They deserve it. I hope they get it. The profligate waste of funds when they don't have their debt payments to make will be great for dramacoin

https://archive.ph/wu8EI

A High School Artist Was Chosen To Paint A Mural. Then Came The Outrage.

' A student said she created the piece to make kids “feel welcome.” Some parents in Grant, Michigan, wanted the painting removed. '

A mural painted by a high school student came under fire when parents alleged it was promoting LGBTQ imagery and witchcraft.

Earlier this year, a Grant, Michigan, high school sophomore won a contest “to brighten up” the middle school health center, according to a statement from Grant Public Schools (GPS). GPS says the student received approval to paint images of “smiling children” and as well as the message “Stay Healthy.”

In the painting, there are three children. A boy is seen in a light blue, pink and white T-shirt, the colors of the transgender Pride flag. A girl wears pink, royal blue and purple, the colors of the bisexual flag. And a second girl is in rainbow Pride colors.

GPS Superintendent Brett Zuver was a contest judge. He did not respond to an email asking if he understood the meaning of the colors when the student’s design was chosen as the winner. GPS said the final mural included “some features” that were not part of the agreement, including a demon face inspired by a popular video game called Genshin Impact, and a “Hamsa hand,” also known as the Hand of Fatima or Hand of Mary. The palm-shaped design has been a symbol for good luck or protection for centuries in many cultures, including Latin American.

At a school board meeting on Oct. 10, parents accused the student artist of promoting witchcraft by including the Hamsa hand as well as the video game character that bears the likeness of a demon. Parents also objected to the use of LGBTQ colors.

“I put my art up there to make people feel welcome,” the student artist said, her voice breaking, in footage captured at the meeting by WZZM-TV [A], a local news station based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

One man at the meeting called the mural “hate material.”

Another adult at the meeting said, “I feel like (she) did a really good job finding excuses to defend the things you put on. None of us are that stupid.”

Tracey Hargreaves, who has two children in the Grant Public School system, came to the defense of the student artist.

“I am a conservative, right-wing, gun-loving American,” Hargreaves declared at the meeting. “And I’ve never seen more bigoted people in my life.”

In an interview with TODAY.com, Hargreaves said, “The meeting turned into a hate fest. Usually there are 10 people at these meetings, 50 showed up. It wasn’t even about the mural ... People were talking about how we need to pray the gay away.”

The technoblade made me lol imagine having a youtuber painted on a school

The BBC has prepared secret scripts that could be read on air if energy shortages cause blackouts or the loss of gas supplies this winter.

The scripts, seen by the Guardian, set out how the corporation would reassure the public in the event that a "major loss of power" causes mobile phone networks, internet access, banking systems or traffic lights to fail across England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland would be unaffected because its electricity grid is shared with the Republic of Ireland.

The public would be advised to use car radios or battery-powered receivers to listen to emergency broadcasts on FM and long-wave frequencies usually reserved for Radio 2 and Radio 4.

One draft BBC script warns that a blackout could last for up to two days, with hospitals and police placed under "extreme pressure".

Another says: "The government has said it's hoped power will be restored in the next 36 to 48 hours. Different parts of Britain will start to receive intermittent supplies before then."

It is understood they were written by BBC journ*lists as part of routine emergency planning to deal with hypothetical scenarios. They include local details for the different regions and nations of Britain.

In a national emergency, the BBC has a formal role in helping to spread information across the country, as part of the government's civil contingencies planning. The broadcaster's governance framework states: "If it appears to any UK government minister that an emergency has arisen, that minister may request that the BBC broadcast or otherwise distribute any announcement or other programme."

The government works with the BBC as part of its emergency planning process, although it is unclear whether it had any input on these scripts. A spokesperson said: "The government is confident that this is not a scenario we will face this winter."

The BBC said it did not comment on its emergency broadcasting plans.

Ministers have been at pains to reassure businesses and householders that blackouts are unlikely. However, National Grid, which oversees electricity supplies in Great Britain, has issued a rare warning that power supplies could be at risk. The organisation said that in a worst-case scenario it could order planned blackouts for up to three hours a day if Russia cuts off all gas supplies to Europe.

On Monday, National Grid's chief executive, John Pettigrew, went further and said that if everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, there could be rolling blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on "really, really cold" days in January and February, when wind speeds are too low to power turbines.

The BBC's draft scenario suggests that in a national blackout it would run a greatly reduced temporary radio service from the UK's emergency broadcasting centre, called the EBC, based in a rural location not acknowledged by the BBC.

This would provide half-hourly news bulletins on Radio 4's FM and long-wave frequencies and a "music service", with news updates on the FM spectrum used by Radio 2.

One scenario used in some of the scripts assumes that mains electricity is available in only a few lightly populated parts of Scotland -- the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and some parts of the Highlands.

The draft scripts for on-air news bulletins include space for a quote from a Cabinet Office minister, given the fictitious name Jose Riera.

The scripts report that these blackouts would affect gas supply systems, and knock out mobile phone networks, cashpoints and internet access. Traffic lights would stop working, causing disruption on the roads.

One script, written for a hypothetical news bulletin, warns: "The emergency services are under extreme pressure. People are being advised not to contact them unless absolutely necessary."

It states that in Wales an emergency coordination centre has been set up, while in Scotland the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is chairing the devolved government's emergency planning meeting. It adds: "Officials are saying there is no current risk to food supply and distribution. But they're asking people to look out for vulnerable neighbours and relatives."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/18/bbc-prepares-secret-scripts-for-possible-use-in-winter-blackouts

With a few notable exceptions---such as during the 1918 influenza pandemic, World War II and the HIV crisis---life expectancy in the U.S. has had gradual upward trajectory over the past century. But that progress has steeply reversed in the past two years as COVID and other tragedies have cut millions of lives short.

U.S. life expectancy fell by a total of 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021 to 76.1 years---the lowest it has been since 1996, according to provisional data recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The drop was 3.1 years for male individuals and 2.3 years for female ones. Non-Latinx Native American and Alaska Native peoples saw the biggest decline---a staggering 6.6 years. But every racial and ethnic group suffered: life expectancy decreased by 4.2 years in the Latinx population, by four years in the non-Latinx Black population, by 2.4 years in the non-Latinx white population and by 2.1 years in the non-Latinx Asian population.

"Basically, all the gains between 1996 and 2019 are as if they never happened," says Elizabeth Arias, director of the U.S. life table program at the NCHS and co-author of a report on the new data.

COVID deaths drove much of the decline as the country grappled with the world's worst pandemic in a century. But unintentional injuries---largely driven by drug overdoses---also played a significant role, the data show. Increases in deaths from heart disease, chronic liver disease and suicide also contributed.

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Unfortunately doesn't hold very chuddy opinions

The CJI-designate was part of the benches that delivered path-breaking judgements on decriminalising same-s*x relations after it partially struck down Section 377 of the IPC, validity of the Aadhaar scheme and Sabarimala issue. Recently, a bench headed by him expanded the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy(MTP) Act and the corresponding rules to include unmarried women for abortion between 20-24 weeks of pregnancy.

In a landmark verdict delivered in February 2020, a bench headed by Justice Chandrachud had directed that women officers in the Army be granted permanent commission and command postings, rejecting the Centre's stand of their physiological limitations as being based on "s*x stereotypes" and "gender discrimination against women".

Later, the Justice Chandrachud-led bench had also paved the way for granting permanent commission to women officers in Indian Navy, saying a level playing field ensures that women have the opportunity to overcome "histories of discrimination".

He had concurred with the majority verdict in the Sabarimala case in holding that the practice of prohibiting women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple was discriminatory and violative of women's fundamental rights.

In July this year, the Justice Chandrachud-led bench had ordered release of Alt News Co-founder Mohammad Zubair on interim bail in all the FIRs lodged in Uttar Pradesh against him for alleged hate speech, saying "exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly" and transferred all the cases in UP to Delhi.

Even when we win we lose chudbros.

It's the most infectious, by far.

The old antibody treatments are ineffective.

It's causing literally tens of people to feel sniffles and aches.

It is . . . OMICRON VARIANT XBB .B1.BBQ!

The good news is, if you got Omicron a few months ago, you can still get your booooooost and top off that lame ol' acquired immunity with fancy patented and liability-free (for the manufacturer only LOL) vacccines! Take the jab, boys and girls, it's Safe and Effective!

Is Shakespeare still relevant to today’s students?

New Zealand’s arts council appears to have its doubts after ending funding for a popular school Shakespeare program, arguing it relied too heavily on busy schools, failed to show relevance to “the contemporary art context” and relied on a genre “located within a canon of imperialism.”

But many have taken issue with the decision by Creative New Zealand, including Jacinda Ardern, the nation’s prime minister — and former student thespian.

“I was a participant in Shakespeare in Schools. I thought it was a great program,” Ardern said.

She said students interested in drama and debate have limited opportunities to interact with peers from other schools.

“I was one of those kids. And so I would like to continue to see other kids have those opportunities,” she said.

Ardern added that the funding decision wasn’t up to her, or even to the government. Creative New Zealand is funded by taxpayers but is run independently.

The school programs, workshops and festivals have been run for about 30 years by the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand. Students can act, direct make costumes or create a soundtrack. Often the plays are set in contemporary times or have different takes on the originals written by William Shakespeare more than 400 years ago.

The center has been receiving about 30,000 New Zealand dollars ($17,000) each year from the arts council, about 10% of its overall budget.

Dawn Sanders, the center’s chief executive, said the initial rejection last month, which remained in place after a crisis meeting Friday, blindsided her.

“I was gobsmacked and disgusted,” she said.

She said more than 120,000 students had been involved in the festivals and programs over the years, and many became professionals in theater or film.

Others, she said, had used their acting skills in their jobs, for instance lawyers who were better able to argue their cases or doctors who developed a more engaging bedside manner.

Creative New Zealand did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its 11-page rejection note, however, one arts council assessor said the center had “proved the ongoing value” of its regional and national Shakespeare competition model, with some 4,600 young people participating in 24 regional festivals annually.

“The application does make me reflect on the ongoing relevance of Shakespeare, and question whether a singular focus on an Elizabethan playwright is most relevant for a decolonizing Aotearoa in the 2020s and beyond,” the assessor added, using the Indigenous name for New Zealand.

A panel concluded that the Shakespeare center “seems quite paternalistic” and that its funding proposal “did not demonstrate the relevance to the contemporary art context.”

Sanders said she would try to find alternative funding and vowed the show would go on. Since the dispute became public, she said, people had already donated thousands of dollars through online crowdsourcing.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters wrote on Facebook that the decision amounted to political and social engineering by “overpaid sickly liberal bureaucratic wokester morons.”

Ardern, meanwhile, said it would be wrong to extrapolate a wider comment on society from a single funding decision. And she demurred on saying what Shakespeare role she had played as a student, saying such a disclosure could become a distraction.

“So I might just leave out the details for now,” she said.

Russian soldiers have shot dead a Ukrainian musician in his home after he refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, according to the culture ministry in Kyiv.

Conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko declined to take part in a concert “intended by the occupiers to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’ in Kherson”, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.

The concert on 1 October was intended to feature the Gileya chamber orchestra, of which Kerpatenko was the principal conductor, but he “categorically refused to cooperate with the occupants”, the statement said.

Kerpatenko, who was also the principal conductor of Kherson’s Mykola Kulish Music and Drama Theatre, had been posting defiant messages on his Facebook page until May.

The Kherson regional prosecutor’s office in Ukraine has launched a formal investigation “on the basis of violations of the laws and customs of war, combined with intentional murder”. Family members outside Kherson lost contact with the conductor in September, it said.

Condemnation by Ukrainian and international artists was swift. “The history of Russia imposing a ‘comply or die’ policy against artists is nothing new. It has a history which spans for hundred of years,” said the Finnish-Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska, who was scheduled to conduct the Last Night of the Proms at London’s Albert Hall last month before it was cancelled because of the Queen’s death.

“I have seen too much silence from Russian colleagues,” she said. “Would this be the time for Russian musicians, especially those living and working abroad, to finally step up and take a stand against the Russian regime’s actions in Ukraine?”

A fortnight ago Stasevska drove a truck of humanitarian supplies into Lviv from her home in Finland, before conducting the INSO-Lviv orchestra in a concert of Ukrainian contemporary music.

“We know the Russian regime is hunting activists, journ*lists, artists, community leaders, and anyone ready to resist the occupation,” said the prizewinning Ukrainian novelist turned war crimes investigator Victoria Amelina.

“Yet, even knowing the current pattern and history, we cannot and, more importantly, shouldn’t get used to hearing about more brutal murders of a bright, talented, brave people whose only fault was being Ukrainian.”

She drew a parallel between Kerpatenko and Mykola Kulish, the Ukrainian playwright after whom the theatre where the conductor worked is named.

“Kulish was shot on 3 November 1937, near Sandarmokh, with 289 other Ukrainian writers, artists and intellectuals. Yuriy Kerpatenko was shot in his home in Kherson in October 2022,” she said.

The Russians’ actions were “pure genocide”, said the conductor Semyon Bychkov from Paris, where he was performing as music director of the Czech Philharmonic. The St Petersburg-born conductor left Russia as a young man in the 1970s.

“The tragic irony of this is that talk about the superiority of Russian culture, its humanism,” he said. “And here they murdered someone who is actually bringing beauty to people’s lives. It is sickening.

“The bullets don’t distinguish between people. It didn’t make me feel worse that this man was a conductor, it just confirmed the pure evil that’s been going on even before the first bombs fell on Ukraine.”

The novelist Andrey Kurkov, author of Death and the Penguin, said: “Now the name of Yuriy Kerpatenko will be added to the list of murdered artists of Ukraine. I increasingly think that Russia is not only seeking to occupy Ukrainian territories, but also diligently destroying Ukrainian identity, an important part of which is Ukrainian culture.”

Ukrainian author Oleksandr Mykhed, who joined the military at the outbreak of the war, and whose home was destroyed by Russian shelling, said: “Russia is trying to reconstruct the Soviet Union in the occupied territories. To reconstruct something improbable.

“One of the key components of Soviet policy was the destruction of culture of the enslaved countries. Murder of cultural figures, purging of libraries, banning of national languages.

“The modern occupiers are fully following this strategy. Destroying culture, sports, education.

“And when our territories are deoccupied, we will learn about dozens and hundreds of such terrible stories. Stories of destruction and heroic resistance.”

“It is absolutely terrifying,” said chief stage director of Kyiv’s National Opera of Ukraine, Anatoliy Solovianenko. “Whether he was a doctor, or a worker, or an artist, it makes no difference. He was a human, and he refused to comply.”

Should the US respond by removing H1B visas for all Indians currently working US jobs that lower the overall salary for everyone because they are willing to work for lower wages than Americans?

A "staggeringly high" number of neurodivergent people - including children - are being drawn into terrorism, it has been warned.

In a speech marking the 16th anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation is to say it is "necessary to speak about autism".

It comes after police revealed that more than one in 10 terror suspects arrested in Britain is now a child, and that most are linked to right-wing extremism.

Jonathan Hall QC will say autism is a "relevant factor" for people being drawn into terrorist violence, alongside other cognitive difficulties and a person's family background.

He will tell an event hosted by think-tank Bright Blue on Wednesday: "My understanding is that the incidence of autism in Prevent referrals is also staggeringly high.

"It is as if a social problem has been unearthed and fallen into lap of counter-terrorism professionals."

Mr Hall will question whether criminal prosecution is the right outcome in all cases, such as those over the possession of "material likely to be useful to a terrorist".

"Is the use of strong powers to detect and investigate suspected terrorism in children justified?" he will ask.

"I believe it is because of the potential risk to the general public, but is the criminal justice outcome the right one in all cases?"

Mr Hall will say that possessing terrorist material "does not necessarily mean you are going to do something with it".

"What about neurodivergent people who simply develop what is called a 'special interest' in this sort of material? Police and prosecutors fret about whether there is an alternative to arrest and prosecution."

Mr Hall is to draw attention to several neurodivergent teenagers who have been convicted of plotting terror attacks in recent cases, including Isis supporter Lloyd Gunton and neo-Nazi Jack Reed.

A judge found that Reed, who is one of the UK's youngest terror plotters, had autism spectrum disorder that played a part in offending and online behaviour dating back to the age of 13.

Ben Hannam, the former Metropolitan Police officer who was convicted of National Action membership earlier this year, was on the autism spectrum and socially isolated when he joined the terrorist group as a teenager.

The role of autism in terror offending was considered by the Court of Appeal in January, when neo-Nazi Paul Dunleavy, then 17, appealed his conviction.

He was jailed for five-and-a-half years for preparing acts of terrorism by researching how to convert a blank-firing gun into a live weapon, and providing "advice and encouragement" to others online.

The Court of Appeal heard evidence that "many neurodivergent people have intense and highly focused interests", such as Dunleavy's obsession with guns, but judges ruled that autism spectrum disorder did not "make it reasonable for him to possess [terrorist] information for a particular purpose when it would not be reasonable for anyone else to do so".

Lawyers defending neurodivergent people accused of terror offences frequently argue that associated traits and characteristics played an instrumental part in their actions.

In November, a barrister representing teenage neo-Nazi propagandist Harry Vaughan said his autism and a "deficiency in emotional intelligence" made him susceptible to influence from online groups.

All cases have primarily involved online radicalisation, either where the defendants have "self-initiated", or come into contact with other extremists through social media, gaming and chat forums.

Mr Hall's most recent report on the operation of terror laws in Britain said that evidence suggested Autism Spectrum Disorder was "over-represented in lone-actor terrorist samples, compared to the general population".

"Unpalatable though it may be, a large number of lone actor plots are believed by counter-terror police, rightly or wrongly, to involve individuals on the neurodivergent spectrum," it added.

"Individuals suffering from poor mental health or learning difficulties are often extremely isolated and may be particularly susceptible to online radicalisation."

The national coordinator for the Prevent counter-extremism programme, chief superintendent Nik Adams, previously told *The Independent *that neurodivergent people were "more vulnerable to be given that obsession, fascination, fixation".

He warned that online terrorist propaganda "plays entirely to that because what it seeks to do is mobilise people very quickly to do something really terrible".

Ch Supt Adams said the number of people being referred to Prevent with mixed or unclear ideological beliefs was also rising and included those with "complex needs" including autism and mental illness.

Clare Hughes, criminal justice manager at the National Neurodivergent Society, said many neurodivergent people and families were concerned that high-profile cases could "warp public understanding".

"The vast majority of the 700,000 neurodivergent people in the UK are law abiding -- sometimes particularly so because of a propensity to know and stick to the rules," she added.

"If neurodivergent people do come into contact with the criminal justice system, it's absolutely essential that professionals working in the system really understand autism and that specialist support is available for neurodivergent children and adults when it's needed.

"At the same time, the right early support must be available to stop people getting into dangerous situations, including mental health support to help neurodivergent people to navigate what can feel like a chaotic and overwhelming world."