Bangor Daily News – Bangor Daily News

Posted on by

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Location: Jesup Memorial Library, 34 Mt. Desert St., Bar Harbor, ME

For more information: 207-288-4245; jesuplibrary.org

Join Dr. Adam Boyko for a talk at the Jesup Memorial Library on Wednesday, August 2 at 7 p.m. The talk is part of the Jesup and The Jackson Laboratorys Genetic Tails series.

Dr. Boyko is an assistant professor at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. His research focuses on genomic investigation of dogs as a model of genetic disease and evolutionary genetics. One aspect of this work is understanding the evolution and genetics of village dogs, the semi-feral pariah dogs found in much of the world today. His lab, The Boyko Lab, specializes in building tools and resources to uncover the genetic basis of canine diseases and adaptations, develop insights into the history and evolution, and understand the role of natural selection, mutation, and breeding practices on the patterning genetic variation in the dog genome. Dr. Boyko is also the Founder and Chief Science Officer of Embark Veterinary, a canine genetic testing company.

Dr. Boyko is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and received an MS in Computer Science and a PhD in Biology from Purdue University before his postdoctoral research in the Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology at Cornell University. He served as a Research Associate in the Genetics Department at the Stanford School of Medicine before beginning his faculty appointment at Cornell in 2011.

This talk is free and open to the public (and their dogs). For more information, contact the Jesup at 207-288-4245 or kchagnon@jesuplibrary.org.

This post was contributed by a community member. Submit your news

Read the original post:

Bangor Daily News - Bangor Daily News

What I learned from home DNA testing – The Guardian

Posted on by

Barbara Ellen using a home DNA-testing kit. Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer New Review for the Observer

There may come a time in everyones life when they find themselves sitting at the kitchen table on an otherwise unexceptional weekday morning, drooling saliva into a test tube in the spirit of scientific inquiry.

The spit is for one of the home genetic-testing kits Im sampling. A growing number of these kits (brands such as 23andMe, DNAFit, Thriva, MyHeritage DNA, and Orig3n) promise to unlock the mystery of your genomes, variously explaining everything from ancestry, residual Neanderthal variants, bioinformatics for fitness, weight loss and skincare, to more random genetic predispositions, denoting, say, the dimensions of your earlobes or the consistency of yourearwax.

More controversially, some of these kits profess to tell you your biological (as opposed to actual age) by measuring the length of your telomeres (in basic terms, the caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect chromosomes, like plastic tips at the end of shoelaces). Other tests, such as 23andMe, predict higher risks of developing serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimers and Parkinsons, including the test for BRCA1/BRCA2 (breast and ovarian cancer) that Angelina Jolie famously underwent, going on to have a preventative double mastectomy and surgery to remove her ovaries.

Its easy to do these tests; its usually just a case of collecting your own samples at home, filling in short, basic questionnaires, posting the packages, and then logging on to interactive websites for confidential results (all the kits I tested used outside laboratories). With an array of price ranges and options, from one-off DNA-blitzes to targeting specific health areas, to fitness/wellness tracking, its no surprise that these kits are proving to be very big business and the field is primed to get even bigger, with a global market estimated to be worth around 7.7bn by 2022.

Saying that, whats it all for? Some individuals, such as Jolie, have the kind of family histories that give them good reason to be concerned about their health, though, as becomes clear, those people might be better off consulting doctors in the normal way.

Otherwise, the home-testing kits could be said to fit in with our increasingly health-conscious and, if you wish to be cynical, narcissistic times. What says youre special more than finding out everything about yourself, right down to the nitty-gritty of genetics? In this way, these kits could be viewed as the latest plaything of the worried well. You could see how the scientific approach would appeal to the health-obsessed of all sexes and ages, your marathon runners and serious gym-goers, who take their fitness extremely seriously.

Another key customer type could be people like myself, hurtling through middle age, perhaps just starting to feel the cold bony hand of mortality clamp down on their shoulder. People, who, in the past, may not have exactly prioritised their health, who are starting to wonder what may be in store for them and who are in the (Hypochondriacs R Us) market for some hard-core insight andadvice.

Which is all very well, but do these kits work and deliver the service they promise and what about the wider ethics and implications of home genetic testing? Is it always wise for generally under-informed, under-prepared consumers to meddle in the highly complex, nuanced arena of genetics, risking confusion, complacency or even outright panic and anxiety when confronted with ostensible bad news (which may not even be true)?

The first kit I try is Thrivas baseline test (49), which, like all its products, checks your blood. The box arrives promptly enough (containing spring-loaded needles, a little collection tube, antiseptic wipes, plasters, etc), but theres a problem. The idea is to prick your finger and massage blood into the tube, but I just end up making my fingers sore and what I get out barely smears the top of the phial. Maybe its just me, but it turns into a right faff. In the end, I take advantage of Thrivas service to send someone out to take a sample of blood from my arm.

When we speak, co-founder Hamish Grierson describes Thriva as a lifestyle brand with medical-grade testing at the back end, an opportunity for people to see themselves as consumers rather than patients. Grierson gives examples of people who have benefited from Thriva testing, sometimes picking up early on serious issues. As for alarming people, Grierson says that Thriva has on-site facilities to discuss results and is intended to be complementary to the NHS rather than replacing it: If there are questions we cant answer, were very clear that people should pick it up with their GP.

When my results appear, they show nothing bad. If anything, its anticlimactic: cholesterol, vitamins, liver proteins and the like are all in the normal range, with only ferritin (iron stores) slightly high, with a recommendation to go easy on any iron supplements. My problem with the baseline test is that, unlike Thrivas other products, clients are supposed to have one every three months to keep track, but would I really want (or indeed need) to do such a test soregularly?

According to Margaret McCartney, GP, and author of The Patient Paradox, theres a fundamental problem with home genetic-testing kits per se.

My concern is that more and more of these tests are being put out, and people are being persuaded to have these tests done, and they get results back that are very often of very low value and dubious helpfulness, she says. And often people are told to go to see their GP and that then places a direct stress on the NHS, at no cost to the company. The companies make their profits and walk away, letting the NHS sort out all the fallout, the push-back, from the test results, in a way I find absurd. Why should the NHS have to prop up the problems that these companies create?

In McCartneys view, enough testing is already done in this country (sometimes too much) and there are issues of regulation and informed consent. People are given very dramatic reasons to have these tests it could help save your life, it could help improve the quality of your life but where is the actual controlled evidence that these tests have ever done that? Theres no evidence that says doing these tests makes people becomehealthier.

McCartney says that anxious people often contact her, saying they wished they hadnt done the tests. These companies often say that its worth it for the helpful advice. But I can give you really good advice right now without seeing a single test result: be active, have lots of social networks, do work you enjoy, try not to smoke or drink too much, dont be overweight or underweight, eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Nobody needs to get tests done to get that kind of basic lifestyleadvice.

Nor does McCartney care for the worried well narrative. I dont really like the worried well thing because it moves the blame on to the people themselves. I think people are being made anxious by manipulative advertising. People are generally good. They dont want to be worried or unwell just for fun.

Some concerns about the ultimate efficacy of certain home tests seem to emanate from the industry itself. I did a telomere-measuring test (a mouth swab) by Titanovo, based in north Colorado, which came back saying that my telomeres were too short, putting me at 10 biological years older than I am. However, when I contacted Titanovo, it explained that it had stopped telomere measuring and was now concentrating exclusively on its DNA-utilising bioinformatics health, fitness and wellbeing website (analysing client data from other genetic testing sites).

Titanovo explained that it found telomere measuring too inconsistent, with too many super-fit people presenting with short telomeres and unfit people presenting with long ones and, ultimately, everyone receiving pretty much the same advice: start exercising and eating healthily or continue exercising and eating healthily.

Bill Newman, professor of translational genomic medicine in the Manchester centre for genomic medicine at the University of Manchester, and chair of the British Society of Genetic Medicine, says that such tests in this context simply dont make sense and that, usually, telomere testing would only be used in in-depth studies of ageing and diseases associated with ageing. Theres some really brilliant work going on, by some of the best biologists in the world, says Newman, citing Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine for her work on telomeres. But theres no evidence whatsoever that measuring a persons telomeres gives any indication about their health or beauty, intelligence, or anything else that might be listed on these sites.

In Newmans view, the genie is out of the bottle with home genetic-testing kits. He says that while the kits could potentially provide data in the future, right now, they lack clinical utility they look at genetic variants that, individually, have a very low chance of predicting specific health risks, as there are too many variables: Its like the Opportunity Knocks clap-o-meter, with some people further along the scale, and therefore more likely to get the condition and then people at the other end of the scale, who are unlikely to get it.

Newman says that theres a basic lack of literacy and understanding about genetic testing, among the public and even other health professionals. People are given false reassurances or made to panic (just because you have certain genetic variants, it doesnt mean that you will develop a particular condition). Newman also makes the point that, in his field, counselling happens before and after testing and, while people with cancer or heart issues nearly always opt to have the test (as they can then take action to varying degrees), often people with conditions such as Huntingtons disease in their family decide not to go ahead because a diagnosis would change nothing for them. In any event, Newman says that, with genetic testing, while there are different levels, intensive counselling is always absolutely key.

All this comes into sharp focus with the comprehensive kits such as the one provided by 23andMe: the one I drool into a tube for (incidentally, 23andMe doesnt test for Huntingtons disease). Most people, like myself, have a low understanding of genetic variants, what phrases such as higher risk or probability actually mean or how to interpret our results correctly. Is it right that ordinary members of the public must navigate potentially frightening and/or misleading results alone?

As it happens, most of the data on 23andMe seems harmless and fun. There are the Neanderthal variants (I have fewer of them than 58% of 23andMe customers, thank you very much), the bizarre earwax/earlobes-type data and, apparently, I have the muscle composition generally found in elite athletes (fancy). On the downside, my lineage isnt as exotic as Id hoped: 99.1% north-western Europe, of which 71% is British/Irish, with just 0.01% Ashkenazi Jewish to offset the genetic monotony. At 149, the 23andMe kit isnt cheap and Im quite tempted to demand a recount.

Then comes the section about serious genetic variants. So far as counselling goes, previously, Id waved away concern for my psychological welfare from the Observers science editor (Im a former goth, I said. My default setting is doomed), but it turns out to be quite daunting. It doesnt help that I initially mistake the full list of potential conditions for my own results, hence (thankfully briefly) thinking that I have higher risk factors for everything going. It makes me wonder how many other people are going to do that?

In fairness to 23andME, it leaves it up to the customer to unlock the more serious results or not. When I unlock mine, I discover that, while Im not genetically predisposed to such things as the BRAC1 or BRAC2 variant, Parkinsons or MS, I have one of the variants for late-onset (mid-80s) Alzheimers. However, I dont have any other markers for Alzheimers or family history or conditions associated with it or anything else listed in the rather lengthy disclaimer, which also stresses that its not a diagnostic result and to seek further advice from your GP if you are concerned.

This is another feature of these genetic-testing sites they are littered with caveats and disclaimers, forever emphasising that theyre not actual diagnostic tests and, if you are really concerned by your results, to seek further advice from your GP or another health professional. As has been pointed out by McCartney, when anything looks serious, ultimately its back to the very GP and exact NHS infrastructure that these kits profess to smoothly bypass.

As a postscript, I eventually end up having an interesting chat with Titanovo about my bioinformatics (distilled from my 23andMe data). One of the first things Im told is that my eyes are green (theyre brown). However, the bioinformatics got my skin type and frame/weight generally right and had interesting (albeit occasionally generic) things to say about exercise, diet, goals, steering clear of too much sugar and so on.

Who knows how much of it made solid scientific sense? However, I have to confess that I rather enjoyed it on the level of an indulgent genome-oriented pampering session, just as I had a hoot with the ancestry/Neanderthal/earlobe data on 23andMe. Where Thriva is concerned, I also noted that it did advanced thyroid tests. Although such tests are available from the NHS, Im hypothyroid myself and I know that sometimes it can be difficult and time-consuming getting tests repeated and it could be useful to be privately tested in this way.

It could be that, in the main, genetic-testing kits such as these could, if promoted and used responsibly, end up zoned completely away from legitimate science and medicine and placed where perhaps they belong, firmly in the lifestyle-extra zone, if and when people think theyre worth it. Though, somewhat tellingly, when I ask Newman if he thinks that any of the genetic testing kits are worth buying, he instantly says: No. Id say, go to the cinema, watch some sport. Spend the money on something nice, something life-enhancing.

What is the project? The 100,000 Genomes Project is an NHS initiative, run by Genomics England, and is the largest national genome sequencing project in the world. On entering, patients have their entire genome, of more than 3bn base pairs, sequenced. This is different from commercially available genetic testing kits, such as those from 23andMe, which only look at very small stretches of DNA in a process called genotyping. The hope of the NHS is that having so much genetic information, from so many different people, will allow groundbreaking discoveries about how diseases work, who could be susceptible to them, how we can treat them, and what treatments might work.

Whose genomes are being sequenced? The only patients having their genome sequenced are those with certain cancers or rare diseases. In some cases, family members may also be asked to participate. To take part, a patient must first be referred by a consultant, before being taken through an extensive consent process to ensure they know what participation in the project means. As well as the genome sequence, Genomics England asks for access to a patients lifetime medical records so that links can be made between their genetics and their individual disease. The NHS has made it very clear that, for many participants, taking part in this project wont help them treat their disease. But it is hoped that the information they provide will go on to help treat others in the future.

Where does the data go? Each patients genome sequence and their medical records are kept in an NHS data centre in pseudonymised form. Researchers from commercial and not-for-profit organisations can get access to the data at the centre if they can prove that they are using it for studies that will further medical science.

What information do the patients get back? Although the project states that most participants wont receive any useful information, patients will be told if something is found in their genome that is relevant to the treatment, explanation or diagnosis of their condition. They can also choose to learn if they have a genetic risk factor for another disease, such as the BRCA1 gene mutation that can cause breast cancer. Genomics England will only look for risk factors that are linked to a disease that can be treated or prevented. Untreatable conditions, such as Alzheimers, are not looked for.

Why 100,000 genomes? The NHS believes that sequencing 100,000 genomes will provide enough information on these diseases while also being cost-effective. In the future, as the price of whole genome sequencing goes down, it hopes to involve more patients and even more diseases.

Agnes Donnelly

Continue reading here:

What I learned from home DNA testing - The Guardian

Weight-loss surgery helps even the genetic playing field – Lexington Herald Leader

Posted on by

Lexington Herald Leader
Weight-loss surgery helps even the genetic playing field
Lexington Herald Leader
How can one overcome genetics? If everyone in my family is heavy, isn't it a foregone conclusion that I will be heavy also? I hear these concerns often in my office. The good news is we can overcome genetics with weight-loss surgery. The most popular ...

Read the original here:

Weight-loss surgery helps even the genetic playing field - Lexington Herald Leader

Two Recent Scientific Advances Underscore An Encouraging Future For Precision Medicine At FDA – San Marcos Corridor News

Posted on by

Two recent FDA drug approvals point to an encouraging future for precision medicine an approach for disease treatment that tailors medical therapies, including medications, to the needs of individual patients.

By, Janet Woodcock, M.D.

The United States Food and Drug Administration helps bring precision medicine in the form of targeted therapies to people living with diseases that have specific genetic features.

Two recent FDA drug approvals point to an encouraging future for precision medicine an approach for disease treatment that tailors medical therapies, including medications, to the needs of individual patients. These approvals involve diseases resulting from particular genetic characteristics identified by laboratory testing.

FDA has approved many more advances in precision medicines, also called targeted therapies. In the past 3 years alone, our Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has approved more than 25 new drugs that benefit patients with specific genetic characteristics.

And we have approved many more new uses also based on specific genetic characteristics for drugs already on the market. Some of these drug approvals are for patients with rare genetic disorders. Others are new targeted therapies to treat cancer, hepatitis C, or HIV. Medication dosing for specific diseases may also be tailored to the individual.

Precision medicine holds great promise, but to continue developing targeted therapies, we will need scientific advances in the use and development of biomarkers. Biomarkers are indicators in the body that can be measuredlike blood pressure, blood sugar, and tumor size. Tests to identify genetic variants are another form of biomarker.

Biomarkers can enable health care professionals and researchers to identify patients at risk of disease, determine the stage of a disease, and predict the likelihood that a patient will benefit from a drug. They also play a role in drug development.

A particular biomarker, for example, can be used to identify appropriate candidates for a clinical trial, such as those patients likely to respond to treatment.

This can make it easier and faster to recruit patients and may result in a shorter time for drug approval. In a similar way, biomarkers can sometimes identify positive treatment effects before traditional clinical endpoints would.

For instance, biomarkers might show a tumor shrinking before improvement in a patients condition is detected. So, using biomarkers in clinical trials can speed up the time it takes for an investigative drug to reach a patient.

The ability to identify useful biomarkers depends on how well scientists understand the disease they are seeking to treat. In some areas, such as cancer and infectious diseases, we have made real progress in understanding how these diseases develop and how to treat them with drug therapy. FDA continues to encourage drug developers to use strategies based on biomarkers.

One way we do that is by ensuring that a given biomarker is really able to single out those patients who are likely to respond to a specific drug. Another way is using biomarkers to identify people whose disease is progressing rapidly.

Beyond working on biomarkers for individual products, FDA also works with stakeholders and scientific consortia in qualifying biomarkers that can be used in the development of many drugs. Once qualified, these biomarkers may be used in the specified manner by any drug sponsor.

New provisions under the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act provide direction and opportunity for FDA to strengthen the science of biomarkers and to advance precision medicine.

We believe it is important to make drugs such as Kalydeco and Keytruda available to as many patients as can benefit from them. FDA is actively pursuing more advances in targeted therapies.

Janet Woodcock, M.D., is the Director of FDAs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

Continue reading here:

Two Recent Scientific Advances Underscore An Encouraging Future For Precision Medicine At FDA - San Marcos Corridor News

Companies Rush to Develop ‘Utterly Transformative’ Gene Therapies – New York Times

Posted on by

The products closest to approval so far have a limited focus to treat blood cancers like leukemia (for which an F.D.A. advisory panel recommended approval of the first treatment last week) and lymphoma, as opposed to the solid tumors that form in organs like the breasts and lungs and cause many more deaths. About 80,000 people a year have the kinds of blood cancers that the first round of new treatments can fight, out of the 1.7 million cases of cancer diagnosed annually in the United States.

The new treatments are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they come with risks. Patients in the earliest studies nearly died from side effects like raging fever, low blood pressure and lung congestion. Doctors have learned how to control those reactions, but experts also have concerns about possible long-term effects like second cancers that could in theory be caused by the disabled viruses used in genetic engineering. No such cancers have been seen so far, but it is too soon to rule them out.

The new leukemia treatment involves removing millions of white blood cells called T cells often referred to as the soldiers of the immune system from the patients bloodstream, genetically engineering them to recognize and kill cancer, multiplying them and then infusing them back into the patient. The process is expensive because each treatment has to be made separately for each person.

Solid tumors are less amenable to treatment with these altered cells which scientists call CAR-T cells but studies at various centers are trying to find ways to use it against mesothelioma and cancers of the ovary, breast, prostate, pancreas and lung.

These solid tumors are like Fort Knox, Dr. Grupp said. They dont want to let the T cells in. We need combination approaches, CAR-T plus something else, but until the something else is defined were not doing to see the same kind of responses.

The pioneering T-cell therapy for leukemia was created at the University of Pennsylvania, which licensed it to Novartis. The F.D.A. panel recommended approval of it for a narrow subset of severely ill patients, only a few hundred a year in the United States: those ages 3 to 25 who have B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia that has relapsed or not responded to the standard treatments. Those patients have poor odds of surviving, but in clinical trials, a single T-cell treatment has produced long remissions in many and possibly even cured some.

Novartis plans to request another approval later this year of the same treatment (which it calls CTL019 or tisagenlecleucel) for adults who have a type of lymphoma diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that has relapsed or resisted treatment. A competitor, Kite Pharma, has also filed for approval of a T-cell treatment for lymphoma. Another competitor, Juno, suffered a setback when it shut down a T-cell study in adults after five patients died from brain swelling. Kite has also reported one such death.

Novartis is studying several other types of T-cells, with different genetic tweaks, to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia, multiple myeloma as well as glioblastoma.

Some of the more promising work so far involves efforts to make the existing gene treatments even more effective in blood cancers. For lymphoma patients, the T cells are being given along with a drug, ibrutinib, and the combination seems to work better than either treatment alone.

At the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, there are not enough study spots for all the patients who hope to receive T-cell treatment, and the waiting time can stretch to months, longer than some can afford to wait. Waiting times should decline after the treatment is approved and becomes more widely available.

Dr. Grupp said that one encouraging avenue of research involved giving the T-cells at an earlier stage of the disease, instead of very late, as rules now require. He said a study was being planned at multiple centers that he hoped would start within the next six months or so. The patients would be children with early signs that the usual chemotherapy which cures many is not working well for them.

We could deploy the treatment considerably earlier and before they get so sick, he said. He added, That is another big step in terms of trying to figure out how to use these cells appropriately.

Earlier treatment, he said, might help some patients avoid bone-marrow transplant, a grueling, last-ditch treatment. Children with less advanced disease also tend to have milder side effects from the T-cell treatment.

Studies in children are also underway to combine T-cell treatment with the immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which help unleash the cancer-killing power of T cells. There will be many such studies, Dr. Grupp predicted, but, he said, Its early days.

The T cells in the Novartis products, and in the earliest ones its competitors are developing, have been engineered to seek and destroy cells that display on their surfaces a protein called CD19 a characteristic of many leukemias and lymphomas.

Identifying other targets would be a boon, Dr. Grupp said, because sometimes leukemic cells lacking CD19 proliferate, escape the treatment and cause relapse.

Another target is being studied, and Dr. Grupp said the next step, which he called superimportant, would be to attack two cellular targets in the same patient.

In the next year or so, he said, that approach will also be studied in both children and adults who have acute myeloid leukemia, which he described as a tough disease.

Researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are trying a completely different approach to engineering cells, one that they hope might eventually yield an off the shelf treatment that would not have to be tailored to each individual patient and that might be less expensive.

Instead of using T cells, the team uses natural killer cells, another component of the immune system, one that has a powerful ability to fight anything it recognizes as foreign. Instead of extracting the cells from patients, the researchers, Dr. Katy Rezvani and Dr. Elizabeth Shpall, remove the natural killers from samples of umbilical-cord blood donated by women who have just given birth.

They use natural killer cells because T cells from one person cannot be safely given to another, lest they attack the hosts tissue, causing graft-versus-host disease, which can be fatal. Natural killer cells do not cause that deadly reaction, so it is safe to use such cells from a newborns cord blood to treat patients.

The natural killer cells are genetically engineered to attack CD19, and also to produce a substance that activates them and helps them persist in the body. They also have an off switch, a gene that will let the researchers shut down the cells with a certain drug if they cause dangerous side effects that cannot be controlled.

After promising studies in mice, the researchers have opened a study for adults with relapsed or treatment-resistant chronic lymphocytic leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The first patient was to be treated this week, Dr. Rezvani said.

One unit of cord blood yields enough cells to treat five patients, she said, and in two weeks the natural killer cells can be expanded 500-fold, to a billion cells.

We plan to make the product and infuse it fresh to the patient, but we are also working on optimizing the freezing process so we can make the product, freeze it and keep it, so that when patients need it, we can give it.

A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Racing to Alter Patients Cells To Kill Cancer.

See more here:

Companies Rush to Develop 'Utterly Transformative' Gene Therapies - New York Times

Staff of leading Turkish daily face trial in press freedom test – FRANCE 24

Posted on by

With your existing account from... {* loginWidget *} With a traditional account... {* #signInForm *} {* signInEmailAddress *} {* currentPassword *} {* /signInForm *} Welcome back, {* welcomeName *} {* loginWidget *} Welcome back! {* #signInForm *} {* signInEmailAddress *} {* currentPassword *}

Sign In

Your account has been deactivated.

You must verify your email address before signing in. Check your email for your verification email, or enter your email address in the form below to resend the email.

Please confirm the information below before signing in. Sign In

We have sent a confirmation email to {* emailAddressData *}. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account.

We've sent an email with instructions to create a new password. Your existing password has not been changed.

{| foundExistingAccountText |} {| current_emailAddress |}.

{| existing_displayName |} {| existing_provider_emailAddress |}

Created {| existing_createdDate |} at {| existing_siteName |}

Thank you for verifiying your email address.

Check your email for a link to reset your password.

Thank you for verifiying your email address.

Password has been successfully updated.

We didn't recognize that password reset code. Enter your email address to get a new one.

We've sent an email with instructions to create a new password. Your existing password has not been changed.

{* photoManager *}

{* loginWidget *}

{* publicPrivate *} {* journalistContact *} {* aboutMe *} {* usernameTwPublic *} {* preferedContactLanguages *} {* arabicUsername *} {* persianUsername *} {* skypeId *} {* usernameTw *} {* journalistContact *} {* publicPrivate *} {* profession *}

{* newsMenu *} {* optinalert *} {* optinBestofWeek *} {* optinBestofWEnd *} {* optinBestofObs *}

{* newsMenuEn *} {* optinalertEn *} {* optinBestofWeekEn *} {* optinBestofWEndEn *} {* optinBestofObsEn *}

{* newsMenuAr *} {* optinalertAr *} {* optinBestofWeekAr *} {* optinBestofWEndAr *} {* optinBestofObsAr *}

{* newsMenuEs *} {* optinalertEs *} {* optinbestofweekEs *} {* optinbestofwendEs *}

{* optinQuotidienne *} {* optinBreaking *}

{* optinAutopromo *} {* optinPartenaires *}

{* optinActuMonde *} {* optinActuAfrique *} {* optinAlert *} {* optinRfiAfriqueFootFr *} {* optinMfi *} {* optinActuMusique *} {* optinOffreRfi *} {* optinOffrePartenaire *}

{* savedProfileMessage *}

Are you sure you want to deactivate your account? You will no longer have access to your profile.

Originally posted here:

Staff of leading Turkish daily face trial in press freedom test - FRANCE 24

EDITORIAL: Freedom of speech never more valuable – The Northwest Florida Daily News

Posted on by

When it seems anyone can say or write almost anything and have it published on the internet, recent events offer reminders that the freedom of expression is not universal.

The Financial Times first reported this week that the Chinese government has banned Winnie-the-Poohs likeness and name on social media.

Yes, that Winnie-the-Pooh, the anthropomorphic bear created by author A.A. Milne and digitized by Disney. As USA Today reported in a follow-up: The characters name in Chinese was censored in posts on Sina Weibo, a social media platform similar to Twitter, while a collection of Winnie-the-Pooh gifts vanished from social messaging service WeChat. ... Any attempts to post Poohs Chinese name on Weibo prompted a message: 'Content is illegal.' "

Insiders speculated that government censors acted on behalf of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was the subject of an internet meme featuring roly-poly Pooh and his wiry pal Tigger. Those images emerged in 2013 after the stout Xi was photographed with the slender President Barack Obama.

As is often the case, examples of absurd government censorship in China and elsewhere are accompanied by appalling abuses of human rights. Too often one leads to another, or vice versa.

It has been widely reported in the free world that Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, recently died in Chinese custody denied access to his wife, who is under house arrest. But Chinese officials who control the media have been on social sites busily blocking news of Lius death and monitoring private conversations.

Liu was in state custody because he had been sentenced to 11 years in prison for writing about and advocating universal values shared by all humankind, including human rights, equality, freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

Eleven years.

For advocating universal values shared by all humankind.

Horrifying.

China is one of the most populous offenders but hardly alone. We have written previously about Raif Badawi, a blogger who has criticized the entanglement of religion, namely Islam, and government in Saudi Arabia and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes as a result. Considered a foe of the state and the national religion, he remains in custody; little is known about his condition or the extent of the beatings he has suffered.

Examples of repression are everywhere. Credible reports by watchdogs show that 34 journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000 with evidence that the killings were in retribution for coverage of public- and private-sector corruption. Turkey has recently jailed human-rights advocates.

And, yes, in the United States, there are troubling signs of intolerance: Campus speakers have been threatened and shouted down by political opponents, the tenor of the cultural wars is increasingly hostile and dishonest journalists have been labeled by the president as enemies of the people.

But at least in America we have the First Amendment and its protections, which have seldom seemed more necessary and valuable.

This editorial was originally published in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, a sister newspaper of the Daily News within GateHouse Media.

Read the original:

EDITORIAL: Freedom of speech never more valuable - The Northwest Florida Daily News

The War on the Freedom of Information Act – The Atlantic

Posted on by

The health-care clusterfudge continues. Senator John McCain has brain cancer. President Trump throws another public tantrum. Russia, Russia, Russia.

That about covers the Big Political Headlines of the week. Now for something really sexy: the creeping assault on the Freedom of Information Act.

The GOP Health-Care Bill's Byrd Rule Dilemma

Stop right there! No clicking over to that Tucker Carlson YouTube rant. This is another one of those ticky-tacky, below-the-radar issues that may sound like a nonprescription substitute for Ambien but is, practically speaking, super importantespecially in the Age of Trump.

FOIA is what enables regular people to pester powerful federal agencies into handing over information about what theyve been up to. FOIAs website calls it the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government. Though a tad grandiose, that characterization is pretty much accurate. And never has such a tool been quite so vital as with the current White House, which has adopted a policy of unabashedly lying about pretty much everything.

Its hardly surprising then that government accountability groups balked when, in early April, House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling directed multiple agencies under his committees jurisdiction to start classifying all communications with the committee as official congressional records not subject to FOIA.

Probably best to back up a tick: FOIA applies only to executive agency records. Congressional records are a different creature entirely (as are presidential records), enjoying greater privacy protections. But not every document that has been created by or sent to Congress qualifies as a congressional record.

There has to be an expression of intent by Congress to treat a particular record or group of records as something that is a congressional recordthat it belongs to Congress and is only being given to an agency for a specific purpose, explained Lee Steven, assistant vice president with Cause of Action Institute, a pro-transparency, anti-big government nonprofit. What the courts have in the past said is that you cant put a blanket, before-the-fact designation on such a broad category. As such, Steven told me, Hensarlings directive is an egregious, possibly illegal case of overreach.

Hensarlings letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wound up in the press for all to peruse. The chairman indeed appears intent on sweeping all agency communications with his committee out of the public eye. (I reached out to multiple Republican Finance staffers about this. No one responded.) This would include not just memos to or from the committee or documents generated by an agency in response to a committee request. Hensarling also wants to reclassify pre-existing agency records that are compiled and sent over to the Hill for any reason.

Basically, if anyone at an agency is interacting with the finance committee in any way, Hensarling wants to make sure that you cant find out any details about it.

You can see how this might not be great in terms of promoting government accountability.

In early May, 21 good-government groups sent an open letter to Hensarling, asking him to rescind his directive. CoAI took it a step farther, issuing a FOIA request to the Department of Justicewhich oversees FOIA compliance for all agenciesfor any interaction the department may have had with the Finance Committee on this issue. The Department of Justice has so far ignored that request, prompting CoAI to file a lawsuit aimed at goosing it to comply.

To clarify: CoAI is not some lefty resistance group looking to make life hard for a Republican administration or Congress. It is generally considered a conservative organization. (The liberal Media Matters huffed in 2015 when CoAI was annoying the Obama White House: The group has received funding from the Koch brothers' financial network, and its [now former] executive director worked for Charles Koch and for the House Oversight Committee under Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.)

So to review: What you have here is a conservative group suing a conservative Justice Department for ignoring a FOIA request concerning a conservative House chairmans efforts to kneecap FOIA.

Even my head hurts at this point.

Steven clarifies that CoAIs suit against the Justice Department, for which oral arguments begin next month, may not have an initial impact on Hensarlings directive. (Where the case ultimately goes will depend on whether DoJ hands over the requested communicationsor maybe cites Hensarlings directive as an excuse not to; what those communications say; whether the White House was involved; and so on.) This is sort of a first step, said Steven.

But make no mistake: The ultimate goal is to stop lawmakers from undercutting one of the key tools the public has for keeping an eye on its government.

Were not saying that the idea of congressional records is completely off base. Not at all, stressed Steven. But this directive, as written, is way too broad.

This is in no way to suggest Hensarling is the only lawmaker looking for a little extra cover. CoAI has a near identical suit already making its way through the courts, stemming from a squabble it got into with the Obama-era IRSs dealings with Congresss Joint Committee on Taxation. The JCT basically did the same thing as what Hensarling is doing here, with respect to the IRS, said Steven. The ruling on that case, he noted, should provide a good indication of how this one will fare.

Its as inevitable as Trumps next Twit-fit: Those in power dislike the public nosing around in their business and are forever looking to shield themselves from scrutiny. But when that happens, the public needs to push back. Hard. No matter which team is in charge. And no matter how unsexy the details of the battle may be.

Read the rest here:

The War on the Freedom of Information Act - The Atlantic

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows takes a seat at the top table – Washington Examiner

Posted on by

Less than 24 hours after Washington celebrated Independence Day, in the midst of a two-week stretch of round-the-clock discussions on healthcare reform and the GOP agenda, Rep. Mark Meadows drove up to the White House to talk strategy.

"Can you hold on just a second?" he asked the Washington Examiner as he rolled down the window to speak to security. "I'm heading in the guard gate." He's a busy guy, and he was in the middle of phone interview as he pulled into the executive mansion.

"I'm going up to see Steve Bannon," he said, not to his interviewer but to one of the rings of security. "Thank you."

Most lawmakers had gone home for a week's recess, but Meadows stuck around for a while at least. He and his wife, Debbie, had to celebrate America's 241st birthday with friends, but he also had business to attend to.

Healthcare reform and the rest of the Republican legislative agenda evolve continuously, and as they have, Meadows has become a central figure and a chief influencer in a federal Washington run by President Trump.

He has arrived in this unaccustomed position after years cementing his standing as the consummate outsider. Meadows is in his third term as a member of the House of Representatives. He won North Carolina's drastically-redrawn 11th District after an eight-way Republican primary contest in 2012.

He has certainly made his presence felt more than ever before in the first six months of the Trump presidency. Despite his nearly constant smile and an aw-shucks demeanor being very different from Trump's jaw-jutting demeanor, Meadows resembles the president in unmistakeable ways. He has challenged the party's traditional leaders and bucked the establishment. He used to be a real estate broker, he pitches himself as a negotiator, and uses news media effectively to build his influence. Who does that remind you of? But it must be conceded that Meadows is an emollient character and considerably less pugnacious than his president.

He's been a thorn in the side of the GOP leadership for years. But despite this, he has now cultivated a fruitful relationship with the Trump administration and has established a rapport with House leadership cordial enough to give the Freedom Caucus, of which he is head, not just a seat at the table but real influence.

This is what its members have pined for since the group was formed. The caucus famously tangled with the GOP's House conference when it was led by Speaker John Boehner, especially over a push in 2013 to defund Obamacare. That effort was spearheaded by Meadows. But the arrival of Trump has changed everything and has pushed the Freedom Caucus to the negotiating table, where Meadows, the real estate executive, is in his comfort zone.

"Before, it was very easy to be against things, and just say, 'This is our position. This is where we're going to be,'" Meadows said in one of three interviews with the Washington Examiner. "If you just say, 'Well, this is our position. That's all we're going to support,' we have at best four years to make this all work. Maybe, at worst, two years, and so becoming so rigid in a unified government makes you miss opportunities.

"Here, we know every single time if we're going to be a conservative conference, the votes of the 36 House Freedom Caucus members, every one of them counts. It's important that we get it right, but it's also important that we don't frustrate some of our colleagues, which we have done in the past and that we might have even done last week. But it's important that we see that we're persuadable, and hopefully the whole healthcare debate showed both ends of the spectrum not persuadable, but persuadable."

Household name

The Freedom Caucus famously tangled with the GOP's House conference when it was led by Speaker John Boehner. (AP Photos)

The mild-mannered North Carolinian first gained attention, not to mention notoriety, for his repeated clashes with Boehner. He now regards his effort to oust Boehner by introducing a motion to "vacate the chair" as a "low point" and concedes that he was "naive." But he's changed since then. And in doing so, he has become a household name, at least inside Washington, during the healthcare fight, which he says was a "defining moment" for the caucus he leads. During that defining moment, Meadows was engulfed in the media crush that usually surrounds political A-listers or people drowning in scandal.

The healthcare fight was bruising for a caucus that wanted to get to "yes." When the caucus's opposition was at its peak, on March 21, Trump went to Capitol Hill for the House Republicans' weekly conference meeting and called out Meadows for the Freedom Caucus's recalcitrant opposition to the bill.

The president told GOP lawmakers that he could "come after" Meadows, but didn't think it would be necessary, which prompted Meadows to blush "sheepishly," according to a conservative aide. But Trump's jokey coercion backfired and instead of winning over or cajoling the Freedom Caucus into acquiescence, it stiffened members' opposition to the bill as 35 of the 38 members stood with their chairman.

"Anytime that you get called out by the president, it's not necessarily a good thing. I saw it as just the person he is where he's going to call me out and put that kind of pressure on me that would make most people wilt. I didn't take it personally," Meadows said, but "I felt unbelievable pressure. I think that what he doesn't realize is that the pressure I felt was already Herculean before he called me out, and then when he called me out, it was even greater."

Days later, just hours before the vote, when the American Health Care Act appeared to be on its deathbed, Meadows and the Freedom Caucus held an emotional meeting with Vice President Mike Pence at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican hotspot next to the Republican National Committee.

To this day, Meadows has no clue how Pence found out where the group was meeting, or who let him know about it. "I was quickly looking for NSA intel to have gathered enough to let him know where we were meeting," Meadows said of the gathering. Pence made an "impassioned plea," and managed to swing more than a handful of votes to "yes," but not nearly enough. At least 18 members remained hard "nos."

"[Meadows] was literally in tears," said a Freedom Caucus member, "He felt the weight of that meeting, and he wanted so much to get to yes.'"

Less than two hours later, Trump and House leadership canceled the vote, and talks went on for the next 40 days, after which the bill passed with Freedom Caucus support on May 4. The final bill included the so-called MacArthur amendment, which Meadows negotiated with Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., to allow states to opt out of providing various health benefits in reduce the price of premiums.

Meadows was "worn down" during discussions "physically and mentally," a Freedom Caucus source recalls, thanks partly to nonstop calls to and from the White House and House Speaker Paul Ryan. There were many sleepless nights and a lot of work in the wee hours of the morning, Meadows says.

Once, days before the bill passed, an exhausted Meadows lamented to reporters outside the House chamber that it had been a long week, only to be reminded that it was only Monday.

Helping pass the bill was crucial to the Freedom Caucus. Many of its members, including Meadows, knew that others in the party conference said the group could never get to "yes."

"If we had not gotten to yes' in the end, that would have been a problem," Meadows said. "It was a defining moment [H]ad there not been a bill that was pulled on the Thursday or Friday, there would always have been the idea that the Freedom Caucus will cave in the end. But equally as important, had we not come around and provided the votes a few weeks later for 'yes,' there would have been the typical stereotype that they'll never get to 'yes.' "

Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., a Freedom Caucus member, put it more bluntly. "For a caucus or a group, simply no' gets to be very, very dangerous in political terms," Sanford said. "You, at some point, have to find a way to get to yes.' Not on every bill, but certainly on some of them, cause if not, there's no reason to come your way from a negotiation standpoint and spend time with you. If it's just going to be no,' I'll go elsewhere."

Taking over

Rep. Mark Meadows took over as leader of the Freedom Caucus in December from Rep. Jim Jordan.

After years of being a leading figure in what was known on Capitol Hill as the "hell no" caucus, Meadows took over as leader in December from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. The group had discussed making Jordan chairman for life, so it was a hard act to follow.

Jordan still commands respect, and he and Meadows describe each other as best friends, but the change in the caucus since Meadows took charge has been noticed on Capitol Hill and among members. Many argue that Jordan was a better fit for the Obama years but Meadows is right for today. Additionally, some members believe that without Meadows' negotiating, the bill would have failed.

Sanford said, "The personalities fit. Jim Jordan's background as a wrestler absolutely fit with his willingness to engage and tangle with the [Obama] administration. He's a fighter, and that's what the ring is all about.

"Mark is much more conciliatory. He's genteel. He's southern. He's cordial, and at times you can get more, certainly with this administration, with sweet rather than sour."

Meadows hardly disputes this, saying, "Do we have two different styles? Yeah. Jim was a two-time national champion wrestler, and I wasn't. I've gotta go to my strengths, and he can go to his."

Still, the Freedom Caucus is still regarded with skepticism months after it support the healthcare bill. Outsiders wonder whether the healthcare bill was a one-off or whether a readiness to compromise will also be apparent in negotiations over tax reform and other items on the GOP agenda.

"Only time will tell," said Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., another Trump ally. "I actually think all of us took a step, hopefully, forward ... in the Tuesday Group and the Freedom Caucus, let's hope."

Not everyone agrees with Sanford. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, a former Freedom Caucus stalwart, said, "I don't think the organization is any different with Meadows than it is with Jordan. If Mark Meadows gets run over by a bus tomorrow, I don't think it changes the nature of the Freedom Caucus."

Whatever is the case, Meadows has become an ally of the White House. He has shown an ability to bridge the gap between the administration and his group of more than 30 conservatives lawmakers. He texts with Steve Bannon nearly every day, and keeps in regular contact with Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs, Kellyanne Conway, and Reince Priebus. His warm relationship these senior lieutenants, and with the president, dates back to the campaign, during which he and his wife, Debbie, worked extensively for Trump.

After the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape was leaked to the press, setting off scandalized and electorally dangerous discussion about Trump's treatment of women, Republicans of many stripes, especially those facing tough re-election battles, abandoned Trump. But Meadows and his wife stayed on board, literally and figuratively. Debbie Meadows boarded a "Women for Trump" bus with 10 other wives of congressmen, and defended the candidate. Trump and the White House have not forgotten this, and are unlikely ever to do so.

"We will always remember how tenacious and loyal Mark and Debbie Meadows were, especially after Oct. 7. They're definitely members of what we call the Oct. 8th coalition,'" said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, in an interview.

"In the final month, beginning with her boarding that bus in the face of a great deal of pressure to do otherwise tells you something about their tenacity and loyalty," Conway added.

The relationship between the White House and the Meadows couple goes a lot further than politics. In the middle of an interview at the Congressional Baseball Game in June, Conway stopped briefly to take a selfie with a Meadows staffer before the two bonded momentarily over Debbie's culinary skills.

"Guess what's in my bag in the car," Conway said to the staffer.

Staffer: "No way, what is it?!"

Conway: "Debbie Meadows' cookies! She sent me cookies the other day,"

Staffer: "Oh my God. Are you serious?!"

Conway: "Oh my God, the filled ones ... Here, we need to get a good picture."

Meadows knows his wife's cookies, saying the above exchange was about a fruit-filled variety, and that his wife has also been known to send those, and pound cakes, to friends and Capitol Police officers.

Meeting the press

President Trump brought many House Republicans to the Rose Garden to celebrate the passage of their bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. (Bloomberg Photo)

Given the relationship with Trump and the White House, it's no surprise that Meadows has seen his profile grow exponentially.

When Trump brought many House Republicans to the Rose Garden to celebrate the passage of their repeal and replace bill, Meadows stood prominently at the president's right shoulder next to Ryan and House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady.

In subsequent days, Meadows was hailed for his role. Breitbart, the pro-Trump website, ran a headline reading, "SPEAKER MEADOWS?"

A former House leadership aide described Meadows back in the Boehner days as someone with a penchant for saying completely contradictory things, no matter the issue, adding, "You never knew what to believe."

These days, Meadows keeps in touch with Ryan, often via text, and meets him weekly for lunch with Jordan, top members of the Tuesday Group, Republican Study Committee, and the House leadership.

"His outreach is certainly not being lost on me," Meadows said of Ryan. But their relationship isn't where it could be or where leadership would like it to be. "I wouldn't say [it's] good... it's tenuous and strained at times. It's much easier if you say yes and go along."

Meadows is well liked by House members, and counts most GOP conference and some Democrats as friends. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a fellow member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says Meadows' "charm" and "humor" help the two find common ground.

"He listens, he's willing to learn, and he doesn't come necessarily with an ideological, a priori, view on an issue," Connolly said. "I can't ask more from a colleague than that."

Meadows greatly desires to be liked, colleagues say, and this can make him thin-skinned.

"He's very sensitive and takes criticism very harshly," a Freedom Caucus source said, pointing to Meadows getting worked up over Facebook comments from constituents and phoning them personally. "He is deeply hurt if people dislike him." Meadows doesn't deny it, but says he'd rather be "understood" than liked.

Meadows reportedly got down on his knees in front of Boehner in 2013 and apologized for leading the coup. Boehner spread the story in 2015, but a Meadows staffer says it's not true.

Meadows' approach couldn't be more different from that of the White Houses, which is hostile with the press and frequently decries reports it disagrees with as Fake News.

He has courted the press, and can often be found talking to reporters. The Freedom Caucus is a press-friendly group and has negotiated through the media, including recently when it wanted members to stay in Washington and work through the August recess.

"I love [the media]. I'll tell you what, I don't know if they like me, but I like them. I really do," Meadows said. "You got two options: You either don't talk to the press and the story is written, or you do talk to the press and the story is written. I try to give as much possible time as I can. We do think that it's important that we share our side of the story."

Meadows' approach couldn't be more different from that of the White House's, which is hostile with the press and frequently decries reports it disagrees with as "Fake News." Meadows doesn't criticize or buck the White House often, but breaks with it about the news media.

"I made a rule a long time ago," Meadows said, quoting an old adage. "You never make enemies with people who buy ink in barrels.

"My style is one that is less confrontational. [I] try to win people over with the argument more than arguing. So as I see it, it's just making sure that you present the best case that you can to the media and I think the larger story there is being able to interact with the media at times when you feel like they're not giving you a fair shake. You have to make sure that you call it out," he said. "But I've always found that I'm going to focus on the argument [rather] than trying to create a sense of fairness."

Reporters stake out Caucus dinners, held weekly on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building. The dinners used to be held at Tortilla Coast or Hunan Dynasty, both Capitol Hill locales, but were relocated due to structural deficiencies, specifically after Tortilla Coast's basement flooded and Hunan Dynasty caught fire in November.

Meadows' coziness with the press is reviled in other quarters of the GOP conference. Members of the Freedom Caucus are known for giving their cellphone members to reporters and being widely accessible.

"He leaks, and he likes the media a lot. Sometimes, it makes it difficult to work with him," a longtime colleague said, adding that the Freedom Caucus is a mirror image in that sense. "I think that maybe their desire to get on the media undermines their credibility with some of their colleagues."

But while Meadows' closeness with the press is bound to keep him in headlines, his real power is in the roughly 36 votes he can help sway, enough to derail or prop up legislation, and his closeness with a president who could make or break his future.

Read more:

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows takes a seat at the top table - Washington Examiner

Syfy – The CW’s Freedom Fighters: The Ray SDCC trailer introduces … – SYFY WIRE (blog)

Posted on by

The first trailer for the next CW Seed animated series,Freedom Fighters: The Ray, was released at San Diego Comic-Con, and it is shockingly dark. In a parallel world new to the CW's "Arrowverse," Earth X, the Nazis won World War II and their superteam, the New Reichsmen, rule America. That superteam? Nazi versions of the main trio of CW superheroes: The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl.

The trailer centers on Ray, based on the reinvention of the character in Grant Morrison'sMultiversity, a member of the Freedom Fighters trying to take America back from the Nazis. It's brutal, violent, and altogether doesn't look like the Freedom Fighters have much of a chance -- the perfect setup for a season of stories.

The Ray will debut this fall on CW Seed. Check out the trailer below the official synopsis.

Raymond Ray Terrill was a reporter who discovered a group of government scientists working on a secret project to turn light into a weapon of mass destruction. But before he could report on his findings, the project head exposed Ray to a genetic light bomb. The bomb failed to kill him and instead gifted Ray with light-based powers. With these abilities, Ray realized he could go beyond reporting on injustice he could take action to help stop it. Calling himself The Ray, he was recruited by Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to fight violence and oppression wherever it exists.

Link:

Syfy - The CW's Freedom Fighters: The Ray SDCC trailer introduces ... - SYFY WIRE (blog)

Freedom Caucus member: Senators’ betrayal ‘shocking’ – WND.com

Posted on by

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., and Donald Trump (Photo: Twitter)

Senate Republicans appear unable to pass a straight repeal of Obamacare or a more comprehensive plan, and one of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress says the GOP either needs to do what it promised or prepare to watch the rest of the Trump agenda wither away.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he still plans to hold a vote on repeal, identical to the one that passed Congress in 2015. However, four Republicans are already opposed, including three who voted for the 2015 plan thatwas vetoed by President Obama.

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, are now opposing the plan they backed two years ago. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is also opposed, but she also rejected the 2015 bill.

For those pounding the table for repeal, the Senates failure is stunning.

I thought there would be some movement toward the 2015 plan, but then the three senators who previously voted for the 2015 bill came out and said they were going to vote against the 2015 bill. That is fairly shocking, said Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., a member of the House Freedom Caucus and the House Budget Committee.

When you vote 50 times to repeal and you say youre going to repeal, then its fairly simple. You ought to do what you told the American people you were going to do. So now these folks are really, really hurting the Republican brand, said Brat.

What do YOU think?Do Republicans need new leadership in House and Senate? Sound off in todays WND poll!

He says the GOP needs some serious soul-searching.

What do we stand for? Do we stand for small federal government? Do we stand for free markets? Do we stand for fiscal responsibility, or are we just going down the Democrat path and bankrupting the country? asked Brat.

The rest is just pure politics, and I dont care for that realm. The first principles are what made us the greatest country on earth. You put Adam Smith and James Madison together and you get some great outcomes. Were departing from those first principles every day, said Brat.

Hear the interview:

He says what many Republicans are focused on in Washington is a far cry from what voters want from them.

I just dont understand how you can be that far off the reservation politically and that tone deaf to what the American people want. Everybody back home is just yelling to get it done. Were once again tone deaf up in the bubble, said Brat.

Brat is also frustrated by how Republicans have tortured a simple policy approach into something far more complicated.

Once you change the definition of repeal to a health care thing run by the federal government with all sorts of subsidies and billions of dollars for other programs attached, youre getting too far away from Republican first principles. The messaging hasnt been good because we keep twisting the meaning of common sense words, said Brat.

Brat is also concerned about how the failure to pass health care legislation will impact other major priorities in this Congress, especially major tax reform. He says that between not eliminating Obamacare taxes and the expected scuttling of the border adjustability tax, Congress is already starting with a $2 trillion disadvantage.

As a result, the Trump administration is now adjusting its push to lower the corporate tax rate. Instead of dropping it to 15 percent, Brat says the presidents team is now gunning for the 20-25 percent range.

He says the GOP simply cannot screw up tax reform.

The worst thing we can do is to goof up tax reform and not get this economy rolling again. Everything hinges on that, he said.

Brat still holds out hope for a health-care bill since President Trump is still energized to get something done, although Brat suggests the president has been more transactional in his approach and needs to be more specific about what he wants.

He is not enthused about bringing Democrats into the talks since that would lead to government in health care.

I think hes starting to recognize that when you move toward the Democrat side, the policy end up utterly complex and fails, said Brat.

The congressman also laughs off the assertion of Democrats that Republican opposition to Obamacare and not the law itself is responsible for uncertainty that drives up the cost of premiums and deductibles for many Americans.

Whats a central planner going to say about the monopoly. Its never their fault because they own it, said Brat. They have to give that kind of response because they dont have a free market system that is sustainable over the long run.

Continue reading here:

Freedom Caucus member: Senators' betrayal 'shocking' - WND.com

Extinction event: how GST killed the octroi ecosystem – The Hindu

Posted on by

The Hindu
Extinction event: how GST killed the octroi ecosystem
The Hindu
Around the nakas, a flourishing ecosystem took root, feeding off the opportunities that the octroi collection process created. At their centre were octroi agents who, for a fee, helped truck drivers make sure all the paperwork was correct and in order ...

Follow this link:

Extinction event: how GST killed the octroi ecosystem - The Hindu

#CSIMonth: How the Seychelles is restoring its marine ecosystem through coral farming – Bizcommunity.com

Posted on by

We are all familiar with the expression green fingers', however, in the Indian Ocean Island of Seychelles it would probably be more fitting to say reef fingers'.

Scientists and marine biologists have in particular identified the damage caused by the Indian Ocean Dipole and El Nio phenomena which caused high-scale coral bleaching in 1998 and reduced live coral by close to 97%.

The damage was so severe that the coral was unable to regenerate and at the same time it became less resistant to disease.

In June this year, marine biologist Jude Bijoux told the Seychelles News Agency (SNA) that the coral reefs of Seychelles are in grave danger due to the damage sustained during last year's warm El Nio and the general effect of climate change. He added that the level of coral bleaching is currently similar to the bleaching catastrophe which happened in 1998.

According to Bijoux, should the reefs not get sufficient time to recover, they will become smaller and eventually upset the ecosystem as many underwater species depend on the coral reefs for food and shelter.

For an island state like Seychelles, coral reefs are also extremely important as they contribute to the two most important sectors of the countrys economy - tourism and fisheries.

The first scientific restoration programme was launched by non-governmental organisation Nature Seychelles in 2010. The organisation took corals that had survived the 1998 bleaching, and began to grow over 45,000 fragments of corals in underwater nurseries and planted them in a degraded area in the Cousin Island Special Reserve.

In 2015, the Seychelles National Parks Authority (SNPA) also embarked on another coral nursery project off Curieuse Island to try and restore the reefs.

While the scientists are yet to measure the long-term success, of coral gardening, the projects have been successful in terms of gathering data about the coral reefs and how to repair them.

In its simplest form, coral farming is best described as the process whereby samples of healthy corals are collected from the local reefs, raised in nurseries until mature, and then installed at an identified site of restoration.

Coral farms are basically not very different to underwater gardens, requiring plenty of nutrients and the right temperature. After about a year or two, the corals have more than tripled in size and are ready to be harvested.

A single coral finger may grow into several new ones, all ready to be planted back onto the reef or into a new nursery to promote regeneration of the ecosystem.

While the long-term success of coral gardening is yet to be monitored, the short-term success is already evident in some of the reefs where restoration has taken place.

Read the original:

#CSIMonth: How the Seychelles is restoring its marine ecosystem through coral farming - Bizcommunity.com

How DISA moved to a single computing ecosystem – C4ISR & Networks

Posted on by

The Defense Information Systems Agency's realignment of its computing and storage operations is all about standardization, optimization and consistency.

The end result of this realignment, described by DISA's operations center director David Bennett as a computing ecosystem, is one holistic computing environment physically dispersed across multiple sites with the functions and capabilities managed remotely based upon who owns each capability, Bennett told C4ISRNET in a recent interview.

Previously, there were ten different defense enterprise computing centers, each with their own chain of command, data center tools and way of doing business to execute their mission, Bennett said.

When Bennett first started working in the computing side of the agency around 2013, one of his tasks was reducing costs, he said. One way to reduce costs involved examining how the agency was running computing.

"As I became more familiar with the structure and how we did computing in the agency, it became more and more clear that we didn't have one computing environment, we didn't have one way of doing business; we had ten," he said. "From a cost perspective, I was essentially paying for ten iterations of generically the same function."

With a singular computing ecosystem built around "one way of doing business, one set of tools that everybody would use, one set of techniques, tactics, procedures," Bennett said he would only need one director and one support staff member in the front office of a data center.

Visit link:

How DISA moved to a single computing ecosystem - C4ISR & Networks

Lyft wants more leverage in the self-driving ecosystem so it’s building its own tech – Recode

Posted on by

Its early days for the self-driving industry and yet the network of alliances among companies in the space is already incredibly complex. Now, its only going to get more complicated as Lyft begins to expand its role in the driverless ecosystem.

Lyft has announced its starting to develop a hardware and software kit that will enable self-driving cars. The company already works with self-driving tech companies, like Waymo or nuTonomy, which are expected to plug their tech into Lyfts network of cars.

Lyft will continue to operate the network, but this move means it will also be competing, to some degree, with its own partners. That raises questions for the future of this complex ecosystem, which in the case of Lyft also includes automakers like Jaguar.

The idea is that people will eventually be able to hail a self-driving Jaguar using the Lyft app.

Lyfts new initiative includes building software for mapping and computer vision algorithms, which can help the car know where to go and understand what its seeing. That technology stack will include off-the-shelf hardware, like cameras and radars, from other companies.

But why would Lyft, a company that was well positioned to serve as an agnostic on-demand platform for a series of automakers and tech companies, decide to take on the cost and burden of building out its own tech?

Part of it may have to do with trying to become more appealing for current and future automaker partners (or maybe even a potential buyer). Other automakers without the technology could find Lyft more appealing either as an acquisition target or a partner if it owns more of its technology particularly since Lyft has a built-in path to market.

Lyft also appears to be willing to piecemeal out some of the components of its kits, so if one automaker just needs better maps it can use Lyfts maps, as one example. Other partners could simply choose to plug their self-driving cars into the network without using any of Lyfts technology.

Second, the company appears to be hedging its bets on its partnerships by owning more of the self-driving value chain. The autonomous ecosystem consists of three primary parts: The car, the tech and the path to market. Without the tech, Lyft just served as the path to market.

Its not necessarily a bad position to be in. The company is working on ways to own more of the user experience beyond hailing the cars. That includes working on features within the app and eventually on in-car tablets that will walk customers through what the self-driving car is seeing, where its going and why it does specific things. This way, customers continue to interact with Lyfts brand throughout the ride.

The companys pitch to partners is its geographic scale and that it offers the added benefit of already having a pool of drivers on its network. This is key to its value proposition, the companys chief strategy officer Raj Kapoor said during a press briefing, because automakers or tech companies dont have to worry about not meeting rider demand as they incrementally deploy self-driving cars into the network.

But Lyft seems to not want to take any chances by being beholden to one company or its timeline for deployment. Autonomy could be a huge boon to the companys business down the line and without it, its marketshare could be at risk.

Other players in the space appear to be jockeying for position as well. Alphabets Waymo has previously hinted at working on its own ride-sharing service.

So to ensure that Lyft maintains some of its power in a situation where one partner creates a competing service, pulls out of the network or takes longer than expected to build the technology, the company is diving into the ever-crowded driverless tech space head first.

[Self-driving cars] are going to be critical to our longer-term existence, the companys head of product Taggart Matthiesen told Recode. That makes it critical that we work [on] and have access to this technology longer term.

Theres a lot of competition in building autonomous technology. That makes Lyfts value proposition look a lot like its partners: Waymo and nuTonomy.

By contrast, Alphabets self-driving car division, Waymo, is building some of its own hardware, like the laser-based radars called lidar, in a bid to supply carmakers and other self-driving technology companies. Nevertheless, each of these companies while theyre working together are also now competing for the same business relationships with carmakers.

Matthiesen told Recode that the company has been transparent with its self-driving tech partners Waymo and nuTonomy about this since the beginning. NuTonomy co-founder Karl Iagnemma echoed that in a statement saying that hes excited about the work the company is doing with Lyft.

The AV ecosystem is constantly evolving and no single winner will be crowned, Iagnemma said. Partnerships remain critical to nuTonomy's success, and our aim is to work with groups with whom we share strategic aims and core values. These are partners that are transparent, innovative, and are focused on putting autonomous fleets on the road.

Eventually, what well see at least based on todays development is a network wherein Waymo, nuTonomy, GMs Cruise or Lyft-powered cars will drive alongside each other on the Lyft platform.

Building out a self-driving kit in-house wasnt the initial plan for the $7.5 billion company. But Matthiesen said Lyft has been working on this new version of its autonomous ambitions for the better part of the last year and a half.

Its not exactly an easy or inexpensive endeavor, however. Uber has been working on driverless tech since at least 2015. As of earlier this year, the companys cars had to be taken over by a human driver once every .8 miles, according to documents Recode first obtained.

Lyft which Matthiesen said wants to make sure people know theyre serious about this is also building out a Palo Alto site where he and the companys vice president of engineering Luc Vincent will lead a team of self-driving engineers.

Go here to read the rest:

Lyft wants more leverage in the self-driving ecosystem so it's building its own tech - Recode

So, You Want To Become An Ecosystem Entrepreneur? | HuffPost – HuffPost

Posted on by

The French communes of Contrexville and Vittel are known for their healing waters and health spas, and today they enjoy some of the purest water in all of Europe, but that wasnt always the case. Up until 1992, farms and light industry were dribbling pesticide, dung, and crude oil into rivers and streams, and had been doing so for decades.

But then the communities undertook a massive environmental overhaul: farmers started getting rid of their cows and weaning themselves off of pesticides by rotating their crops in ways that didnt give bugs a chance. Home-owners and businesses started digging up their oil tanks and replacing them with natural gas installations. Today, more than 90 percent of the land in both communes is under some sort of environmental protection.

But this overhaul wasnt led by environmental regulators; it was led by a private company with a very clear incentive.

The company was Swiss food giant Nestl, and its incentive was the fact that its lucrative Vittel, Contrex and Hpar mineral waters were only lucrative because theyre certified as natural. To keep that certification, they had to clean up the rivers that feed the aquifer that in turn feeds the springs that the waters gurgle up from.

The stakes were high enough and the incentive strong enoughthat Nestl created a separate consultancy called Agrivair and spent more than 24.5 million throughout the 1990s to design a system to either compensate farmers for their change in practice, or acquire the land and lease it for free under conditions targeting groundwater protection,according to a new report called State of European Markets 2017: Watershed Investments.

The report is one of three market outlooks that the Forest Trends initiative Ecosystem Marketplace created to support a cluster of new online university courseslaunched by green businesses accelerator ECOSTAR to help organic farmers, watershed managers and other green entrepreneurs better understand the business elements of their respective missions. The ecosystem services e-learning course will run from October to December, and the application deadline isSeptember, 30th. You can learn more atecostarhub.com/e-learning-course.

The Agrivair project still pays farmers an average of 200 per hectare to keep things green, and its one of more than a dozen payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs highlighted in the three reports. Lead author Genevieve Bennett, a Senior Associate at Ecosystem Marketplace, says the project illustrates the ability of companies to provide resources when properly incentivized. She adds, however, that private and public interests rarely line up so neatly, and that such projects work best within a well-structured regulatory environment.

You dont really want a private company taking a lead on decisions about water resources management in your basin, she says in an extensive, 45-minute interview that will run on episode 19 of the Bionic Planet podcast, which is set to be posted on Monday, 17 July. Thats a public issuebut where there is a seat for the private sector at the table is contributing resources: if youre a beverage company and youre concerned about clean water and you want to kick in some funding to help pay for thatthats a positive thing.

The three reports aim to identify the mechanisms that already exist, track the money flowing through them, and help people better understand their workings. They are built on interviews with scores of policymakers, entrepreneurs, and academics across Europe, and they explore existing financing mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gasses, conserving biodiversity, and managing water. Although designed to support the curriculum developed by ECOSTAR, they are designed to be accessible to a larger audience as well, and well be harvesting the findings for future articles on Ecosystem Marketplace.

Each report opens with an introduction that states the challenges in the respective environmental areas, then segues into a simple introduction to mechanisms that can be used to drive finance towards meeting those challenges, followed by an overview of specific European Union directives that drive the mechanisms use in Europe, then detailed findings on how individual countries are using those mechanisms, and finally and deep dives into specific case studies. Where possible, they also track financing flows and this yields interesting findings.

The water report, for example, opens with a clear overview of three basic mechanisms for tapping private finance to support water management (see Figure 1: Mechanisms Tracked in This Report, below). Then it examines drivers like the European Unions Water Framework Directive (WFD) and individual state laws and programs, and finally it examines individual projects like Nestls.

Although built on the same principles as similar programs in the United States, the European initiatives arent yet drawing significant amounts of finance from polluters and users perhaps because most European projects are one-off initiatives executed quietly, while the US restoration economy relies on third-party companies that restore degraded land and that compete in an open, regulated market. The water report, for example, tracks $5.7 billion flowing into water conservation programs, but only $13.4 million of that was coming from users. That means 99 percent of the money was still coming from general public coffers, and not from the companies or individuals that benefit from clean water.

I think that in Europe, we will start to see more and more water users themselves trying to initiate these programs, says Bennett. We have seen a little bit of a preview of that in the United Kingdom, wherethere has been a huge growth in interest on water companies part to manage their catchments because the costs of addressing the issues that theyre dealing with on-site are just getting out of control.

That preview came in part because WWF-UK and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds sued the UKs Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) for non-compliance with the Water Framework Directive, according to Ecosystem Marketplaces 2014 global overview of watershed investments. In response, the report says, DEFRA allocated $2 million to fund catchment partnerships, and 17 of the first 20 partnerships ended up developing payments for watershed services programs to promote sustainable management of the land.

It will be interesting to see if that starts happening on a large scale in Europe as the Water Framework Directive continues to roll out, she says. Its still in the early years, so its a little soon to say, but that basin-based approach is really interesting and exciting.

You can also hear an extended, 45-minute interview with report author Genevieve Bennett in episode 19 of the Bionic Planet Podcast, which is available at Bionic-Planet.com, as well as through iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and wherever you access podcasts. You can also listen here:

The Morning Email

Wake up to the day's most important news.

Read more:

So, You Want To Become An Ecosystem Entrepreneur? | HuffPost - HuffPost

Can Cris Cyborg Cement her Status as Baddest Woman on the … – MMA Micks

Posted on by

Countless challengers have stepped up, countless challengers have fallen.

Iron Mike Tysons name is thrown outnonchalantly these days across boxing and MMA.

It seems if you are a phenom with a penchant for brutal knock outs then suddenly you are the new Tyson.

But one thing that can be agreed on is Cris Cyborgs claim as Womens MMA answer to the man himself.

Aggressive and skilful with 15 KOs to her record, she has destroyed nearly everyone in her path. Yet, this will only be her 3rd outing in the Octagon.

There seems to be a strange relationship (or lack thereof) between her and the UFC.

UFC seems completely inept at trying to market her in the wake of Ronda Rouseys likely retirement.

Dana White has even previously blocked her via Instagram (which has since been rectified), yet here we are less than a week before UFC 214 and how much has her fight been hyped?

Obviously, in any other fight card bar, the Jones v DC grudge her chances may have faired a little better.

Overall, however, her UFC career as it stands is a mix of bad marketing, bad communication between both sides and absolute PR disasters.

The 145b division was created and made for Cyborg much the same way 135lb was made for Ronda.

The USADA violation that never was back in December 2016 blew up in both their faces.

Holly Holm versus Germaine De Randamie was never the plan. GDR not fighting Cris Cyborg is up there with Riddick Bowe not fighting Lennox Lewis, completely farcical!

Another disaster hit when last month when it was announced Cyborg would defend the vacant title against Megan Anderson. Anderson, unfortunately, pulled out citing personal reasons.

This is a real shame, as the bout was highly intriguing. In Andersons place steps up Tonya Evinger, the current Invicta Bantamweight Champion.

Whilst Evinger certainly isnt going there to merely make up the numbers, the likelihood of her stopping the tour de force of Cyborg is unlikely.

Following on from this bout what is apparent is the need for both Cyborg and the UFC to sit down together.

Put simply, in a world without household names Cris Cyborg can be a Brock Lesnar-style marketing phenom.

A rescheduled bout with Anderson at MSG would be awesome, should she dispatch of Evinger.

Great to finally have you back Cyborg, featherweights beware!

Images courtesy of ufc.com, si.com & esporte.uol.com.br

comments

Read the rest here:

Can Cris Cyborg Cement her Status as Baddest Woman on the ... - MMA Micks

From the WWE Rumor Mill: Reason why Cris Cyborg may be working a WWE angle – Sportskeeda

Posted on by

According to the Cageside Seats, there's a reason why UFC might just allow Cris Cyborg to have a program in WWE in the future, presumably this coming Summerslam.

Becky Lynch and Cris Cyborg have been going at it on Twitter for a while now. Cyborg has been demanding a match against Becky Lynch at Summerslam followed by a match against Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania next year.

The UFC fighter is set to take on Tonya Evinger for the vacant UFC Featherweight Championship at UFC 214 next week. One would imagine that Cyborg's potential Summerslam appearance would be determined by whether she wins or loses at UFC 214.

However, Cyborg is undoubtedly the favourite heading into her Featherweight title bout next week.

Cageside Seats have reported that the reason why UFC would have no issues with Cyborg participating in a WWE program is that they still owe WWE a big one for letting Brock Lesnar fight at UFC 200.

Lesnar did great business for UFC at UFC 200, earning upwards $3.5 million for his fight against Mark Hunt. After being flagged for a USADA violation, he was fined $250,000, which is still a small chunk compared to what he earned.

However, the problem with Cyborg is that she isn't a big mainstream name like Ronda Rousey, and thus won't be as big an attraction as WWE would hope to get fans in. However, WWE loves bringing outside names for big events, so it should get some traction.

Cyborg has a fight next week, and she finally has the chance to become UFC Featherweight Champion.

Becky Lynch, on the other hand, has a Fatal-5-Way match this Sunday at Battleground to determine the #1 contender to Naomi's SmackDown Women's Championship at Summerslam.

Cris Cyborg is an interesting choice for Summerslam, but we know well that Becky Lynch would just end up jobbing to her easily. WWE loves to put over celebrities at the expense of their own talent. However, there's no doubt that the WWE Universe would be firmly behind The Irish Lasskicker Becky Lynch.

Send us news tips at fightclub@sportskeeda.com

Fetching more content...

Read this article:

From the WWE Rumor Mill: Reason why Cris Cyborg may be working a WWE angle - Sportskeeda

Great whites spotted near mid-Atlantic beaches – Press Herald

Posted on by

Their names are Mary Lee, Katharine and Hilton. During the summer months, they like to hang out relatively close to beaches along the mid-Atlantic. They are great swimmers. And they feast on the flesh of gray seals.

Also, they are great white sharks.

Just in time for the Discovery Channels Shark Week, as many people are seeking relief from the heat at beaches in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, OCEARCH, a nonprofit that tracks the movements of sharks, has logged a number of pings from great whites tagged with receivers in their dorsal fins.

Les Kaufman, a Boston University biology professor and shark expert, said that while the number of sharks in the water is believed to be dropping, the kind of technology used by OCEARCH makes it easier for nonscientists to track them, including via an iPhone app.

Scientists know that the sharks are out there, Kaufman said. It becomes news when nonscientists are encountering them with advances in the technology theres a greater awareness.

In recent years, OCEARCH has tracked about 300 sharks, including mako and tiger sharks. They tend to swim north in the summer, as the hot weather warms the waters off the East Coast.

But while they may sometimes venture near shore, sharks more typically swim miles away from the coastline.

Kaufman said a 13-foot-long shark generally would not swim in water less than three feet deep.

In the entire world last year, he noted, only four people died from shark attacks. Many, many more people are killed from complications of insect bites.

Malaria takes a huge chunk of humanity every year, and sharks dont, Kaufman said.

Other great whites spotted along the East Coast in the last 30 days include Miss Costa, a 1,600-pound, 12-foot female recorded near Nantucket, Massachusetts; Katharine, a 2,300-pound, 14-footer whose location was noted close to Virginia Beach; and Cisco, a young, 8-foot male who spent Memorial Day weekend in the waters between Lewes, Delaware, and Cape May, New Jersey, and just appeared in Nantucket.

Mary Lee, a 16-foot great white, who at 3,450 pounds is about the size of a Toyota Camry, has 125,000 followers on Twitter and was last pinged in mid-June near the Jersey Shore.

While great whites in particular are known as fearsome predators, thanks to movies such as Jaws, Kaufman said people should remember that humans have caused much more damage to sharks by overfishing.

Excerpt from:

Great whites spotted near mid-Atlantic beaches - Press Herald

Reports: State parks and beaches dirtier, less safe – WTNH Connecticut News (press release)

Posted on by

MADISON, Conn. (WTNH) State budgets cutbacks are now affecting safety and cleanliness at state parks, thats according to published reports. We are now24 days into the new budget year without a new budget in place. The Hartford Courant now reports the budget trouble is causing parks and beaches like this one to be dirtier and less safe than in previous years.

When the fiscal year ended and Governor Dannel Malloy started running the state by executive order, he said the state parks would be fine through the July 4th holiday. That was 20 days ago, however. The Courant went to several parks including Hammonasset, and experienced campers and beachgoers say compared to previous years, the trails are dirtier, the beaches are dirtier, there are fewer people to take your money and let you into the park, and fewer lifeguards on the beach once youre inside.

News 8 reported on some of this even before the fiscal year ended at the end of June. There were layoffs in the number of maintainers at state parks, cutbacks in the number of hours for lifeguards, and the closing of some state campgrounds for the whole season. That would be Macedonia Brook, Devils Hopyard, Salt Rock and Green Falls. Not your biggest parks, certainly.

The big parks, like Hammonasset and Rocky Neck, actually make money, and the Courant reports that staff in those parks are doing their best to keep the bathrooms clean and make the experience here as nice as possible. While there are fewer employees, there is no reduction in the number of people looking to enjoy the parks and beaches. The holiday weekends this summer have seen several parks filled to capacity.

State lawmakers are still trying to figure out a new budget that would deal with a projected $5 billion deficit. Until they do, the Governors executive orders are in place, and he warned that would mean serious cuts across the board.

Like Loading...

WTNH NEWS8 provides commenting to allow for constructive discussion on the stories we cover. In order to comment here, you acknowledge you have read and agreed to our Terms of Service. Commenters who violate these terms, including use of vulgar language or racial slurs, will be banned. Please be respectful of the opinions of others. If you see an inappropriate comment, please flag it for our moderators to review. Also, you can now block any inappropriate user by simple selecting the drop down menu on the right of any comment and selection "Block User" from there.

Continue reading here:

Reports: State parks and beaches dirtier, less safe - WTNH Connecticut News (press release)