended even to Union leaders such as Ulysses S. Grant and abolitionist Union soldiers such as Hans Christian Heg. It is vital for some reasonableness to be injected into the discourse. Conservatives, who prize reason and moderation and value historical inheritance, have no choice but to weigh in. They are well-positioned to do so, if they can overcome their worst instincts that have been on display in the Trump era.

As George Will articulated in his recent book, one of few constants in American conservatism over the centuries is its veneration of the Madisonian Constitution, not merely as a legal system to be manipulated or circumvented, but a worthy blueprint for a free society. Limited government, checks and balances, and individual rights are the sine qua non of conservatism; all else may come and go. With them, in the here and now, comes a basic acknowledgement that the country that possesses them should cherish them, implement them, and take pride in them not scorn them. When the conservative movement sided with a president who had no respect for anything but popularity and naked power, it went astray from its roots. It must find its way back.

In doing so, conservatives will have to confront a valid point that the left-wing opposition is making: that American society today, especially if it reveres the principles and guarantees of the Constitution, cannot uncritically praise all of the actions of the great figures of American history, or even curate the list of such figures as it has. Equally, the conservative movement will have to articulate a way to view America that does not involve whitewashing actions and events which cannot be justified under the principles Americansand especially conservativeshold dear.

The way to do this is for conservatives to reclaim the American story honestly, including the nasty parts of which Americans are justly ashamed. Rather than mindlessly take the yin to the woke brigades yang by positing an America that is all good against a vision of America as all bad, conservatives, as befits a group who are trying to, well, conserve something, can simply remind Americans of the obvious: that they have a great (and ongoing) national story, but that that story includes imperfections, wrong turns, and dark hours where the American promise was unfulfilled.

America does, indeed, have much promise, even at this dark hour. As investors have noted, it is still the worlds preferred place to park money: whatever one would like to see done with its economy, it remains a dynamo of productivity. This is not a mere bit of investment analysis: it means that America is still seen, fundamentally, as a good place to make a living and, therefore, a life. Despite anti-immigrant sentiment, people from all over the world still try to get visas to get into the United States; Americans are in far less of a hurry to leave. This is all ultimately a reflection of Americas greatness.

The United States was founded on the noble ideal of the protection of the rights of the individual by a democratic state, with a constitution that is a masterpiece of legal engineering, with an inspiring story of improving itself even if it falls short of its own pretensions, that not only overcame evil at home in the form of slavery but fought it abroad and defeated it twice in the form of fascism and communism. A country of visionaries and practical people, it is almost a byword for inventiveness, creativity, and toughness in the face of adversity. Its final legacy, whatever happens, will be the footprints it left on the surface of the moon. However many its faults and shortcomings, its story is not a thing of no value to be thrown away, and in the absence of others it will fall to conservatives to plead its case.

Reclaim American History; Conserve the Best Within Us

To do that, though, conservatives must enter debates about Americas history not as simple-minded Manicheans, but as opponents of that worldview. The conservative thesis must not be that if the left regards America as all bad, conservatives in turn must regard it as all good. It should rather be that American history is the great story of an imperfect but self-improving people.

To take an example: it is not a contradiction to characterize Christopher Columbus as a brutal colonizer and conquistador and also as an intrepid mariner whose crossing of the Atlantic was perhaps the single most influential distinct act in human history, one that paved the way for the New World and Western liberalism. He was assuredly both. Conservatives can acknowledge the value of understanding historys complexity without simplifying it themselves.

In the current dialectic, conservatives natural role is to argue for understanding and appreciating history, against those who do not see value in it rather than whitewashing it and undermining their own case by doing so. They can, and should, be the adults in the room, arguing for appreciation and, especially, simple knowledge of history, without reducing it to hagiography.

This may be too complex for soundbites and bumper stickers, but is a reasonable enough case for commentators and elected leaders alike to make. Conservatives would be wise to argue that America is not perfect, but that it is fundamentally worth preserving and that its historical figures who made important contributions be subject both to respect and honest appraisal about their deficiencies

Drop the Confederacy; Save and Contextualize All Others

To that end, those conservatives who continue to defend Confederate statues should retreat and retrench to those other areas of historical commemoration where the individuals being commemorated actually contributed something positive to America. Conservatives can and should argue against condemnation of historical figures for failing to live up to modern standards; they can and should argue for appreciating the contributions of imperfect people. But they do well to stop short of defending people who, largely for the worst of reasons, triedand failedto destroy the United States.

This is more than simply a pragmatic attempt to avoid a bad look, but a key element of our principles. Conservatives should concede the point that the Confederacy was a wrong turn for America that was rightly corrected. Moreover, the case for retaining the commemoration of imperfect contributors like Ulysses S. Grant or George Washington, or originators like Columbus who are otherwise almost Martian to us now, will be made stronger if they do not also defend those who, at a critical moment, actively tried to undermine America.

Admittedly, there is assuredly a case to be made in individual cases for retaining old artworkincluding that deemed problematicfor its aesthetic value, particularly in the case of old buildings that often contain too much late-nineteenth century memorabilia to easily be removable. But conservatives should pick their battles: defending a Confederate statue outside a courthouse where thousands were unjustly treated by the intellectual, if not literal, descendants of the Confederacy is bad enough; it is worse if the statue is a cheap piece of kitsch.

In order to defend George Washington and Thomas Jeffersonand, more importantly, the ideas they establishedconservatives will have to prove that they are not the racists and reactionaries that their critics claim.

Champion the Actual Constitution

This is where conservatives reverence for the Constitution can work for them.

Precisely because their opponents in the current dialogue are utopian and fanatical, conservatives have plenty of room to become realistic, thoughtful, and prudentas well as respectful of institutions, especially the Constitution. David Frenchs call for conservatives to become Bill of Rights conservatives instead of law and order conservatives is therefore extremely topical. If conservatives find progressives racialization of American discourse toxic and ineffective, they should substitute something that can work. Protecting the rights of individual Americans from the arbitrary and heavy-handed use of force by unaccountable and overpaid public servants is something conservatives normally support. They should apply that logic to police brutality and police reform.

Conservatives should also reclaim their understanding of the human condition as essentially tragic. Utopian projects with vague goals accomplish little; excesses committed in their name leave no positive legacy. Substantial reform that better safeguards constitutional rights from abuses by law enforcement can be championed by conservatives, even as they reject anger and censorship in the service of nebulous goals. Reining in official abuse, and exercising checks and balances, is a bedrock principle of conservatism. It also helps people.

Build Policy Around These Values

Conservatives are therefore in a position to take the lead on police reform without sacrificing their concern for law and order. There is nothing inconsistent about asking that police to obey legal constraints regarding reasonable and appropriate use of force and subjecting them to impartial oversight, while also being in favor of effective and humane policing on the other. Both are examples of the rule of law in action.

On this, conservatives should be willing to forge links with those elements of the civil rights left who reject utopianism to work together on police reform. Reasonable proposals have already been floated, including scaling back or ending the qualified immunity doctrine and removing investigations of police killings from overly interested local prosecutors. The issue has already found acceptance (and urgent advocacy) among the libertarian right, which was decrying the judicial systems acceptance of law enforcement excesses as early as the 1990s, and whose adherents have chronicled police brutality and overreach in depressing detail. Since 2014, there has been a historic opportunity for the civil rights left and the libertarian right to get something done on this by working together, and their failure to do so has arguably been one of the great tragedies of Americas partisan conflict. Regrettably, partisanship is now killing police reform in the Senate, even as America burns. If one does not want radical anarchists and Trumpian thugs to take over the conversation, it is time for conservatives to start conserving actual law and order, and not its simulacrum. (For those arguing that such proposals do not go far enough, the criticism is validbut the solution conservatives should advocate is to add more tangible policy ideas that support constitutional rights, not recklessly champion a defund the police agenda that Americans do not and cannot support, and not support lawlessness by federal and local law enforcement either.)

Doing this would have involved something akin to implementing the reforms recommended by the famous Republican National Committee 2012 postmortem, or Paul Ryans recommendation that Republicans campaign in minority neighborhoods. It would require not only acknowledging that minority groups have constitutional rights, but actively working to protect them, and showing real results. And if this meant that Republicans could win an election in a city now and then, so much the better.

Although this is the issue of the day, the re-articulation of the value of Americas history and national story, and the end to the hagiography of those who tried to end that story, linked to a recommitment to individual rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution, would allow conservatives to take the lead in other areas as well. This would allow for conservatives to again have a sense of purpose on a broad range of issues such as the environment, science, health care, right to life issues, deficits, and the proper size and scope of government more generally. Only by returning to these principles and having enlightened conversations can conservatives redeem the Republican Party as a party of ideas and patriotism once again.

Find a New Figurehead

That, though, will require turning away from Donald Trump. The only chance the Republican Party, and thereby the conservative movement, has at redemption and resuscitation lies in actively stating that the nomination of Donald Trump was the wrong move. It will not help much this time, but it is the only way to chart a new course.

The worst that might happen is not the loss of the presidency, or even the Senate. It is that, divided and visionless, conservatives will have presided over the disintegration of the Republic they love, when they had an opportunity to save it by living up to their best vision of America and themselves.

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Whats Left To Conserve? - The Bulwark

How Pro-Trump Forces Work the Refs in Silicon Valley – The New York Times

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(The Gateway Pundit himself, Jim Hoft, didnt respond to an inquiry but posted pre-emptively that The Gateway Pundit has been 100% correct in all of our reporting on every major story.)

It was Facebook that became the first target of coordinated right-wing outrage in 2016, when conservatives seized on a Gizmodo article to suggest that editors of Facebooks Trending section were censoring conservative voices. The story had, in fact, uncovered a secret: that Facebook was turning to human beings, with editorial judgment, to make decisions about what content to show its users, rather than simply relying on algorithms.

A former Facebook employee recalls the companys Republican lobbyist, Joel Kaplan, pushing in those early days to do away with human editorial choices, and to let Facebooks algorithms choose what news made its Trending section. Instead, Facebook killed the feature entirely, and prostrated itself to the right in a public meeting with Republican media figures and a private 2016 visit by Mark Zuckerbergs executive team to Fox News headquarters.

Since then, Facebook has sought to ingratiate itself to the Trump administration, while taking a harder line on Covid-19 misinformation. As the presidents backers post wild claims on the social network, the company offers the equivalent of wrist slaps a complex fact-checking system that avoids drawing the company directly into the political fray. It hasnt worked: The fact-checking subcontractors are harried umpires, an easy target for Trump supporters ire.

Its the fact-checking business that is causing all this trouble, Brent Bozell, the founder of the conservative Media Research Center and a veteran professional ref-worker told me.

BuzzFeed News and NBC News reported last week that Facebook executives have acted in recent months on pleas from pro-Trump voices that they not be punished for misleading readers. Its a sign of the pressure on the company but also of a reality that Facebook wont say aloud: The pro-Trump media is in the misinformation business with scale and energy that lacks parallel, and in part because simply repeating the president often means spreading misinformation.

In fact, two people close to the Facebook fact-checking process told me, the vast bulk of the posts getting tagged for being fully or partly false come from the right. Thats not bias. Its because sites like The Gateway Pundit are full of falsehoods, and because the president says false things a lot.

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How Pro-Trump Forces Work the Refs in Silicon Valley - The New York Times

2020 Election Live Updates: Democratic Convention to Feature Obamas and Clintons – The New York Times

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Democratic convention speakers will include the Clintons and Obamas, along with Sanders and Kasich.

Hillary Clinton will deliver a prime-time speech next Wednesday for the Democratic National Convention, part of a preliminary lineup of speakers for the truncated, mostly virtual four-night event, three Democratic officials with knowledge of the schedule said Monday.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive presidential nominee, has said he will not travel to Milwaukee, where the convention is nominally being held but has been scaled back to just a few hundred attendees. He will speak from Delaware on Thursday, the final night of the convention, in a form and fashion yet to be announced.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will join Mrs. Clinton, the 2016 nominee, on the Wednesday night program if she is not selected as Mr. Bidens running mate, according to the officials. Former President Bill Clinton will speak as well, one of the officials said.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who is a harsh critic of President Trump, will deliver addresses Monday night, the officials said.

Former President Barack Obamas time slot has not been announced (or leaked), but he could be included on a crammed Wednesday night program, or possibly introduce Mr. Biden on Thursday to deliver a nationally televised rendition of the-Joe-I-know speech he has been giving during online Biden fund-raisers and round tables.

It is not clear when Michelle Obama, who delivered what was widely regarded as the best speech at the 2012 convention in Charlotte, N.C., will speak. But planners have privately said they believe her address could attract the widest viewership outside of Mr. Bidens.

Mrs. Obama has been spending much of her time in recent days working on her speech at her familys mansion on Marthas Vineyard, and has told friends that she views it as her major contribution to the 2020 race, according to two people with knowledge of her planning.

The big names will be augmented by testimonials from from voters of all kinds delegates, parents, teachers, small-business owners, essential workers, activists and elected leaders, culled from 1,000 crowdsourced videos, officials with the conventions organizing committee announced on Monday.

The Big Three broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC plan to air an hour of the convention live each night, from 10 to 11 p.m. on the East Coast, according to network officials. Cable channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will cover the full length of the nightly proceedings.

The Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, said on Monday that Mr. Trump had every right to give his acceptance speech from the South Lawn of the White House just a day after the presidents chief of staff, Mark Meadows, suggested the speech be delivered from another ZIP code.

Heres my personal opinion: If Joe Biden can live in his basement, the president has every right to talk in front of his house, which is the White House, Ms. McDaniel said during an interview on Fox & Friends a show Mr. Trump watches regularly.

Oh, Im not going to go there yet, she added, when asked if any decision had been made. I think thats going to be up to the president to announce that.

On Sunday, Mr. Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who frequently accused President Barack Obama of abusing his executive authority, expressed unvarnished disapproval for the idea, which was widely panned by ethics experts.

Those decisions are still in flux, but I can tell you what Im advocating for is miles and miles away from here, Mr. Meadows said in an interview with the former CNN and FOX host Greta Van Susteren that aired Sunday morning.

Mr. Meadows appeared to backtrack in a later interview with CNN on Sunday, saying that the ceremonial East Wing of the White House would be an appropriate venue.

Mr. Trump, who has obliterated the line between the political and the governmental in a series of Biden-bashing events on White House property, floated the idea of delivering his speech from the lawn after announcing he would not attend convention events in North Carolina or Florida.

Federal employees are barred from politicking on government property by the Hatch Act; the president and vice president are exempted from those restrictions.

Mr. Trump, in a court filing seeking to block the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., from obtaining eight years of his tax returns, said Monday that the efforts amounted to illegal harassment.

The argument came in response to a filing last week by Mr. Vances office, which said prosecutors had a wide basis to subpoena financial documents. The office suggested it was investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.

In their new filing, Mr. Trumps lawyers wrote that even if Mr. Vances office were conducting a sprawling inquiry into financial crimes, the subpoena was still too broad.

If anything, it shows that the district attorney is still fishing for a way to justify his harassment of the president, Mr. Trumps lawyers wrote.

The filing was the latest salvo in Mr. Trumps nearly yearlong fight with Mr. Vance, a Democrat who last August subpoenaed Mr. Trumps accounting firm, Mazars USA, seeking eight years of his personal and business tax returns and other financial records.

Mr. Trumps lawyers noted that the subpoena asks for every document and communication related to the president and his businesses over about the last decade.

There are traditionally three hinge-point moments for presidential challengers: the selection of a running mate, the convention and the debates.

Of course, this is no traditional campaign.

But with the pandemic transforming the conventions from balloon-and-bunting extravaganzas to online events, and Mr. Trumps demands for additional debates and specific moderators, Mr. Bidens announcement this week of his running mate could be as close as the campaign gets to normal.

Mr. Bidens advisers say he has spoken with several of the leading candidates in recent days, and it has been confirmed that he met in person in early August with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. We do not know exactly how many face-to-face interviews Mr. Biden has conducted with potential running mates. A small number of women remain under serious consideration.

Mr. Bidens vice-presidential rollout wont look much like past unveilings, of course. With him and his campaign strictly adhering to social distancing guidelines, the former vice president is expected to appear publicly with his running mate by the end of the week just not before the usual crowd of cheering supporters.

For a candidate whos leading but not enjoying a groundswell of enthusiasm, that means an event that looks much like his appearances since he claimed the nomination: carefully staged, produced for television and online consumption, and decaffeinated.

Democrats, of course, will take it, preferring a scripted and front-running Biden in these sober times to the alternative. But the vice-presidential reveal is just a trial run for next week. Thats when the party will have to recreate an entire convention across four nights of prime-time with no live audience to say nothing of balloons or bunting.

Immodest. Ambitious. Unlikable. These are the strangely enduring criticisms that travel with women in politics, no matter how many firsts keep adding up or how numerous their congressional numbers become, The Timess Jessica Bennett writes in a news analysis.

And those words have reignited another debate about sexist double standards, as Mr. Biden inches closer to announcing his running mate.

When Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia legislator and the first Black woman in the country to be a major partys nominee for governor, stated bluntly in April that she would be an excellent running mate to Mr. Biden unapologetically making her case for the No. 2 spot on the ticket she was criticized as being inadequately self-effacing.

Senator Kamala Harris, one of three Black women considered a front-runner for that slot, has not actually said publicly that she wants the position. But she did of course run for president causing at least one Democratic donor to remark that she has too much ambition.

She can also rub people the wrong way, according to Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor who is close with Mr. Biden. And she was seen as being improperly apologetic after she excoriated Mr. Biden on an early debate stage, questioning his policies on busing, with the nerve to later laugh it off as politics.

She had no remorse, Chris Dodd, a longtime friend of Mr. Bidens who is on his vice-presidential vetting panel, reportedly told donors.

American politics may have moved beyond a time when a female candidate would be asked if she could bake a blueberry muffin (that was Geraldine Ferraro in 1984), but it surely hasnt moved that far.

Attorney General William P. Barr, embracing dual roles of partisan combatant and the nations top law enforcement official, on Sunday described demonstrators against police brutality as fascistic standard-bearers of a Democratic Party veering dangerously to the left.

Mr. Barr, who was present when federal officers tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators near the White House in June, vowed to use the Justice Department to fight what he called urban guerrilla warfare waged by protesters in Portland, Ore., and other cities, during an interview with the right-wing radio personality Mark Levin.

They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism. Theyre essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic, Mr. Barr said when asked by Mr. Levin about Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrators Mr. Levin described as antifa.

Mr. Barr has been a fierce defender of Mr. Trump throughout his tenure. But his comments to Mr. Levin were among his most pointed verbal attacks to date, blurring the distinction between mainstream Democratic leaders who have expressed support for peaceful protest and the violent minority of demonstrators in Oregon and elsewhere.

Mr. Trump has seized on scenes of national unrest to build a law-and-order message for his re-election campaign, and on Monday he again called for the National Guard to be sent to Portland. But the Trump administrations decision to dispatch militarized federal agents to the city last month drew criticism from state and city officials, who said the agents exceeded their authority and harmed peaceful protesters.

Mr. Biden said last month that the deployment of federal agents to an already volatile situation showed that Mr. Trump was determined to sow chaos and division. To make matters worse instead of better.

Mr. Barr on Sunday portrayed the protests, which erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as part of a long-term strategy to defeat Mr. Trump.

They were trying to impeach him from Day 1, he said. Its the lust for power. And they werent expecting Trumps victory. And it outrages them.

Alex Morse, the Democratic mayor of Holyoke, Mass., who is seeking to unseat the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Richard E. Neal, is remaining in the race despite allegations he misused his teaching position at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to have sex with students.

Mr. Morse, 31, admitted in a statement on Sunday that he had engaged in consensual relationships with other men, including students enrolled at local universities that Ive met using dating apps, but denied he had done anything inappropriate or unethical.

While I am confident that a full investigation into these matters will clear my name completely of any unethical conduct, I also recognize that some students felt uncomfortable with interactions they had with me, he wrote. I am sorry for that. This is unacceptable behavior for anyone with institutional power.

Mr. Morse, whose candidacy has been supported by progressive groups like Justice Democrats, faces Mr. Neal in a Sept. 1 primary.

His statement came after the schools student newspaper, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, reported that the university was investigating claims, made in a letter from the College Democrats of Massachusetts, that Mr. Morse had abused his position of power for romantic or sexual gain.

Mr. Morse was hired as a political science lecturer in 2014 and last taught as an adjunct professor in an urban politics course last fall. He is not currently employed at the school, university officials have said.

The allegations present a major challenge for a man widely seen as a rising star in local Democratic politics. Mr. Morse was elected mayor of Holyoke, a city of 40,000 near Springfield, nine years ago at the age of 22, becoming the citys first openly gay and youngest mayor.

Mr. Biden has been critical of Big Tech, admonishing Facebook for mishandling misinformation and saying internet companies should lose a central legal protection.

But his campaign has quietly welcomed onto its staff and policy groups people who have worked with or for Silicon Valley giants, raising concerns among the industrys critics that the companies are seeking to co-opt a potential Biden administration.

One of Mr. Bidens closest aides joined the campaign from Apple, while others held senior roles at firms that consulted for major tech companies. And a nearly 700-person volunteer group advising the campaign, the Innovation Policy Committee, includes at least eight people who work for Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. Other committee members have close ties to the companies, including economists and lawyers who have advised them, and officials at think tanks funded by them.

The groups members also include some prominent progressives arguing for stiffer regulation of tech. But the presence of the industrys allies inside Mr. Bidens policy apparatus and campaign and transition teams and his campaigns effort to ensure the confidentiality of its policy process has alarmed an increasingly influential coalition of liberals who say the tech titans stifle competition, disregard user privacy and fail to adequately police hate speech and disinformation.

They are hoping to dissuade Mr. Biden, who has not made tech issues a major focus of his campaign, from following the example of his former boss, President Barack Obama, whose embrace of tech companies helped turn them into darlings in Washington.

The three hosts of a new podcast, Pod Is a Woman, said last week that their first choice for a guest on the first episode was Jill Biden.

Joe Biden was our backup, said one of the hosts, Johanna Maska.

The podcast, hosted by three women who worked in the Obama White House, debuted on Monday morning with discussions of current events, popular culture and, of course, the 2020 presidential election.

On the episode, Dr. Biden rejected efforts to minimize or demean the decision by Mr. Biden to select a woman as his running mate.

This is a major job, Jill Biden said. This woman is going to have to handle all kinds of problems and be a governing partner.

(The co-host Alejandra Campoverdis effort to persuade Dr. Biden to reveal her husbands selection Dr. Biden, were among friends right now, right? was unsuccessful.)

An English professor at a community college, Dr. Biden said she hoped to teach part time, perhaps virtually, should she become first lady, and pledged that a Biden administration would make community college free.

One thing that will create equity in education is to make sure that we have universal prekindergarten, she said. So that every 3- and 4-year-old starts at the same level exact same level.

Along with Ms. Campoverdi, a former White House deputy director of Hispanic media, and Ms. Maska, who was the White House press advance director, Pod Is A Woman is hosted by Darienne Page, President Barack Obamas director of veterans and military families outreach.

As podcasters who are friends from the Obama administration, they recall Crooked Medias stable of shows, including Pod Save America. Theirs is another instance of the increasingly porous line between political operatives and media personalities.

Not that the three were conceiving their show so deliberatively. We didnt say, OK, lets get a blonde and a brunette, Ms. Campoverdi said. We didnt Noahs Ark this podcast.

Reporting was contributed by Alexander Burns, Jessica Bennett, Shane Goldmacher, Michael M. Grynbaum, Nicole Hong, Thomas Kaplan, Kate Kelly, Jonathan Martin, David McCabe, Ben Smith, Glenn Thrush, Marc Tracy, Kenneth P. Vogel and Benjamin Weiser.

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2020 Election Live Updates: Democratic Convention to Feature Obamas and Clintons - The New York Times

Video of men uprooting trees over land dispute in Pakistan viral with anti-Muslim angle – Alt News

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Several Facebook and Twitter users have shared a one-minute video that shows men uprooting plants from a field. The viral text associated with the video reads, Tree plantation drive was started by Pak PM Imran Khan. Look how namazi people oppose it becuase its un!slam!c. Planting tree is against the faith.

Right-wing author Renee Lynn claimed that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan copying his Indian counterpart started a tree plantation drive but locals uprooted the trees because they consider it against Islam. The video gained close to 10,000 retweets and 4 lakh views as of this writing. (archived link)

Other Twitter users who shared the viral video include Major Surendra Poonia and Norwegian diplomat Erik Solheim. Poonias tweet gained over 8,000 retweets.

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Pakistani Canadian author Tarek Fatah wrote in foul language that jihads uprooted saplings to practice killing infidel kaafirs.

IPS officer Dipanshu Kabra quote-tweeted Solheim and wrote, Even God cant bless a nation where extremist thinks, Tree Plantation is Anti-Islam All religions preach that We the people of Earth, must respect & protect all living beings and embrace our relationship with the environment. Our deepest sympathies with @ImranKhanPTI. Kabra later deleted his tweet.

Ravinder Sangwan posted the viral video on Facebook with the same narrative. It gained over 6,700 shares.

Alt News performed a keyword search plantation Pakistan uproots trees and found an August 9 report by The News, a Pakistan-based website. The article includes a video of a news bulletin that shows the viral video. The outlet also tweeted the article.

As per the report, the chaotic incident took place at the Mandi Kas area in Khyber Agency in Pakistan. Newly-planted trees were uprooted by locals over alleged forceful plantation on private land. The tree plantation drive was an initiative by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf member Iqbal Afridi as a part of Pakistans 10 Billion Tree Tsunami, a nationwide plantation drive.

On August 9, PM Khan had organised the biggest plantation drive in the country with the goal to plant at least 35 lakh trees.

Afridi admitted that the plantation campaign in Mandi Kas had been carried out on private property. He told The News, The locals were angry over the unauthorised tree plantation campaign. Were trying to have negotiations with them.

Speaking to Dawn, a district administration official said that there was a dispute between two powerful tribes over the ownership of the land. One of the parties was present when the campaign was inaugurated, while the other was unaware about the drive and uprooted the saplings, he said.

Riaz Ghafur, a former faculty member at Edwardes College Peshwar, had tweeted the viral video condemning the incident. He subsequently shared another video where people can be seen planting trees. Ghafur told Alt News that the elders of the tribe which did not oppose the plantation drive later planted trees on the same land.

Thus, social media claim that people in Pakistan opposed a tree plantation campaign because it is unIslamic to plant trees is ridiculous and false.

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Video of men uprooting trees over land dispute in Pakistan viral with anti-Muslim angle - Alt News

Why UK utilities should adopt remote operations – AltEnergyMag

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The UKs lockdown response to COVID-19 has affected most industries, and in the case of utilities companies, a reduction in the workforce will add stress to a network of systems and devices that require regular maintenance. For many, this has been a stark wake-up call emphasising the need to build greater resiliency into operations. Software helped companies keep employees safe and operations running during the pandemic now, digital operational technologies can also make utilities companies more resilient on a long-term basis. George Walker, managing director of Novotek UK and Ireland, explains.

Utilities such as water and power companies have habitually faced a maintenance conundrum, due to the complexities of asset networks and, in the case of water, an ageing infrastructure. Providing mission-critical services like electricity, water, and basic essentials cannot stop, even during the Covid-19 outbreak. Electric utilities are used to dealing with crises, like forest fires and floods, but the pandemic creates new challenges as they need to manage teams and machines remotely.

While they draw on past models to manage the predictability of demand and the consequences of disruption, they also need to enable social distancing rules for their people. As we all get used to working remotely, right now there is a large appetite for team collaboration tools, like video conferencing. However, most of these are IT tools to support collaboration with colleagues, not operations technology tools that industrial companies need to use to remotely operate, monitor or control equipment.

Regulated utilities businesses are not in the main affected by Covid-19, and water utilities for example have not seen any decline in demand. This will require restabilising the workforce and enabling it to work productively from safer remote locations.

Everybody is getting used to working from home now, but utility remote operation requires additionally compliant, industrial strength software, such as PTCs Vuforia Chalk for long-distance service collaboration. Supply chains end up under strain because demand signals change. An enterprise view of supply and demand provides utilities with many more tools to manage the transition from disruption to stabilisation.

Springtime is typically when regulated utilities such as power generation will carry out planned maintenance, and outages or load shedding. They have to take assets off the grid to maintain and upgrade them, but obviously have to keep the grid running, because those winter heating loads that create demand on the electric supply are now going to give way to air-conditioning loads in the summer.

Dropping industrial demand for power during the Covid-19 pandemic, as much as it is a short-term problem, should be seen as an opportunity to temporarily take generating assets off the grid for maintenance and upgrade. That way power utilities can position themselves to come out stronger from the pandemic.

Modern operations technology tools, such as those supplied by Novotek, allow for remote operations and monitoring of everything from entire electrical grids to individual machines, like a pump in a sewage pumping station. Keeping teams safe and equipment well maintained will become more challenging.

As the lockdown eases, it is time for utility companies to seriously consider and seize the opportunity to connect by remote software, to better manage these assets more easily and effectively. Remote and mobile operators may have secure and managed access to equivalent on-site HMI visualisations and essential operational controls regardless of HMI solutions in production.

Managed security and operational validation safeguards ensure that remote, mobile and on-site staff can work independently or together in a secure and compliant environment. Having such systems in place also supports continuity in the face of any future disruptions, while supporting operator efficiency on an ongoing basis.

Selecting the right IoT platform is a crucial first step. Novotek offers systems such as PTCs ThingWorx, which is a single, purpose-built industrial IoT platform. Industrial market-leaders are using ThingWorx to develop feature-rich industrial IoT applications. With ThingWorx, utility operators can rapidly explore, prove and master the value of smart, connected operations and products, even if the organization is new to IoT.

As the UK emerges from lockdown, the ramifications of months with a reduced workforce and limited capacity for maintenance will hang over many utility companies. Its important that remote access and monitoring tools are not only used as a temporary solution so companies can reap the benefits and increase resiliency to future disruptions.

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Why UK utilities should adopt remote operations - AltEnergyMag

11 Of The Best Xbox 360 Games, According To Metacritic | TheGamer – TheGamer

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Microsoft came out of nowhere with the original Xbox and entered the console market with a bang. While essentially running on a version of Direct X, the Xbox made a fantastic home console and had many great exclusives like the Halo series, Fable, and more.

RELATED:10 Of The Best Shoot Em' Ups For The Xbox 360

When Microsoft launched the Xbox 360, they were sure to make it just as impactful as their first console and brought many PC exclusives to consoles for the first time. To commemorate the Xbox 360, here are 10 of the best games on the console based on their Metacritic score - one game per franchise for varietys sake.

Batman Arkham Asylum proved that an amazing superhero game was possible. Batman Arkham City took everything established in the first game and built upon it, giving you a massive city to explore and find gadgets in. They also made the flight mechanics much more in-depth and useful as it would be your primary way of making it around the city.

The game saw a lot of DLC which added new missions, new playable characters, and more. The Metroid style of gameplay mixed with the almost rhythm-game-like combat made it the perfect package.

Gears of War was Cliff Bleszinskis take on the genre established in Resident Evil 4. You are Marcus Phoenix fighting off the Locus, a massive race of humanoid creatures that live directly beneath the earths surface.

You take part in epic firefights and must pop in and out of cover to ensure you wont get killed. You also have a chainsaw attached to your gun so you can cut your enemies directly in half during close-quartered encounters. The series still persists to this day, though the gameplay has changed very little in the 5+ games that have been released thus far.

Up to this point, Call of Duty was set primarily in World War 2 and while successful, was in no way as big as it is today. In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare they decided to leave the second world war and head into modern times.

While the game did offer a fun and interesting single-player campaign, the real appeal of the game was its online multiplayer. The online multiplayer set the gaming world ablaze and it hasnt been the same since and countless attempts are still being made to try to capture the online multiplayer excitement created by this game.

Halo 3 is as the name implies, is the third game in the Halo series. Like the previous entry, Halo 3s main hook is in its multiplayer. The game offered a large selection of different online modes including deathmatch, capture the flag, team deathmatch, and much more.

RELATED:10 Hardest To Find XBOX 360 Games (& What They're Worth)

The Halo series was massive at this point and was a system seller for Microsoft. Halo 3 allowed you to also play multiplayer in the story as one player controlled Master Chief and the other controlled Artbitor, an Elite who joined the human side.

The first Portal was set up as a series of test rooms where you would have to solve puzzles using a portal gun which could create a blue and orange portal that you and other objects can pass through. By the end of the game you find out your only purpose is to finish the tests and later be disposed of so you escape.

In Portal 2, the game is structured more like an adventure as you attempt to escape the Aperture facility. The game also offers a cooperative mode where you and a friend must solve puzzles together to progress.

Red Dead Redemption is the sequel to Red Dead Revolver, though it shares very little with that game aside from the wild west setting. Red Dead Redemption can be summarized as Grand Theft Auto in the wild west as you have a massive open world to explore.

RELATED:10 PS2 Games To Play If You Enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2

You take on various missions for people, get into gunfights, tame wild horses, unlock more outfits and equipment, and more. The game was followed up by Red Dead Redemption 2 which came out in 2018 and was one of the biggest games of that year.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim adds so much that wasnt in the previous game, you may be mistaken and think they arent from the same franchise. While in the previous game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion your sword swings sort of just go anywhere - in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all of your attacks feel like you are actually connecting, making the game feel much more action-oriented instead other the heavy CRPG feel previous games in the series had.

Easily the most successful games in the series and is still being played and modded today over 9 years after its release.

Mass Effect 1 took the RPG elements that Bioware is known for and shot them into a third-person cover-based shooter which were very popular at the time. Not only was the gameplay deep and enjoyable but the game also created an entire universe with complex alien creatures all co-existing and dealing with racism and power balance.

Mass Effect 2 took the gameplay and story established in the first game and improved upon it immensely. Combat is given and even bigger role also you have the ability to stop cutscenes in the middle of the conversation and react which will affect the story.

The Orange Box takes some of Valves best work and throws it all into one amazing package. There is Portal which is a series of levels where you must complete puzzles using a portal gun. Team Fortress 2 is a team-based online shooter that started off as a mod for Quake 2. Finally, there is Half-Life 2 which is a groundbreaking first-person shooter that most of todays first-person shooters are based on.

With this and many other games of this generation, it was becoming clear that the line between PC gaming and console gaming was becoming thinner and thinner.

BioShock is a first-person shooter set in Rapture, a fictional underwater city that was made by those who wanted to live away from laws and do as they please. However, as time went on the inhabitants of the city were driven mad from the cabin fever and gene splicing that had become common practice.

The games philosophy borrows heavily from Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged novel which is referred to many times throughout the game. In BioShock, you encounter plasmids, injections that genetically alter your DNA so you can shoot elements and other things out of your hands such as fire, electricity, bees, and more.

Grand Theft Auto IV was the first Grand Theft Auto to both appear on the seven generation of consoles and use the cover-based third-person gameplay that is used in Grand Theft Auto V. Like previous games in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV has a heavy emphasis on adult storytelling and exploring an open world.

Grand Theft Auto IV had 2 large expansion packs which included entirely new stories with a different playable character, new cars, new weapons, and new radio stations based on the theme of the story, and more.

NEXT:GTA 6: 5 Reasons It May Not Have A Single-Player Campaign (& 5 Reasons It Will)

Next Persona 5: Dating Multiple People (& Other Social Things You Didn't Know You Could Do)

Ian is a writer with a strong interest in video game history with a small collection of games from the Atari 2600 all the way up to the most current generation; so when you need a random fact about video game history to share at a party, he's your guy!

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11 Of The Best Xbox 360 Games, According To Metacritic | TheGamer - TheGamer

Letters To Editor: August 5, 2020 – The Rhino TImes

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The Postal Service Is Not A Business

Dear Editor,

FYI, the book 1984, along with Atlas Shrugged and Animal Farm should be on the reading list for ALL Americans. Atlas Shrugged is a huge book, full of wordy paragraphs a slog at times. You can listen to this book much more easily.

The best movie version of 1984, starring Richard Burton and John Hurt, is now playing on one of the streaming pay TV networks. Even if you have read the book, this is a must-see. The opening scenes of massed people gathered to ridicule opposing views and stonewall other opinions by shouting en masse, big, big, big, big, big, big (Brother) draws chilling congruence to leftist Brown Shirt street tactics. This book is not an attack on the Democrat Party, but an expos on Big Brother socialism.

On another subject, I recently received a priority mail flat rate box (2-day delivery) shipped from West Palm Beach, FL. Received after 12 days in transit. Five of those days residing at the USPS sorting facility near the Greensboro airport. Conversely, I received a first class letter from Boone, NC, the day after it was mailed less than 24 hours.

When the pandemic began, people began to shop on line v/s visiting the stores. This put a severe strain on all the shipping services. FedEx has reacted by simply going bad. FedEx lost one of my packages; you cannot get them on the phone, they literally dont want to talk to you. The local reps dont have a clue. FedEx also took six days to deliver an overnight letter, then rubbed salt in the wound by charging me $36 to not do so. They wont do that to me again.

Rather than stomp and holler, I went to a couple of post offices to find out what is going on. So straight from the firing line, this is what is going on with the USPS. When the on-line biz picked up, USPS could not train new employees (who might be temps) quickly enough, so the employees worked overtime to get the mails delivered a little slower, but OK.

The problem begins with the new postmaster general, Mr. Louis DeJoy, appointed to the post in June 2020. Mr. Dejoy is a trustee at Elon University and was in private business for companies such as New Breed Logistics and XPO Logistics for 35 years. The statement from the USPS website says that Mr. DeJoy has committed to creating a long-term, viable operating model for the Postal Service that will ensure the organization can fulfill its public service mission while remaining self-sustaining.

This statement proves the problem as related to me by several of his employees in Greensboro. The terms public service mission and self-sustaining are incongruent. To his credit, Mr. DeJoy is trying to run the USPS as a profitable business. The USPS is a service, not a business.

Anyone alive knows that our government does not make money. It does not live within its means. For 55 cents, you can send a first class letter to anywhere in the U.S. and possessions (Guam, W. Somoa). Letters have to be sorted numerous times, and gathered and delivered by hand. 55 cents is a bargain, for the simple reason that it costs a lot more than that to process the letter.

What Mr. DeJoy has done is to eliminate and curtail overtime pay for the employees in order to reduce costs. So whether the mail is processed or not, at the end of the day, work stops. Would you work for your employer for free? Should you? The USPS is a service, not a business.

Miller Forester

Black Lives Matter Both Concept And Organization

Dear Editor,

Black lives matter. All lives add value to this world. All lives matter equally. The problem at hand is partially due to using the term Black Lives Matter to both describe a concept and name an organization. Disagreeing with the organization does not equal disagreeing with the concept. Most group opponents openly support the concept. However, individuals disagreeing with the group have faced false accusations of racism.

To encourage a difficult conversation, here are several criticisms of the loosely organized Black Lives Matter group.

1) Stop and frisk policies caused devastating mistrust of police in the African American community. However, the BLM group over demanded. It crossed the line from a defensive to an offensive group. It has morphed into an antiestablishment, anti-police, anti-constitutional rights, and antigovernment organization. Two wrongs remain two wrongs.

2) The group leveraged confusion between concept and group to force support and punish disagreement.

3) It is dangerous to attack individuals for saying all lives matter. The term implies equality not racism. Black lives are included within all lives matter. Supporting all lives supports black lives. If you truly support equality, you must believe that we are equally capable of good as well as bad acts. If you believe we are all capable of graduating from college given environmental factors, you must also believe that we are capable of committing crimes given environmental factors. If you believe everyone are capable of good but only that other group is capable of bad, we risk defensiveness crossing over to offensiveness. We all risk being both abused by and abusers of racism. By becoming angered over all lives matter comments, increasing extremism risks crossing into racist ideology. We must all worry about extremism crossing the line into racism/discrimination. No one is immune. The individuals demanding only Black Lives Matter comments demand support for the organization not the concept.

4) The groups extremism increases tensions increasing threat to all sides. Fear and animosity has been heightened. Today, when police stop citizens, both sides become defensive. Both sides misinterpret the others defensiveness as offensiveness. This will only escalate tensions resulting in greater number of painful outcomes. In order to truly fix this situation, all sides must be listened to and understanding of the other attempted. After all, we are all, ALL, capable of mistakes. Demanding understanding without offering the same only amplifies distrust.

Alan Burke

Be Careful Of Propaganda From Both Sides

Dear Editor,

propaganda

Propaganda has been going on sense man developed speaking, reading, and writing. It has always been a very valuable tool used for good and bad. Advertising is probably the single largest use ever.

If you are paying close attention to what is being written and said you will spot the subtle use of words and phrases that other people begin using in any conversation on the subject. The best, most obvious example is where members of the media who are graduates of the Joseph Goebbels School of Journalism have managed to insert the word troops in place of the word agents when talking about federal law enforcement across the country. This allows the segue into the other lie about having federal troops on the streets of American cities

Goebbels is often credited with being the originator of the following;

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

In this example, the State is replaced by the collective leftist, Marxist/communist, socialist, anarchist groups being given cover and support by the (National Socialist) Democrat party.

They are able to get away with this because not enough people do actual comparative research. Too many people simply accept what they read and hear without challenging it, without looking at other sources and what they have to say. These are the people that help to spread the propaganda. And I will point out that that applies to both sides. There are those organizations on the extreme right and some that are truly racist that are as bad.

There is nothing wrong with being a little bit cynical. It keeps you safe and healthy. And it helps to make for a better, stronger America.

Dont buy into the B.S. Do your research before you vote.

Alan Marshall

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Letters To Editor: August 5, 2020 - The Rhino TImes

Education, not censorship, must be used to tackle online antisemitism – The Jerusalem Post

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Last week Twitter made international headlines for its statements in the Knesset when questioned about its hate speech policies. The platforms representative, Ylwa Pettersson, stated that while Trumps tweets violate its standards for glorifying violence, the ayatollahs calls for genocide do not.

Additionally, when I asked Twitter in the committee meeting why it doesnt prohibit Holocaust denial, it confirmed that Holocaust denial is permissible on its platform as long as its not targeted at Jews.

While these responses were surely stunning to those of us in the committee and apparently to the international press it is a testament to the true state of affairs when it comes to understanding modern antisemitism. It is for precisely this reason that all social media platforms should be adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism and using it as an educational tool rather than for censorship.

When looking at antisemitism today, five major manifestations appear on social media calls to violence, Holocaust denial, antisemitic conspiracies, antisemitic tropes, and use of Israel or Zionism as replacement words for hateful comments toward Jews or Judaism.

Google leads the field in fighting antisemitism with specific terms that cover antisemitic conspiracies and tropes, as well as Holocaust denial, demonization of groups based on ideas (i.e., Zionists are baby killers), and of course calls to violence. Facebook and TikTok have definitions that could be applied to forms of antisemitism, depending on context, but Twitter does not even have that. Even worse, Twitter has a well-documented pattern of double standards with antisemitic speech. Only last week, it removed neo-Nazi and KKK leader David Duke from its platform, where he has been freely spouting his hate speech for 11 years, but Louis Farrakhan, despite his vile tweets about Jews (and calling Jews termites), is still using the platform with impunity much like the ayatollah of Iran.

This month, Twitters colossal failure sparked uproar when British rapper Wiley went on an appalling antisemitic rant a trend that seems to be occurring with increasing frequency on social media. Celebrities, artists, politicians and the Jewish community fought back by staging a 48-hour walkout of Twitter in response to its failure to deal with the hate speech. Days later, Wiley was finally banned from Twitter. But banning alone wont solve the ugliness in the hearts of antisemites that will require education and conversation.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism addresses all the aforementioned forms of antisemitism, but it doesnt call for banning or removing hate speech it calls for acknowledgment.

This is the model that should be adopted. Should social media networks finally get serious about implementing IHRA, they can flag antisemitic content with a warning that, according to the consensus of the Jewish community, this content would be considered antisemitic. Additionally, they can provide and attach resources to the content in question so viewers can read more about antisemitism today, and why we, as Jews, believe the content is problematic. This is a vastly superior approach to removing posts or accounts, because it not only helps educate users who are knowingly or unknowingly buying into antisemitic tropes or conspiracies, but it also allows us to track and monitor antisemitic sentiment all while respecting free speech.

Perhaps even more importantly, working with social media networks to monitor and define antisemitism according to the IHRA framework helps to educate the employees of the networks themselves. Imagine how different Petterssons response would have been in that Knesset committee meeting had she had a proper education in antisemitism, which she clearly did not receive in her home country of Sweden. And shes the head of policy for Twitter for Israel and the Nordic states a testament to how severe this problem is today.

Censorship will not lead to a better world or more tolerant communities. Social media platforms should adopt IHRA today, and use it as an educational tool to reduce antisemitism and build trust with the Jewish community that has been so severely damaged by the lack of action on the part of these digital platforms.

The writer is the CEO of Social Lite Creative and a research fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute.

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Education, not censorship, must be used to tackle online antisemitism - The Jerusalem Post