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If you want to know how much sugar food manufacturers are adding to your foods, today’s your last day to tell the FDA. That could make a difference to how much added sugars people consume, suggests a recent study, which found that Americans are getting far more of our added sugars from sugary beverages than desserts or candy combined. And, for the most part, we are purchasing those sugary products from stores.
The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also found that almost 15 percent of Americans’ daily calories comes from sugars added to our foods or drinks.
For cancer prevention, cutting down on sugary beverages is one of AICR’s 10 recommendations. Sugary sodas and other beverages link to weight gain, and being overweight links to increased risk of eight cancers.
In an average American’s day, sodas and energy sports drinks was the largest source of added sugars, making up 34 percent. Grain desserts, such as cookies and other baked goods, was the next largest category coming in at 13 percent; fruit drinks, candy and dairy desserts followed, at 8, 7 and 6 percent, respectively.
If you’ve been working hard to eat more broccoli or blueberries, headlines like “Fruits and vegetables don’t lead to weight loss, study says” can drive you crazy. You may wonder if it’s worth the effort. I certainly hear from people questioning whether they can trust any nutrition and weight loss messages when they see headlines like these.
Make no mistake about it, fruits and vegetables are a key part of a cancer-preventive diet. And they can play a role in getting to and staying a healthy weight – important for lowering risk for eight cancers and other chronic diseases. Even the authors of that recent study acknowledge that in their paper. So why the confusing messages?
Here’s what that study was about: The authors say that health organizations promote increasing veggies and fruit for weight loss without explaining the need to also decrease overall calories. So they looked for studies that tested the idea that simply adding vegetables and fruit to your diet will lead to weight loss. Continue reading
People are talking a lot about sugar these days, especially one kind called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – a sugar that seems to be added to just about all sweets in a box or package. HFCS usually contains more of one type of sugar – fructose – than table sugar or corn syrup.
We know that too many sugary drinks – regardless of the type of sugar – can lead to obesity, which is a cause of eight different cancers. But some researchers believe that fructose is more harmful than other sugars, leading to a higher risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Others disagree, leaving the research to be inconclusive.
As the research continues on fructose, a new study published in the journal Nutrition, says that many sugary beverages Americans are drinking — whether it’s HFCS soda or apple juice — actually contain similar amounts of fructose. Fructose is one of the two sugars that make up sucrose or table sugar; it is also a natural sugar found in fruit and fruit juice.
For their study, the researchers analyzed the sugar concentrations of the most popular sodas, 100% fruit juices, and juice drinks, including sports drinks. The researchers found that fructose levels among some HFCS drinks are often higher than a commonly used database researchers use. Continue reading


Triyards Q4 profit falls 32%
Lower contribution from near-complete shipbuilding job
TRIYARDS Holdings posted a net profit of US$10.3 million for its fourth quarter ended Aug 31, 2013, down 32 per cent from US$15.2 million a year ago, hit by reduced revenue contribution from a major shipbuilding project that is almost completed.
Revenue for the quarter was US$76.7 mi…
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Saudi Arabia: Young woman married at 10 years old must pay for divorce
A 23 year old woman, forced to marry at ten in Saudi Arabia, was ordered to pay the equivalent of 16,750 euros to obtain a divorce from her husband, according to Saudi daily al-Watan.
Arabie saoudite: Nouveau Rapport: "Mineures a vie"
Sur la situation dégradante des droits humains des femmes en Arabie saoudite.
Saudi Arabia: Sex Segregation Keeps Women Out of Public Life
Saudi Arabia's male guardianship of women and policies of sex segregation stop women from enjoying their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Saudi Arabia: Women's basketball team resists restrictions on female athletes
"Zahed, who prays regularly and wears a head scarf even when outside Saudi Arabia, said that nothing in Islam bans women from sports. "Our society just has to get used to it," she said."
Saudi Arabia: Shura Council Recommends Allowing Women to Drive With Limitations
On March 17, 2008, Alarabiya.net reported that the Saudi Shura Council has recommended allowing women to drive.
Saudi Arabia: Council of “Supreme Scholars” Rejects the Appointment of Women
"A controversy erupted this week in Saudi Arabia when some scholars suggested that the top religious organization in the Kingdom, the Supreme Council of Scholars, should include women."
Saudi Arabia: Saudi scholars back women drivers
Two Saudi scholars have said there is nothing in Islamic law to prevent women from driving.
Saudi Arabia: Saudi government invites Human Rights Watch to visit
Saudi Arabia, which is strengthening human rights and initiating appropriate reforms and regulations, has invited members of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) on a week-long visit to the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia: Saudi women make video protest
Saudi women's rights activists have posted on the web a video of a woman at the wheel of her car, in protest at the ban on female drivers in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia: Rizana Case Moves to Supreme Judicial Council
The Cassation Court in Riyadh has sent the case of a Sri Lankan maid, who was sentenced to death last year for allegedly murdering a four-month-old baby in her care, to the Supreme Judicial Council, the Kingdom’s final appeals court.
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domain: sociology


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On Monday, first lady Melania Trump visited the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center while her husband, President Donald Trump delivered a speech at Sheffer Corp.
Arriving with the president at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport, the first lady then went on her own to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. According to Cincinnati.com, her two-hour visit included a presentation on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which often affects babies born dependent on or addicted to opioids or heroin.
With the visit to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the first lady was combining two of the areas she’s expressed interest in: improving children’s lives and combating the opioid crisis. After she walked the concourse, she visited with children in the playroom, where she said to a group of boys playing the board game Sorry, “Show me how to do this.
CNN reported that at one point, a little girl approached the first lady with outstretched arms, a common sign that a child wants to be picked up.
So, the first lady, a mother herself, obliged the young girl’s request and held her for a bit.
Second-grader Cole Baughman, who has been a patient since birth, told the first lady that his parents, Nathan and Megan, and sister had plans to visit Washington, D.C. Nathan later told Cincinnati.com that Trump told Cole, “Make sure you come visit me when you come to D.C.”
“She was really interested in the kids,” Nathan said. “She was pleasant with Megan and I, but she got down at the kids’ level and was really talking to both of them.”
In the past year, especially since she moved from New York to Washington, the first lady has visited pediatric hospitals in New York, Paris, Rome and Washington, D.C.
According to Cincinnati.com, before she left the hospital, Trump gave every child a Valentine’s Day card with her signature and a drawing of the White House on it.

domain: news


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Having undesirable fat in numerous areas of your body can have a considerable influence on your health and self-confidence. While standard weight-loss through exercise and diet plan is a terrific way to reduce weight overall, even the best exercises can't target issue locations like the stomach, inner thighs, arms, and butts. Liposuction is a time checked treatment that is used to get rid of excess fat from specific areas of the body, allowing a specific to shape and contour their body to their taste. Is liposuction right for you? Discover now.
Pros of Liposuction
There are lots of benefits to this cosmetic treatment, consisting of:
• Right away obvious modifications. Unlike conventional weight loss, liposuction creates changes that are instantly visible in the body. Some difference is obvious right away, and the desired results are typically accomplished in just a few days.
• Proven and safe. This cosmetic procedure has actually been carried out by knowledgeable specialists all over the world for several years and the method has actually been improved over and once again to be safe and effective.
• Recovery time is normally quick. The downtime needed after having this type of procedure is normally much less than what is needed for other types of cosmetic procedures, consisting of abdominoplasty, breast reduction, and more. People who have had the procedure can frequently return to work a lot more quickly than they prepared for and can return to living a healthy, active way of life.
• Weight reduction can be irreversible. With the right upkeep techniques, the fat that was gotten rid of throughout the liposuction treatment will not return.
• Complete control over your physique. With liposuction, an individual can have complete control over how they wish to look, beyond what conventional diet and workout can offer. Giving individuals this power over their bodies increases self-confidence and assistance individuals feel their best.
While there are numerous benefits to liposuction, there are of course a couple of caveats that should be thought about before making the final decision to move on with the procedure.
Cons of Liposuction
Prior to having actually liposuction done, it's important to analyze the prospective disadvantages of the procedure and identify if the benefits exceed the risks in your specific case. Your cosmetic surgeon can assist you find out more about the dangers related to the procedure and can help you choose if moving forward is the ideal thing for you.
• Complications with general anesthesia. Because liposuction is performed under basic anesthesia, the treatment brings the very same risks as other kind of surgical treatment where basic anesthesia is utilized. Hidden medical conditions might increase these dangers.
• Negative responses. Bruising, bleeding, and discomfort are all to be expected, nevertheless, in unusual cases can cause more significant complications.
• The potential to gain the weight back. After having liposuction done, it is critical to maintain a healthy diet plan and workout correctly as advised by your physician. Failure to do so might lead to gaining back the weight that was lost or perhaps even more.
There are risks associated with liposuction, for many individuals, the benefits far outweigh them. Educate yourself about the procedure by having extensive discussions with your cosmetic surgeon and think about how liposuction has the potential to impact you as an unique person. Just you and your surgeon can figure out if liposuction will offer you with the results you are searching for within your expectations.
Laser Liposuction procedure is a new non invasive procedure to loose unwanted bodyfat in Ronan Montana
Laser liposuction is a newer, minimally intrusive treatment that involves heating the fat cells to melting point and getting rid of the melted fat through a little cannula. The procedure is typically done right in your physician's office and is an excellent alternative for individuals who have less than 500 ml of fat to get rid of from any one area. Laser liposuction can be a safe, complementary treatment to weight reduction in order to sculpt the body you have actually always wanted.
Contact a Cosmetic surgeon in your Ronan Montana today.
If you're considering liposuction as a weight reduction solution, it is essential that you discuss your desires with a qualified cosmetic surgeon in your area. Your specialist will carry out a total test and health history questionnaire to identify if liposuction can benefit you and assist you reach your physical and psychological goals. Call today for an examination and learn more about how liposuction can help you attain the body of your dreams.

domain: medical


AUDIO: A discussion of what makes immigration to America different compared to previous waves of immigration, and what kind of reforms are needed – 8 minutes on KNRS FM 105.9 Salt Lake City – Edward Ring on The Rod Arquette Show.
Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and other media outlets.
To help support more content and policy analysis like this, please click here.


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New Smyrna Beach, FL – After over 7,000 minutes (111 Hours) of programming since our inception in 2012, we are happy to announce we’re entering our 10th year of the festival. On December 14, 2012, Kevin Miller showed This Time Tomorrow by Taylor Steele at Atlantic Center for the Arts with John Brooks in attendance, and we now have 9 years of festival in the books, and a podcast to celebrate all these folks called Surf Stories. Now, the fourth and final event of the 2022 Florida Surf Film Festival, presented by his Monster Energy, has concluded, and we are excited to announce the winners of this year’s awards.
One of the biggest rewards of the festival is our ability to host filmmakers and surfers from around the world, and this year did not disappoint. We kicked off the year with the world premiere of Ben Gravy’s, For the Dream, an amazing night with an overflowing packed house. Ben’s inspirational story is highly recommended.
Ben Gravy and Peter Hamblin – Photos by Patrick Ruddy
We also hosted Peter Hamblin and the El Salvador crew as they premiered Sweet Adventure and took home the coveted Viewer’s Choice Feature Award – Feature. One of our favorite singer/songwriters Matt Costa dipped his toe into the filmmaking world and came out to the festival to show off his short film, Donde Los Terremotos, earning Best Soundtrack – Short and treating our fans to a private concert following the premiere. The two Bens – Weiland and Gulliver came over in August and took home some hardware for their efforts with Ben Weiland’s Island X earning Best Surf Film – Feature and Ben Gulliver taking Best Soundtrack – Feature for his Documentary Hail Mary, featuring the life of fearless east coaster, Balaram Stack. Floridian filmmakers Lauren Hill, Drew Miller, and Luke Khotera showed their work respectively and attended the August event.
November closed out the year with a truly unbelievable weekend with Hurricane Nicole making landfall one day before the event. Western Australia’s pride and joy, Kerby and Cortney Brown, holed up with Kevin and John in New Smyrna Beach, riding out the storm. We also hosted Argentinian filmmaker/adventurer, Jaoquin Azulay and presented his latest work African Territory (Part One).
Facing Monsters, directed by Bentley Dean, took home the Best Documentary – Feature and Best Cinematography – Feature, shot by Rick Rifici, and if we gave an award for most vocal responses to a movie it surely would have taken that as well with audible gasps in abundance as Kerby charges era-defining, heavy water slabs.
Ben Gulliver and Balaram Stack – Photos by Patrick Ruddy
Here are all the winners for the festival year 2022:
Best Documentary – Short Beyond Sunset by Keith Malloy
Best Surf Movie – Short DNA by Jacob Vanderwork/Kyle Buthman
Best Cinematography – Short Water III by Morgan Maassen
Best Soundtrack – Short Donde Los Terremotos by Matt Costa
Viewers’ Choice – Short The Color of Winter by Pat Stacy
Best Documentary – Feature Facing Monsters by Bentley Dean/Rick Rifici
Best Surf Movie – Feature Island X by Ben Weiland
Best Cinematography – Feature Facing Monsters by Bentley Dean/Rick Rifici
Best Soundtrack – Feature Hail Mary by Ben Gulliver
Viewers’ Choice – Feature Sweet Adventure by Peter Hamblin
John Brooks and Jack Coleman – Photo by Jade Camacho
Matt Costa – Photo by Christian Oehmke
It’s been an incredible year, and there’s no way to thank all the producers, directors, cinematographers, and editors that put their hard work into these projects. Their stories are the ones we want to hear. Adam Steckley constructed our 2022 awards from a felled Floridian tree allowing our winners to take home a piece of Florida in their awards.
We recognize the difference between Best Documentary and Best Surf Movie. Those who approach the artform by documenting character, locale, etc. with personal interviews, historical footage, and anecdotal clips were in competition for Best Documentary, and those movies focusing on the high performance, action-driven sequences competed for Best Surf Movie. This award will be extended to short films as well.
Florida Surf Film Festival’s jury, comprised of twelve individuals with journalistic, cultural, and/or experiential factors will determine recognition.
Juries include: Feature Films – Matt Warshaw, Chas Smith, David Scales, Taylor Steele, Keith Malloy, Lauren Hill, and Ira Opper. Short Films – Marcus Sanders, Takuji Masuda, Matthew Shaw, Scott Hulet, Ashton Goggans, Lisa Andersen, and Joe Turpel.
We are proud to have Monster Energy serve as our presenting sponsor again for this year’s festival, providing travel and lodging for the filmmakers who attend the festival.
Podcast Sponsor: Surfing’s Evolution and Preservation Foundation
Principal Sponsors: State of Florida Division of Arts and Culture, Volusia County, Roark, YETI, Sun Bum, Surfline, Anson Stoner, Globe Brand Footwear, and Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Major Sponsors: Buell WetBuell Wetsuitssuits, Cronin Surfboards, Florida Virtual School, Brian Layman Wealth Management, Red Dog Surf Shop, KemKembali Board Shackbali Board Shack, Café Verde, and Clancy’s Cantina.
NSB Sponsors: Flaunt Electric Bicycles, Scott Yurchison Real Estate, Daytona Climbing Company, Dragon Alliance, LunDev Homes, New Smyrna Beach Brewing Company, Nixon, Mangrove Bay Mangrove Bay DesignDesign, BiologBiological Consulting Servicesical Consulting Services, MyEyeDr. – Phil Stephens, Funxion IT, Leus Towels, Pura Vida Bracelets, NSB Spine and Injury Center, Beachside Tavern, Solento Organic Tequila, and Surfrider Foundation Flagler/Volusia.
Media Partnerships include: Surfline, Stab, The Surfer’s Journal, Surf Splendor Podcast Network, Beach Grit, The SurfNetwork, The Inertia, and Encyclopedia of Surfing.
Encyclopedia of Surfing provides our historical and archival needs.

domain: entertainment


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Brett Gardner won the match yesterday (64.3% to 35.7%); he will await the winner from today.
Today we have Erik Kratz (Waynesboro 2000, Harrisonburg 2001) vs Aubrey Huff (Staunton 1997).
- Erik Kratz defeated Chad Tracy in the first round, and then Johnny Oates in the round of 32. His writeup: “[Kratz] is a local- he is an EMU grad. His number hangs on the outfield fence in Park View, and he was the alumni of the year just this past fall. Kratz was drafted in the 29th round in 2002 by the Toronto Blue Jays, and has played in the majors in parts of 10 different seasons (so far). He was a hero for the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2018 NLDS against the Rockies, when he went 5-8 at the plate, with a double and an RBI. He also made some waves at the time by proving to be a fun and interesting interview. He’s back with the New York Yankees for the 2020 season, assuming it will be played at some point.”
- Aubrey Huff defeated Tom Brookens in the round of 32. “Huff, from the University of Miami, played in Staunton in 1997. He was picked in the 5th round of the 1998 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, and made his major league debut just two years later, on August 2, 2000. He put in his best hitting season with the Rays in 2003, when he slashed .311/.367/.555, with 47 doubles, three triples, 34 home runs, and 107 RBIs in 636 at-bats. He finished 24th in MVP voting after the season. He was traded to Houston late in 2006, signed with Baltimore as a free agent after the season, and after spending the end of 2009 with Detroit, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants twice, and won two titles there, in 2010 and 2012. He second best season was in 2010, when he hit .290/.385/.506, with 35 doubles, five triples, 26 home runs, and 86 RBIs in 569 at-bats. He finished 7th in the MVP voting that year. He also received MVP votes, along with the Silver Slugger award, in 2008 with the Orioles. He retired after the 2012 season. In more than 6,100 at-bats in his career, he hit .278/.342/.464, with 360 doubles, 24 triples, 242 home runs, and 904 RBIs.”
Vote by going to twitter.com/JohnATVL to vote! (Closes Saturday morning)
And by the way, if you want to read much, much more about the 2019 VBL season, be sure to check out the 2019 Valley League Annual! (Or 2015, too, for that matter.)

domain: sports


Cette publication est également disponible en : Français
Marco Keiluweit is a specialist expert in soil biogeochemistry who joined the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics in July 2022. He is particularly interested in the role of soils in climate change and the global carbon cycle. His current research focuses on fundamental processes that regulate soil organic matter dynamics, which determine soil carbon sequestration and soil health. Here, he and his first assistant Emily Lacroix talk about the team’s ambitious agenda. It encompasses both the grand scale of natural environments and the microscopic intricacies at play within them. By connecting these dots, their work will pave the way for advancing our understanding of the complex interplay between soils, climate change, and sustainable agriculture.
Exploring a complex universe
Marco Keiluweit: Conducting research in soils is a challenge: they are highly complex and dynamic systems. Plants, microbes, minerals, and organic matter interact and are in a constant state of flux. My aim is to gain a better understanding of the dynamics governing soils. Isolating and describing the physical, biological, and chemical processes involved is a long-term quest.
Soils are much more than just a pile of dirt; they are teeming with life, with plants, microbes, and minerals interacting in a complex choreography. The physical, biological and chemical processes animating this dance are so intimately interwoven that it becomes difficult to isolate and study them individually.
The carbon cycle in soils is the key focus of our research. We are seeking to better understand the mechanisms that store carbon in soil or release carbon from soil. This capacity determines whether soils will accelerate or help mitigate climate change in the future. In fact, soils store around three times more carbon than the atmosphere and biosphere combined. Understanding how soil carbon cycling is affected by climate change is therefore of the utmost importance.
Beyond the environmental aspect, the study of soils is also of crucial economic interest. Agricultural fertility and productivity are closely linked to soil carbon cycling. Understanding how this precious element influences the quality of arable land paves the way for more sustainable and efficient farming practices.
From macro to microscope approaches
Marco Keiluweit: Delving into the intricate mechanisms of the carbon cycle and deciphering the impact of environmental perturbations such as climate change on these processes requires a multi-level approach. At a macroscopic level, our ultimate goal should be to tailor land management strategies to the unique characteristics of each soil type, achieving the delicate balance of optimizing plant productivity while curbing CO2 emissions.
By unravelling the intricate relationship between soil management and carbon storage in the soil, scientists hope to unlock the key to maximizing yield while minimizing the carbon footprint of agriculture.
We are also studying natural ecosystems, for example in the Alps. In alpine soils, 90% of carbon is stored in soils. We are interested in assessing how this vast soil carbon pool responds to changing snow cover. We are currently monitoring how the soil carbon cycle in these systems responds to changing snow melt dynamics in alpine regions.
Soil microelectrodes that continuously measure the chemical parameters influencing carbon cycling in soils, for example nutrient levels, oxygen content, moisture, etc. Placing several of these sensors in a field allows scientists to assess the spatial, seasonal and temporal variations in soil carbon dynamics in the field.
Marco Keiluweit: On a smaller scale, our research focuses on the rhizosphere. This is the soil zone where plant roots meet the soil. Roots release carbon compounds into the soil (sugars, organic acids), which microbes absorb, fix in the form of organic carbon, then metabolize and release in the form of CO2. A detailed understanding of these plant-microbe-soil interactions and their variations will enable us to determine under which conditions the soil will tend to store or release carbon.
A prototype for studying the root system under controlled conditions. The plant is grown in vitro in a medium contained between a glass plate and a molded polymer. It is also possible to test different factors such as nutrient and humidity levels or the presence of micro-organisms on gas transport and consumption.
Emily Lacroix: My particular interest is in anoxic microsites: pockets in which there is no oxygen. This is particularly true in the vicinity of roots. These pockets have an influence on the global carbon cycle, as microorganisms there convert organic carbon into CO2 less rapidly. My main questions are: where and how do such microsites form in the rhizosphere? Is their frequency linked to soil moisture or texture? Can we measure their influence on the soil’s capacity to fix or release CO2?
To observe the formation of anoxic pockets (microsites) in situ, Emily Lacroix inserted soil into a reactor. The same soil is mixed with quartz crystals (not very reactive) of different sizes to simulate variations in texture without changing the nature of the soil (see different colours of samples in the image on the left).
A “false root” – corresponding to a microdialysis probe (photo right) – releases carbon into the soil, just like a real plant root. Its advantage is that it allows precise control of the amount and type of carbon released into the soil.
The soil’s moisture content can also be modified to identify its potential influence on the formation of anoxic pockets.
At the end of the experiment, Emily Lacroix measures the oxygen level and its distribution in the sample: a chemical foil reacts to the presence of indicator oxygen (pink square on the left image). This paper is then exposed to a camera equipped with a UV lamp (central image). On the screen, oxygen-rich areas appear orange-red and anoxic areas yellow-green (right image). In this way, it is possible to quickly identify the distribution and number of anoxic zones in the vicinity of a root.
Marco Keiluweit: Finally, on a microscopic scale, we analyse soil samples using a cutting-edge, high-resolution infrared microscope. Its high level of resolution enables us to describe the interactions of organic matter, minerals or microbes in our samples.
Characterizing the associations of microbes and minerals in soil samples is one of the feats made possible by the infrared microscope. The resolution of this microscope makes it possible to distinguish different types of soil organic matter (dead or alive) and minerals in soil samples.
This is the only infrared microscopes of this kind in Switzerland and has a rapidly growing user base FGSE as well as at other institutions in the fields of geosciences, microbiology and engineering.
The Road Ahead: Linking fine scale mechanisms to macroscopic observations
Marco Keiluweit: Our aim is to better predict how soils respond to climate change going forward. And we can only improve our predictions of this response by linking macroscopic observations of change to microscopic mechanisms. We have seen a rapid advance in our understanding of soil carbon dynamics in recent years, which makes me hopeful that we will be better equipped to address the mounting pressures on our soils arising from climate change and intensification of land use in the future
Emily Lacroix: I hope that my first experiments under controlled conditions will be conclusive, so that I can measure the formation of anoxic pockets (microsites) close to real roots under real conditions. With successful results, I aim to conduct measurements that will enhance our understanding of how these crucial processes influence soil carbon dynamics.


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As we said last week that it’s just a matter of couple of days for Salman Khan to fulfill his commitment to TUBELIGHT distributors to compensate on their losses, the said commitment by Salman Khan has been done. Read on to know the details
According to our close source in the market, Salman khan’s father Salim Khan and known C.I distributor Aditya Chowksey calculated the losses and it came to a whooping figure of around 85 crores globally (70 crores in India and 15 crores in Middle East) rest of overseas was distributed by Yash Raj Films.
SALMAN KHAN WALLPAPERS
In a mutual agreement, it was decided that Salman Khan side will bear the losses amounting to 33.5 crores.
Here is how the money will be distributed
NH Studioz which reportedly bought the All India rights will get 5 cores directly
Rs. 20 crore will be distributed amongst the territorial distributors who purchased the rights from NH Studioz.
Rs. 7 crores to Middle East distributor
Rs 1.5 crores will be distributed amongst the theatre owners who booked the movie on minimum guarantee. It will be the onus of the exhibitor and distributor to show the receipt of the same to claim the refund accordingly.

domain: economics


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Please see the attached Op Ed that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on 4/16/18, National Health Care Decision Day.Arizona-Daily-Star-OpEd-on-End-of-Life-Decisions.pdf
Please click here for one of many post-Oscar articles featuring Dr. Stacy Smith, Founder and Director of the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.
Please read the press release about the collaboration between Act One and Tucson Mayor Rothschild’s Great Start Program: Act-One-Press-Release.pdf
On September 8, 2017, The Tucson Girls Chorus received the Copper Cactus Award from the Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce: TGC-Sharing-Our-Progress-1.pdf
(Tucson, AZ—August 2, 2017) The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Southern Arizona received funding from the David & Lura Lovell Foundation for a planning grant to advance a state-wide school-based mental illness stigma reduction initiative.
Fifty percent of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, and 75% by age 24. NAMI Southern Arizona’s goal is to reach young people when they are first experiencing symptoms of mental illness with the message that mental illness is just like any other illness, they are not alone, and it’s okay to talk about it and get help.
“If we can get to children before they accept the stigma that has long been associated with mental illness, we can show them how to connect to those who can help them, reducing the average delay of 8-10 years between onset of symptoms and treatment,” said H. Clarke Romans, executive director of NAMI Southern Arizona. “Most importantly, we want young people to know that with help they can get better and have bright futures.”
The planning grant funding will enable NAMI Southern Arizona to engage leaders in education, behavioral and physical health, government, business, the judicial system and the faith community to discuss and develop a plan to address the inclusion of mental health education in all Arizona schools. NAMI has an effective stigma reduction program, Ending the Silence, for middle and high school students that is already being implemented in some schools through local affiliates of NAMI, and can be expanded to schools throughout the state.
“We believe in bringing people together to create systems change and address root causes of social issues,” said John Amoroso, executive director of the Lovell Foundation. “We are pleased to support NAMI SA and their partners as they work to eliminate stigma before it takes hold, making it possible for young people to get the help they need to improve their chances of success in school and beyond.”
The result of the planning grant will be an assessment and recommendations for the best course of action to pursue in providing effective school-based mental health education in Arizona.
# # #
About NAMI Southern Arizona, www.namisa.org
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. Started by volunteers in 1983, the Southern Arizona affiliate was the fourth to be established nationally. NAMI Southern Arizona serves primarily Tucson and Pima County through education, advocacy and support at no cost to anyone affected by mental illness.
About the David and Lura Lovell Foundation
Over the past 23 years, the Lovell Foundation awarded more than $14 million in grants to nonprofits for specific projects. For more information, visit www.lovellfoundation.org or call (520) 325-3656.
Calling Southern Arizona Nonprofits! SVP Tucson is seeking Tucson’s most impactful and innovative nonprofits for a FREE transformative two-month long communication skills building program. Connect, build communication skills, and increase awareness:
- Learn to share your program’s story and impact with power, passion and clarity
- Get in front of Tucson’s philanthropic and business leaders
- Win thousands of dollars in cash prizes
- Connect with other nonprofit leaders
- Build community awareness and expand your circle
Click here to apply.
Save the date for the 2017 Fast Pitch Event: Thursday, November 9, from 6:15-8:00 pm in the Leo Rich Theater.
The attached article on the Care Partners Program was featured in the Interfaith Community Services Spring 2017 newsletter. ICS Care Partners
The following message was sent on April 21, 2017, to the Greater Tucson Firefighting community from Mike McKendrick, Chair of the Tucson Fire Foundation:
It’s been a challenging few weeks within our firefighting family. The loss of one of our own at his own hand – and the injury and death of two others also at his hand – evoked deep sorrow and pain for all involved.
But it also prompted many of us to wonder what we could have done to stop this tragedy. Was there a change in our friend’s behavior that we missed? Did we see something, but were afraid to say something? Are there Fire Foundation programs that could have helped him through his crisis?
And do we, as a firefighting family and community, make it “okay” for our brothers and sisters to seek help when they do need it without stigma?
The Tucson Fire Foundation offers what amounts to free counseling and support services for all firefighters, first responders, and their families. But we also understand that it’s not always easy to ask for help.
In light of the recent events, we are establishing a dedicated email, phone line, and online website access that will make it simpler for our members to confidentially access our support services at any time. We’ll update you shortly with the details.
Our hearts are with the members of the Scott and Bair families. They need to know we all stand with them and that we’re proactively working to help prevent tragedies such as this in the future.
Chair, Tucson Fire Foundation
Please see the attached for information from the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine on noninvasive treatments for pain management. AZCIM
For more information, follow these links:
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BOUGAINVILLE has the highest incidence of gender-based violence (GBV), United Nations Women programme specialist Beatrice Tabeu says.
She said during a workshop for journalists last week in Port Moresby that not only women experienced GBV but men and boys as well.
According to a family, health and safety study summary report done in 2012 and 2013 on Bougainville, almost three quarters of men experienced emotional, physical and sexual abuse compared to women when they were children.
On the other hand, 80 per cent of men aged 18 to 49 have been reported to have perpetrated physical and sexual violence against a partner.
The report also revealed that almost three quarters of the men who have raped revealed that it was for sexual entertainment.
Tabeu said the recommendations the report outlined were:
- Change social norms that promote gender inequality and tolerance of violence against women;
- capacitate the health sector to respond to mental health problems; and,
- Promote interventions to build a more respectful and gender-equitable male population.
She said programmes such as enforcing the Family Protection Bill of 2013 and training of police, judges, lawyers, village court magistrates and other officials on GBV would strengthen the criminal justice system to increase its accessibility to victims, prosecution and conviction rates.
United Nations PNG resident coordinator Roy Trivedy said in a conference last month that they were working with the National Capital District Commission and provincial family sexual violence units to improve a referral pathway for victims of GBV.
He said the goal was to decrease the incidence of GBV and achieve zero tolerance.


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Barings's ex-head of sovereigns joins ETF firm; HSBC Securities Services gets new client head; AQR pares Asia sales team; KKR appoints Asia-Pacific tech investment head; CGS-CIMB hires chief investment strategist; EFG poaches IAM team from UBS; First State names head of investment product research; HSBC GAM has management reshuffle and more.
The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank AIIB is finding private investors outside China hard to come by, but will be hoping the recent appointment of a South Korean...
Schroders names new chiefs for Asia Pacific, Japan; BlackRock loses Asia equities head, reshuffles team; Robeco quant equities specialist returns to Europe; two HK fund house execs banned; T. Rowe Price names Greater China client director, and more.
Japan’s third biggest insurance company has shuffled its debt investment team.
The insurer plans to further diversify its exposure using overseas ETFs, amid the global market rout and after the recent raising of the offshore allocation cap.
In a move that refocuses its product offering and institutional coverage, the US-based asset manager has pared its equity investment capabilities in Asia and the UK.

domain: finance


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Optimising measurement of health-related characteristics of the built environment: Comparing data collected by foot-based street audits, virtual street audits and routine secondary data sources.
Pliakas, T; Hawkesworth, S; Silverwood, RJ; Nanchahal, K; Grundy, C; Armstrong, B; Casas, JP; Morris, RW; Wilkinson, P; Lock, K; (2016) Optimising measurement of health-related characteristics of the built environment: Comparing data collected by foot-based street audits, virtual street audits and routine secondary data sources. Health & place, 43. pp. 75-84. ISSN 1353-8292 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.10.001
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The role of the neighbourhood environment in influencing health behaviours continues to be an important topic in public health research and policy. Foot-based street audits, virtual street audits and secondary data sources are widespread data collection methods used to objectively measure the built environment in environment-health association studies. We compared these three methods using data collected in a nationally representative epidemiological study in 17 British towns to inform future development of research tools. There was good agreement between foot-based and virtual audit tools. Foot based audits were superior for fine detail features. Secondary data sources measured very different aspects of the local environment that could be used to derive a range of environmental measures if validated properly. Future built environment research should design studies a priori using multiple approaches and varied data sources in order to best capture features that operate on different health behaviours at varying spatial scales.
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domain: geography


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How Hollywood Helps to Obscure the Ugly Truth about American Militarism
Jeff Nall @ Truthout - In American popular culture, the United States government and military are almost always portrayed as agents of good struggling to overcome evil. This is particularly true of Hollywood depictions of US warfare. Read more.
With Congress set to vote as early as next week on the annual military spending bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna in calling for the inclusion of an amendment that...read more.


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Boosters for Immunocompromised and Patients at High Risk
Continuing Education Credits
In support of improving patient care, Community
Health Center, Inc. / Weitzman Institute is jointly
accredited by the Accreditation Council for
Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the
Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education
(ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing
Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for
the healthcare team.
A comprehensive certificate will be sent after the
end of the series, December 2021.
Disclosures & Disclaimers
With respect to the following presentation, there has been no relevant (direct or indirect)
financial relationship between the faculty listed above or other activity planners (or spouse/partner)
and any for-profit company in the past 12 months which would be considered a conflict of interest.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the faculty and may not reflect official
policy of Community Health Center, Inc. and its Weitzman Institute.
We are obligated to disclose any products which are off-label, unlabeled, experimental, and/or
under investigation (not FDA approved) and any limitations on the information that are presented,
such as data that are preliminary or that represent ongoing research, interim analyses, and/or
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $137,500 with 0%
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necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S.
Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.
At the Weitzman Institute, we
value a culture of equity,
inclusiveness, diversity, and mutually
respectful dialogue. We want to
ensure that all feel welcome. If there
is anything said in our program that
makes you feel uncomfortable,
please let us know.
Delta Variant – “like COVID on steroids”
• It is a variant of concern! (VOC)
• One of the most transmissible viruses known
– (Up there with chickenpox, varicella)
• Contains at least 13 mutations from the original strain
– 4 of these are of particular concern affecting the Spike protein
• Higher transmissibility, more amounts of virus (1200x)
• Stronger attachment to ACE-2 receptor
• Decreased recognition by the immune system
• Increased cell to cell infectivity (?)
• Delta itself is mutating further: DELTA VARIANTS
– AY.1 to AY.38
– ‘Delta plus’ AY.1 and AY.2
Groups at Higher Risk for Infection
Asthma Serious Heart Disease
Chronic Lung Disease Hemoglobin Disorders
Diabetes Nursing home residents/LTC
Chronic Kidney Disease - Dialysis Aged 65 and older
Liver Disease Immunocompromised
The Amazing Immune System
Working ‘Behind the Scenes’
• Receive the vaccine, immunity starts to go up
• Get a second shot – and immunity increases nicely
Do we need boosters?
What might happen
immunologically after a booster?
• Receive the primary series, immunity very good after 2nd shot
Get a booster shot ….
Get a booster shot expect immunity to explode upwards!
“It's very, very clear that
there's waning immunity,
and we need to boost
individuals who have
received any of the three
products that we've been
dealing with right now”
– Dr. Anthony Fauci
• Pfizer vaccine approved 3rd shot 6 months out
• Moderna, J&J - could get approval as booster
shots this week - by Wednesday evening?
– Up to the full FDA and CDC to give the green light
– 15 million Americans got Johnson & Johnson
• “Mix and match” study showed increased
– J&J vaccines given another J&J booster = 4x
– J&J vaccines given Moderna = 76x increase
“Mixing and Matching”
• The immune system will respond to what it
– NIH study: Atma RL et al. Heterologous SARS-CoV-
2 Booster Vaccinations – Preliminary Report
• COVID-19 vaccines are robust!
– Pfizer vaccine: Left hook
– Moderna vaccine: Right jab
– J&J: Big punch
Moderna or Pfizer Boosters for Johnson &
• Providers should be given a measure of
discretion as the campaign ramps up
– Dr. Paul A. Offit, FDA and Children’s Hospital of
Philadelphia, noted “we should move quickly on
this, because it’s already happening.”
• Operationally: try to make it easy…
COVID-19 Vaccinations Across the Nation
COVID-19 Boosters Across the Nation
Percent Fully Vaccinated by State for the
10/18: Welcome everyone – today’s topic concerns immunocompromised and high risk patients: with a focus on boosting immunization.
10/4/21: Here you can see from the map the ‘hot spots’ occurring around the country. The Darker colors mean more active infections: Alaska, the “Mountain West”, some parts of the midwest – Coal mining areas (W Virginia).
10/19: . ~86,000 new cases/day (down from 160,000 daily beginning of September) -most states are rebounding… TROUBLE spots: Colorado, Vermont, Michigan ALASKA – still having trouble - may have peaked? ANCHORAGE approved a MASK MANDATE – who would believe?? -FLORIDA is much better – one of the lowest average daily cases in the U.S.
10/18/21: Here you can see with the red arrow where we are with ‘new’ reported cases… the Summer Surge is thankfully declining nicely… For 10/17 – 7 day average was 83,576 cases/day. Monday 22,152 (always low on a Monday)
10/18/21: New Cases are trending downwards…
B.1.617.2 (India) – DELTA variant -"like Covid on steroids," Andy Slavitt, former White House senior adviser for Covid-19 response -thee dominant strain: 99% of all new infections (in the middle of June – just 20%) CDC -Researchers: 1260x more virus in nasopharynx than wild type -shorter onset: 4 days rather than 6
Of course those who were never immunized: Now at higher risk of contracting it The vaccines work – up to a point, in the face of this new threat.
Who are those most at risk?
The most important diseases as risk factors: Cancer Cerebrovascular disease Chronic kidney disease* COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) Diabetes mellitus, type 1 and type 2* Heart conditions (such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies) Obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2)* Pregnancy and recent pregnancy Smoking, current and former
Enormously complex ‘work of art’ As you can see – there are different parts to it… B cell arm – creating antibodies…. T cell arm- army of cellular defenses – cells that go on the attack! Myriad other supports – FEVER being an example of that… the FEVER response. It turns on and starts to ‘hurt’ the invaders.
Should be getting 3rd shots – booster shots as of now…
Should be getting 3rd shots – booster shots as of now…
*antibody increases were seen after 15 days from the booster… J&J vaccinee given a PFIZER booster – also increased the titers. (They were only measuring antibodies –NOT the cellular immune response) COULD NOT COMPARE mRNA vaccines based on this study – not designed to… Johnson & Johnson is headed for a booster shot of its vaccine at least two months after the first dose.
This is interim data from an ongoing study study has limitations. It was not designed to directly compare responses between different booster regimens. Still a lot that’s unknown: The immunogenicity data are limited to immune responses through Study Day 29, and only serologic responses are reported. The different homologous and heterologous vaccination regimens may vary in terms of cellular and humoral immune responses as well as longevity of the response.
unclear what dosage of Moderna’s vaccine might be authorized for use as a booster for recipients of other vaccines
10/19: Connecticut 69.9% Vermont: 70.6% Puerto Rico – doing very well: 72% immunized Alaska – 51.7%


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KEVIN CHANDLER and his business partner have seen the ugliness left behind in the foreclosed homes they have been fixing up in St. Paul: the garbage, the graffiti, rats, ripped-out copper tubing and once, water lapping up to the rim of the basement walls, the evicted owner’s parting shot.
They have seen the poignant evidence of hasty exits as well: food still on the table, freshly watered plants, children’s bicycles in the driveway.
But Mr. Chandler and his partner, Bart Crockett, also spotted something else in those houses: a market opportunity in repairing the houses to meet the city’s building safety requirements.
Mr. Crockett went into home remodeling several years ago after he was laid off as a commercial airline pilot. Mr. Chandler, a high school friend who is a lawyer and former state legislator, joined him in 2007 because, he says, “I had never seen the concrete results of my work before.”
At first, the pair did standard refurbishing jobs, like adding rooms and upgrading kitchens. But as the housing crisis deepened in 2008, they were increasingly being asked to patch up foreclosed homes in less desirable neighborhoods. There, they discovered a world of neglect.Continue reading the main story
“Many of them hadn’t been touched for half a century,” said Mr. Chandler, who is 49. “There was bad plumbing, faulty electrical, botched repairs. Many were built without proper permits. A lean-to had been added here, a bathroom there, an unheated porch you had to go through.” By law, they needed to be brought up to the city’s building code standards.
“A bell rang for us, and we realized that no one was focused on this niche,” he said.
There was a reason for that. The new owners of foreclosed homes — banks, cost-conscious investors, lower-income individuals — did not necessarily want an overhaul. Some were content to let quick-fix artists known as storm chasers just clean up the premises and paint them before putting the properties on the market or moving in.
The partners — their company is called Foreclosed House Renovations Inc. — figured that they could do the job right and stake out a reputation for quality that would attract clients with higher standards and deeper pockets. “In St. Paul, I think we’re the only ones doing it this way,” Mr. Chandler said. “The storm chasers come and go. We’re here to stay.”
Contractors are busy fixing up abandoned buildings in many cities, of course, as the number of foreclosures continues to rise. As a measure of how quickly things have changed, Ken Eggers, a building inspector in St. Paul, said the city now had nearly 4,000 vacant homes, more than 5 percent of the entire housing stock and up from 40 or 50 houses a decade ago. Of the 4,000, he says, 1,907 have been repaired, inspected and approved for occupancy. At the same time, the city has also stepped up its demolition program, razing 95 houses last year, up from six in 2006.
Bob Kessler, director of St. Paul’s Department of Safety and Inspection, said St. Paul recently enacted what he considered to be one of the toughest code compliance laws in the country. Sellers of dilapidated vacant homes must obtain a list of all violations from the city, submit a comprehensive plan for correcting them, estimate the cost, prove they have the financial resources to do the job and, after finishing the work, pass a final inspection.
With prices for run-down vacant homes in the inner city ranging from $10,000 to $40,000, and the cost of fixing them up typically around $20,000, legitimate builders can make a good profit even as they are improving the city’s housing stock.
“One developer told me he planned to buy 20 homes,” Mr. Kessler said. “Last year, we rehabilitated 900 buildings up to code. Everybody gains: investors, first-time buyers, renters, whole neighborhoods, because blighted homes are either destroyed or repaired.”
St. Paul’s building code fills seven single-spaced pages and includes a host of dos and don’ts that at first glance make no sense, Mr. Chandler said. Hand railings on the steps to the basement, for example, must curl into the wall at the top. Why? To prevent firefighters’ hoses from getting entangled.
Fly-by-night contractors looking for jobs in the inner city pay little attention to the regulations, Mr. Chandler said. Once, he said, “I wandered down the street to another job and asked the guy, ‘Do you have the code compliant list? When are you getting your certificate of occupancy?’ He had no clue what I was talking about.”
Other times, he said, he has gone to bidding auctions and asked the new owners of foreclosed homes to go over the code compliance list with him. “We got a blank look,” he said. “The guy would say, ‘None of the other contractors said anything about that.’ ”
By contrast, their insistence on playing by the book has won them repeat customers, many of whom checked on them frequently the first time, but now just give them the addresses of the houses they want to be worked on.
Their attention to detail is also attracting the best subcontractors, scoring points with city inspectors and, they say, leading to cut-rate deals with suppliers.
Mr. Crockett said they had developed a formula for giving realistic estimates and completing jobs within budget and on time — usually within a week or 10 days. “We’ve put the pieces together,” he said.
As a result, business is booming. Their firm is on track to double revenue this year to $800,000, and they are projecting the same rate of growth for 2010. They have already hired two full-time employees, are beginning to get more jobs in the suburbs and have even been approached “on a developmental basis” by franchisers in Texas and Colorado.
But what about the departed occupants? Mr. Chandler said he hoped that they at least “got this giant concrete block of debt off their backs.” At the same time, he says, the housing collapse has created affordable housing for other families.
“It’s gratifying to go into a house that was a total wreck, where you said, ‘My God, this is impossible,’ ” he said, “and six weeks later you say, ‘I could live here.’ ”Continue reading the main story


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Hotel Takasago is located at 2-1 Ekimae-Cho, 1.8 km from the center of Kochi. Kochi Railway Station is the closest landmark to Hotel Takasago.
Check-in time is 15:00 and check-out time is 10:00 at Hotel Takasago.
Yes, Hotel Takasago offers free Wi-Fi.
No, Hotel Takasago does not offer free parking.
No, Hotel Takasago does not offer free airport shuttle service.
Hotel Takasago is 11.9 km from Kochi. Hotel Takasago is 83.3 km from Matsuyama.
No, Hotel Takasago does not have a pool onsite.

domain: travel


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Notice: Wiley Online Library will be unavailable on Saturday 7th Oct from 03.00 EDT / 08:00 BST / 12:30 IST / 15.00 SGT to 08.00 EDT / 13.00 BST / 17:30 IST / 20.00 SGT and Sunday 8th Oct from 03.00 EDT / 08:00 BST / 12:30 IST / 15.00 SGT to 06.00 EDT / 11.00 BST / 15:30 IST / 18.00 SGT for essential maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience.
A. Townsend Peterson, Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
Aim To evaluate the evolutionary conservatism of coarse-resolution Grinnellian (or scenopoetic) ecological niches.
Methods I review a broad swathe of literature relevant to the topic of niche conservatism or differentiation, and illustrate some of the resulting insights with examplar analyses.
Results Ecological niche characteristics are highly conserved over short-to-moderate time spans (i.e. from individual life spans up to tens or hundreds of thousands of years); little or no ecological niche differentiation is discernible as part of the processes of invasion or speciation.
Main conclusions Although niche conservatism is widespread, many methodological complications obscure this point. In particular, niche models are frequently over-interpreted: too often, they are based on limited occurrence data in high-dimensional environmental spaces, and cannot be interpreted robustly to indicate niche differentiation.
The idea of ecological niche conservatism was proposed explicitly and tested quantitatively only 10 years ago (Peterson et al., 1999), although earlier workers had approached the issue (Huntley et al., 1989; Ricklefs & Latham, 1992; Peterson & Vargas-Barajas, 1993), with the conclusion that ecological niches show considerable conservatism over evolutionary time periods. Subsequent discussions and reviews of the subject (Ackerly, 2003; Wiens & Graham, 2005; Losos, 2008; Pearman et al., 2008; Warren et al., 2008; Wiens, 2008) have shed new light on the issue, particularly as additional evidence has accumulated. For example, Wiens & Graham (2005) pointed out the many dimensions in which niche conservatism has pervasive influences across evolutionary biology and biogeography. Pearman et al. (2008) emphasized topics of overlap between ecological and phylogenetic studies. Warren et al. (2008), in the most fundamentally important of these papers, pointed out that two distinct null hypotheses had been tested in previous studies (i.e. testing the hypothesis that two modelled niches are identical versus the hypothesis that two modelled niches are more similar than would be expected at random), which probably explains a substantial part of the divergence among results.
However, these discussions have obfuscated key aspects of the niche conservatism issue as well. While I agree with Wiens & Graham (2005) that simply testing for conservatism in and of itself is not of particular interest, I see the challenge of understanding and characterizing the temporal dimensions of ecological innovation as being of great interest. This temporal point of view has been lacking in reviews of niche conservatism to date, so I believe that a reconsideration of the question of niche conservatism across different time-scales is in order, and this indeed is the purpose of the present paper.
Since the initial publications regarding niche conservatism, the idea has attracted quite a bit of attention, and the body of relevant literature has grown considerably. As such, after a decade, it is useful to step back and ask where the field stands. The key aspect of this review is that I have organized available evidence by temporal scale (Table 1). I cover a broader range of literature than previous reviews, including evidence from studies on topics as diverse as species invasions, geographically structured distributional predictions, longitudinal studies (i.e. studies examining a single species or lineage through time) and phylogenetic studies that consider explicitly the evolutionary history of ecological characteristics. In choosing studies for inclusion in this overview, I searched Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) using the keywords ‘niche’ and ‘distribution model’, as well as (separately from keyword searches) the names of leading researchers in this field (e.g. R. Anderson, M. Araújo, C. Graham, A. Guisan, J. Lobo, E. Martínez-Meyer, R. Pearson, J. Soberón, W. Thuiller). I included only studies that met the following basic requirements: (1) ecological requirements were evaluated across significant portions of ranges of species (i.e. excluding studies that evaluated niches based on small and potentially non-representative subsets of species distributional areas, such as Vanreusel et al., 2007); (2) spatial or temporal stratification of training and testing data sets was employed, thus avoiding problems with autocorrelation and non-independence of training and testing samples (eliminating, for example, Elith et al., 2006); and (3) the focus was on coarse-resolution variables (i.e. the ‘scenopoetic’ variables of Hutchinson; see Soberón, 2007), rather than on more micro-scale environmental features that tend to incorporate elements of biotic interactions (eliminating, for example, Losos et al., 2003). More generally, any such broad review, and particularly one in which re-analysis of actual original data is not feasible, will necessarily smooth over many methodological differences and inconsistencies among studies – for example, in some summary statistics, I consider the relatively few studies testing niche identity together with studies testing niche similarity (Warren et al., 2008), but checked the effects of their inclusion. I undertook the literature search in December 2008. While I have made every effort to make the literature review comprehensive, without doubt several relevant publications have escaped me, particularly given the burgeoning literature in the field. As such, this review serves as an overview of broad patterns only.
Table 1. Summary of temporal dimensions of evidence regarding ecological niche conservatism. Relevant phenomena are classified according to what factor changes for the lineage in question, the approximate time-scale of these changes, and key details (with example references) regarding such evidence.
Notes regarding review of evidence
Landscape, community context
Requires independent testing, with models built on one distributional area and projected to and tested for validity on another (Peterson, 2003)
Longitudinal: short-term shifts of species ranges
Requires independent samples of a species’ distributional area before and after a documented environmental change event (Araújo et al., 2005)
Requires spatially stratified testing of model validity to establish consistency of ecological niche characteristics across a species’ range (Peterson & Holt, 2003)
Requires phylogenetic hypothesis for monophyletic lineages of species (Eaton et al., 2008)
My review of the evidence for or against ecological niche conservatism covers a broader swathe of literature (76 publications) than previous reviews, and covers 299 species or higher taxa, again a much greater diversity of examples than previously analysed (see Appendix S1 in Supporting Information). On the most basic level, the results confirm the conclusions of all previous reviews: that evidence for niche conservatism is mixed. However, when sorting the evidence by time-scale, some degree of structure is evident in the results: recent and short-term events (e.g. species invasions, distributional shifts at the end of the Pleistocene) show a considerable tendency towards conservatism. Longer-term events, on the other hand, such as differentiation across phylogenies, show increasing degrees of breakdown of conservatism (Fig. 1). This trend in the prevalence of niche conservatism makes the mixed and possibly confusing literature on the subject more intelligible: quite simply, and to many not surprisingly, niche conservatism breaks down over time.
A more important question is the rate at which this breakdown occurs. It is worthwhile to return to the issue on which the original niche conservatism analysis focused (Peterson et al., 1999) – that of possible associations between speciation events and ecological innovation. What we can see in the results of this review, however, is that niche conservatism extends deeper in time than has generally been appreciated. That is, on time-scales more or less comparable to those of speciation events, almost all lineages show overall niche conservatism (Fig. 1). No ecological ‘signal’ associated with speciation is discernible. Indeed, if ecological innovation is at all involved in the speciation process, it must be manifested in fine-scale dimensions only: coarse-grained, range-wide-extent studies such as those reviewed herein do not show a signal of ecological differentiation associated with speciation events. Note that these patterns of overall conservatism on short-to-medium time-scales actually became stronger when six studies that used a distinct means of testing for conservatism (niche-identity tests, discussed in the next section) were removed from analysis, as all six found non-conservatism, and all were at the deeper-time end of the spectrum (see Appendix S1). As a consequence, my results should be robust to controlling for the diverse methods considered for testing conservatism.
The review just presented indicated a dominant pattern of minimal change in ecological niche parameters over short-to-medium time spans. In this section, I examine a few apparent exceptions in greater detail. First, however, a few more general methodological comments are in order.
Methodologies employed varied quite widely among the studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the review. The simplest studies were spatially stratified prediction exercises, in which models trained in one part of a species’ geographical distribution were used to predict the species’ geographical distribution elsewhere (e.g. Peterson & Shaw, 2003). Studies covering a broader temporal swathe, however, either predicted among two temporal samples (‘before’ and ‘after’ some change event), or assessed coincidence and consistency of ecological characteristics within historical (phylogenetic) frameworks. Hence, certainly, some noise is inserted into the picture by these methodological variations among studies.
Because the field is so young, no synthesis of techniques and approaches has yet been published, and methodologies are evolving even from month to month: basically, investigators are exploring and experimenting in each publication that appears. As such, direct comparisons among studies and across taxa, regions or biomes are complicated for methodological and artefactual reasons, as has been pointed out recently in several publications (Peterson et al., 2007, 2008; Lobo et al., 2008; Warren et al., 2008). Additional methodological considerations exist that can confuse the interpretation of such studies, as described below.
Controlling overfitting and other artefacts
Three recent studies of native and introduced distributional areas of invasive species (Broennimann et al., 2007; Fitzpatrick et al., 2007; Medley, 2010) have reported niche shifts associated with the invasion event: in the European plant Centaurea maculosa, the South American fire ant Solenopsis invicta, and the mosquito Aedes albopictus, respectively. Although all three studies present intriguing evidence, interpreted by their authors as suggesting a rapid change of niche characteristics associated with invasion events, their inferences of niche shifts are dependent on the particular environmental data sets employed. In the case of the ant study, Peterson & Nakazawa (2008) developed additional niche models for the same situations, and demonstrated that native range models for this species predicted the North American introduced range quite accurately when simpler and less highly dimensional environmental data sets were used (contraFitzpatrick et al., 2007): in sum, the ant example of niche shifts appears to be a consequence of methodological artefact, rather than a biological reality. A similar case study of the complex effects of using different sets of environmental variables on perceived niche ‘differentiation’ in Mediterranean house geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus) is provided by Rödder & Lötters (2009).
In the case of the Centaurea study by Broennimann et al. (2007), two subsequent publications (Broennimann & Guisan, 2008; Pearman et al., 2008) have repeated the original assertions. However, in the supplementary material of Broennimann et al. (2007) it can be seen that under simpler sets of environmental data, the coincidence between the reciprocal predictions (native-to-introduced and vice versa) improves markedly. Put simply, the pattern parallels closely that of the Solenopsis situation detailed above: the results that are indicative of niche shifts are not robust to choice of environmental data, and the separation in the multivariate visualizations of niche space decreases when the model is built in fewer environmental dimensions. The mosquito example (Medley, 2010) is almost exactly parallel – niche models developed in a highly dimensional environmental space led to conclusions of niche shift, in this case in spite of a detailed previous analysis that showed clear niche conservatism (Benedict et al., 2007). I do not argue necessarily that the conclusions of niche shifts are incorrect, but that the evidence for those conclusions should be more robust to alternative means of analysis before biological interpretation.
In all three examples, the authors complemented the niche model results by means of simple plots of the environmental values associated with known occurrences of each species, showing again – at least according to the authors’ interpretations – that they are not equivalent. This evidence can appear quite convincing. However, these tests of niche identity are themselves at the centre of a knot of serious problems; in this respect, the reader should note the discussion of niche-identity tests presented below.
A more recent suggestion by two of the authors of the original Centaurea paper has been that of pooling native and introduced distributional data to produce a consensus model (Broennimann & Guisan, 2008). While in general I agree with this idea, that is, of bringing all of the available distributional information to bear on the challenge of predicting distributional potential, I note that if the assertion of niche differentiation were to be correct, this approach would then not be appropriate. Rather, the pooled niche model would be overly broad, and would not be representative of the ecological niche of either of the component populations (Raxworthy et al., 2007).
One of the principal problems in the question of niche conservatism is that the answer to the question is dimension-dependent. That is, if ‘niche’ is defined very simply, then niches will be conserved quite commonly. Consider, for example, characterizing species along a single environmental dimension such as annual mean temperature – niches would (in this one dimension) appear to be conserved massively, with examples of niche shifts being relatively rare. Clearly, this single dimension is not sufficient to summarize ecological variation among all of the species on Earth, so investigators must seek a richer characterization of environmental variation across regions of interest. This ‘correct’ number of dimensions is unknown, and we can discover it only indirectly.
On the other hand, niche models developed across too many dimensions fall into the opposite trap. If models are developed in 100 or 1000 rich environmental dimensions, then a characterization (model) can probably be developed that identifies each occurrence point uniquely. Such models will be massively overfitted (Peterson, 2007) and will have little or no predictive power, particularly in situations requiring that models be transferable (Peterson et al., 2007). The conclusion in such analyses, by investigators not taking steps to avoid overfitting, will be niche differentiation.
Many such analyses have been based on 19 climatic dimensions (e.g. Broennimann et al., 2007), but what is special or sacred about 19? In truth, the number comes from the fact that the WorldClim archive conveniently provides 19 ‘bioclimatic’ variables (Hijmans et al., 2005). At the very least, the dimensionality of the model needs to be stated and pondered carefully at the outset of the analysis; better still, investigators should test the appropriate dimensionality, given the species in question, the sample size of occurrence data available, and the particular set of environmental variables in question and their intercorrelations. The reduction of dimensionality for niche modelling as a step towards avoiding overfitting can be achieved: (1) via factor analysis to produce a reduced suite of independent dimensions for modelling (Peterson, 2007); or (2) via inspection of correlations among dimensions and the elimination of highly correlated dimensions from further analysis (Peterson, 2007). In the first case some degree of interpretability is lost, whereas in the second case some degree of subjectivity is involved.
Non-identity versus niche differentiation
Warren et al. (2008) clarified that investigators in the field of niche modelling have been testing disparate null hypotheses, all under the rubric of ‘niche differentiation’, and provided randomization tests appropriate for each. In summarizing their re-analysis of two previous studies, they stated that ‘our results strongly support the conventional wisdom that niches of related species tend to be similar, but rarely identical … indeed … our more stringent comparisons … show that environmental niches can be quite labile’ (p. 2877). However, Warren and colleagues perhaps did not consider in sufficient depth the effects of vagaries of sampling, model fitting and limited environmental availability in their tests of niche identity. This question is basically one of statistical power in their tests: tests of niche identity may be overly prone to committing Type 1 errors, that is, of rejecting the null hypothesis of niche identity when such is nonetheless the case. The question thus arises of the degree to which statistically significant niche non-identity can or should be taken as an indication of biologically significant niche differentiation.
To explore these questions, at least heuristically, I created a virtual species following Hirzel et al. (2001) in a 7-dimensional climate space using bioclimatic variables from the WorldClim archive (Hijmans et al., 2005), in which each dimension had been standardized to a mean of zero and variance of unity. I took as the centre of the virtual species’ niche the conditions represented at Lawrence, Kansas, measuring the Euclidean distance in the standardized, 7-dimensional space (number of dimensions chosen arbitrarily) to all other points across North America. I arbitrarily chose a threshold of distance that included 5% of the North American environmental space to delimit this niche, and identified all sites across the continent that presented distances to Lawrence’s conditions less than or equal to the threshold distance as the potential geographical distribution of the niche. Finally, using a biogeographer’s eye, I split this potential distribution into two virtual species’ distributions based approximately on the Missouri River as a biogeographical barrier (Fig. 2), and then plotted 20 points at random across each of the two distributional areas. The point of this exercise is that points analogous to occurrence points for real species were chosen from distributional areas that were outlined by a single ecological niche defined in seven scenopoetic climatic dimensions (Soberón & Peterson, 2005).
On submitting these occurrence points to the niche-identity and niche-similarity tests of Warren et al. (2008), differences between the tests of the two null hypotheses were at once evident. With regard to testing whether the niches of the two virtual species are more similar than would be expected by chance, as expected given that the occurrence data for the two species were sampled from the same subset of environmental space (i.e. my made-up ecological niche), the result was significant niche similarity (Fig. 2, P ≤0.01). However, in terms of niche identity, the niches of the two species were highly significantly differentiated (Fig. 2, P ≤0.01). Hence, although the two niches were indeed significantly similar, they were not identical.
As a second example of Type 1 error in niche-identity tests, I obtained two sets of data describing the distribution of the quail Colinus virginianus: 46 localities associated with natural history museum specimen collection sites (from various museum holdings via the ORNIS portal, http://www.ornisnet.org; accessed 15 December 2009), and 1845 North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS, 2006) route detections (Fig. 3). I used Warren et al.’s (2008) niche-identity tests to assess whether these two samples of points created models that were so dissimilar that it would be unlikely that they could have been drawn from the same population, and found that they also were significantly non-identical (P <0.01). Once again, a pair of samples that should produce identical niche models did not, probably owing to minutiae of sampling, and possibly owing to overfitting by the Maxent algorithm (see examples illustrated in Peterson et al., 2007). For whatever reason, however, the niches of the two C. virginianus samples were not identical, again pointing towards a tendency to Type 1 errors in identity tests.
In sum, these results mirror the results that Warren et al. (2008) obtained in their re-analysis of the Peterson et al. (1999) data. That is, while they showed significant background similarity, the sister-species pairs frequently were significantly non-identical. I suspect that the niche-identity tests presented by Warren et al. (2008) are very sensitive, and will tend to commit Type 1 errors, owing to variation in modelled niches resulting from different landscape characteristics, differences in model runs, and the vagaries of sampling. As a new generation of niche-based tools for exploring and testing these ideas emerges, then, it will be very important to focus on the biological significance of the conclusions, rather than on how well the results can be distinguished statistically. These results are mirrored almost exactly in a recent study by Godsoe (2010), which also concluded that niche-identity tests as indications of niche differentiation may frequently be confused by landscape-level differences in the environments represented.
Need to control for availability and landscape constraints
One critical point that has become increasingly clear is the need to delimit areas for analysis with great care (Soberón & Peterson, 2005), but no easy solutions have been offered. I refer to the 3-factor conceptual framework of Soberón & Peterson [2005; the ‘BAM’ (biotic, abiotic, movement) diagram] that considers biotic factors, abiotic factors and movement factors in delimiting geographical distributions of species (Fig. 4). Using this framework, the means by which one would ideally delimit the area of analysis becomes clear: the only areas ‘sampled’ by the species and either used or not used are those within its movement and dispersal possibilities, which is the ‘M’ in the BAM diagram. M is the area that is within the dispersal capabilities of the species in question, either in the present day or through the relevant past (perhaps since the Last Interglacial period, 135,000 years ago, in the case of many vertebrates).
As such, model development (and model evaluation as well) should be performed only across the area contained in M. Although estimating M is in itself not an easy task, as it is a concept that is variable as a function of time-scale, an explicit statement of assumptions regarding the extent of M is critical to generating high-quality models. In this way, contrasts between areas known to be inhabited and areas not known to be inhabited by the species in question are kept maximally relevant and meaningful.
M is relevant not only to model development but also to model interpretation. Consider two niche models that are non-overlapping when visualized in environmental space (Fig. 5, top). Although the case for niche differentiation would appear to be clear, this conclusion is robust only when the conditions of the ‘other’ niche are within M for a given species (Fig. 5, bottom right); that is, when the conditions used by the other species are available to, but not used by, the species of interest. In the opposite case (Fig. 5, bottom left), when the conditions used by the other species are not available to the species of interest, the conclusion of niche differentiation will not be robust (Kambhampati & Peterson, 2007). These considerations are similar to those necessary to understand the limits of predictions of the invasive potential of non-native species (Peterson, 2005). The Warren et al. (2008) background similarity tests are able to take into consideration the ‘study area’ for each species in determining whether niches are similar or not, which is ideally more or less equivalent to M.
The field of ‘species-level quantitative ecological biogeography’ is young and will continue to evolve and mature over the coming decades. The debate over the question of niche conservatism is illustrative: some groups of researchers have concluded that conservatism is rampant, while other groups have concluded that niches evolve rather quickly and easily. While the difference of opinion is partly a result of methodological artefact (Warren et al., 2008), it also reflects the immature nature of this field and the preliminary nature of the data and methods available, suggesting the need for synthesis and summary.
This review provides one step towards such a synthesis, taking a first time-structured look at niche conservatism and considering a much broader swathe of species than have previous overviews. Araújo & Pearson (2005) and numerous other authors have pointed out a general state of equilibrium of distributions of species and climate dimensions. Although this conclusion has been debated in a recent high-profile publication (Beale et al., 2008), the negative view appears to be based on the improper formulation of null models and interpretation of results (Araújo et al., 2009; Peterson et al., 2009). Still, a rich realm of further insight is that of more detailed analyses of niche characteristics and their change through time, as manifested across phylogeny – indeed, it is only over the phylogenetic history of relatively older groups that one observes frequent and marked niche change, so such studies offer the opportunity to understand the rate of niche change, the tempo and mode of niche change, and the correlates of such change events. This review thus clarifies the climate-related discussion by assessing at a very coarse temporal resolution the longevity and constancy of climate–distribution associations across a broad sample of species.
Pearman et al. (2008) noted that ‘niche conservatism’ is achieved only by simultaneous non-change in all of the three BAM factors (biotic, abiotic, movement), whereas non-conservatism is achieved by any change in any of the three factors. Indeed, non-conservatism can take the form of change in the niche cloud via (1) a shift in position in environmental space, (2) a change in shape, or (3) a change in volume (Jackson & Overpeck, 2000). As a result of this review, niche conservatism can be seen to be highly dependent on the time-scale of the comparison, the resolution and extent of the analysis, and the details of model fitting and comparisons, particularly as regards the null hypotheses being tested (Warren et al., 2008).
Niche conservatism and speciation
Peterson et al. (1999) presented evidence that speciation is not typically accompanied by ecological innovation, but Graham et al. (2004) argued the opposite. This contrast was clarified greatly by Warren et al. (2008), who pointed out that the two studies had tested distinct null hypotheses, and probably for that reason had arrived at opposite conclusions. That is, Peterson et al. (1999) used tests of significance of niche similarity, whereas Graham et al. (2004) used tests of significance of niche identity, with consequently differing results. Warren et al. (2008), however, given their re-analysis of the original data, went on to state that Peterson et al.’s (1999) assertion of niche conservatism during speciation ‘is further challenged by the rejection of the hypothesis of niche equivalency’; hence, Warren et al. (2008) went beyond the demonstration of niche non-identity to make biological conclusions regarding the ecological context of speciation events. However, the niche-identity test of Warren et al. (2008) is put into perspective by the heuristic analyses offered in this review, in which occurrence points from two distributional areas chosen from a single artificial niche or two samples of occurrences from the same species were shown to be significantly non-identical. Warren et al. (2008) did offer the caveat that ‘the probabilities obtained would accurately reflect the probabilities under the null hypothesis if the sampling of each species was unbiased with respect to its environmental tolerances’. I suggest that such biases may be rampant among real analyses of real data on real species, and that biases may even have entered the picture when random points were generated in reasonably small numbers from my virtual species. The high dimensionality of typical environmental spaces in niche-modelling exercises may interact with biases introduced by the M (movement) factors in the BAM diagram, which in the Warren et al. (2008) niche-identity tests cannot be controlled. Furthermore, the tendency on the part of some algorithms used to estimate niches to overfit to sampling biases (Peterson et al., 2007) may contribute to this phenomenon. In short, I suspect that niche-identity tests are detecting very real – but biologically non-significant – differences in the ecological ‘niche’ of the combination of species × landscape × sampling; as such, these tests will turn out to be very prone to Type 1 errors and will over-represent niche differentiation if not interpreted carefully.
In light of the above discussions, and particularly in view of the temporally structured review of niche conservatism that I have developed, it appears that speciation is rarely accompanied by dramatic Grinnellian niche evolution. [Note that finer-scale ‘bionomic’ dimensions of niche are little studied in speciation, and may indeed change (Soberón, 2007).] The fascinating arrays of factors that may constrain niche plasticity are explored by Pelini et al. (2009). Rather, niche conservatism appears to break down more on the scale of diversification of species within genera; that is, as lineages diversify from pairs of species into more diverse clades. This observation shifts the evolution of ecological traits farther into the past, and away from the time frame of speciation events. As such, as in the case of niche differentiation during species invasions and its alleged demonstrations discussed above (Peterson & Nakazawa, 2008), I suggest that such cases will be rare, and that demonstrations of ecological innovation during speciation events must be documented extremely carefully, so as to avoid mistaken conclusions.
This review points out the critical, if obvious, role of time in the consideration of niche conservatism. While the point may seem obvious, it has been neglected. Only relatively recently, with the advent of phylogenetic studies of niche conservatism or non-conservatism (e.g. Knouft et al., 2006; Eaton et al., 2008), has the temporal scale of this phenomenon been considered in detail (see the intriguing analysis of order of trait appearance in Ackerly et al., 2006). As a result, an important general recommendation for future progress is that of the explicit consideration of temporal dimensions in studies of ecological niche evolution.
To be able to speak effectively about niche conservatism in the first place, however, it is important to ensure that inferences of niche characteristics and their similarity among lineages are robust, and not vulnerable to biases. For this reason, careful control of model dimensionality and complexity is crucial in model training, as careless handling of these issues can result in niche estimates that appear to be distinct among species or samples when such is not necessarily the case. These points are important for ensuring that any conclusions of niche difference are genuinely attributable to niche difference, and not to methodological artefact.
A further consideration, much more biological and biogeographical in nature, is that of identifying regions relevant to analyses. Species do not select their ranges from across the full universe of possible environments and regions; rather, they are constrained to occur in areas that are within their dispersal potential from their areas of origin (Pulliam, 2000; Soberón & Peterson, 2005). As a consequence, estimating this area of dispersal ‘reach’ and constraining analyses and comparisons to within that area and/or to within that set of environments are both crucial. This context – in essence, the set of environments that corresponds to the area within the M (accessibility or mobility) constraint of the BAM framework (Soberón & Peterson, 2005) – identifies the set of areas and environmental conditions that are at all relevant to the question of niche similarity or difference. As recently emphasized in the design of tools offered by Warren et al. (2008), and as has been clear in recent re-analyses of previous research results (see, for example, the case of Mexican jays and the different conclusions reached by Peterson & Holt, 2003; Rice et al., 2003; and McCormack et al., 2010), this explicit consideration of dispersal abilities of species over relevant periods of time can change interpretations of niche similarity or difference radically.
Finally, the results of this analysis suggest that the implications of niche conservatism should be fully integrated into evolutionary biology and biogeography (Knowles et al., 2007; Peterson, 2009; Waltari & Guralnick, 2009): pervasive niche conservatism enables many features of the potential geography of species to be reconstructed with greater confidence, providing exciting new insights (Peterson, 2009). These results also serve to focus interest and attention on the apparently rare situations in which coarse-resolution, scenopoetic ecological niches do change, as these situations may be highly unusual and thus insightful.
I thank many colleagues across this emerging field, particularly Jorge Soberón, Enrique Martínez-Meyer, Rob Guralnick, Rob Anderson, Richard Pearson, Miguel Araújo, Miguel Nakamura, J. Alexandre Diniz-Filho, Alberto Jiménez-Valverde, Dan Warren, and many others with whom I have discussed these issues. Funding was provided by Microsoft Research. This paper stems from the conference Niche Evolution held in Zurich on 3–4 July 2009.
A. Townsend Peterson is University Distinguished Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Curator in the Biodiversity Institute, at the University of Kansas. His research focuses on the geography, history and ecology of species distributions, and ranges from the spatial dimensions of disease transmission to the historical biogeography of tropical birds.

domain: biology


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It's bad enough whites know the numbers. But, what's even worse is, whites act on the numbers. They have the nerve to get mad at complaints, harass and make jokes, and even point fingers, when any fool can see the entire game is, was, and forever will be rigged for them:
Why pretend otherwise? Or keep listening to people, who depend on you thinking otherwise, when it's not reality? When it hurts other people? Reality is not whites being put-upon, but everyone else needing a little breathing space from an overwhelming white influence for a change.
This country has been through centuries of brainwashing, hiding lies none of us knew were there, protecting interests that, today, are not our own. It has to stop. And part of that is white people accepting their own role in it. Accepting there's racism, today, but denying it's hurt anyone is continuing the legacy of lies. Blacks feel pain like anybody else.
This country's ghettos are the direct result of slavery, and whites in America should be committed to setting blacks free. Not on white's terms, but period. Blacks deserve to be paid our worth as slaves. There's no other way to come to terms with a country, so frivolous, it'd abandon settling such an important national mandate in the first place.
The psychological burden, that 72% of the country exerts on 12%, always on guard, wondering if we're stealing, or just what we're up to - that's worthy of compensation, alone, because it's not a real life. Whites aren't born permanent suspects, and they don't know, and clearly don't care, how many of the black men in their prisons are there merely because there's so many white people - not a single one racist - insisting they're up to something, so the result was almost inevitable. Looking at the numbers.
I know, we black people are a lot of things.
But, I guarantee you, one of them ain't stupid:
This country owes us - BIG TIME - because we've been forced to know this nation, and the rest of it's inhabitants, better than anybody else.
Better, sometimes, than they know themselves.
We can thank our forefathers for that, too.
Their attempts to deceive, so whites will forget, will forever go down in history as one of America's greatest - and costliest - mistakes,..


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TEHRAN –(Iranart)- Iran plans to celebrate 380 years of publishing at a special ceremony on October 10 during the Frankfurt Book Fair, Iran’s cultural office in Germany has announced.
A copy of the first page from a book of Armenian prayers published in 1638 at a Vank Cathedral publishing house in the Jolfa district of the central Iranian city of Isfahan is scheduled to be unveiled at the ceremony.
The original copy is preserved at the British Museum in London.
What is of high importance is that the machine used to print the book was different from the one invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany during the 15th century.
A large number of cultural figures and Iranian ambassador to Germany Ali Majedi are expected to attend the ceremony, during which a message from the Armenian Diocese of Iran will also be read.
According to the Iran Cultural Fairs Institute, over 20 Iranian publishers and several literary agencies and associations will attend the Frankfurt Book Fair 2018, which will be running from October 10 to 14.
source: Tehran Times

domain: library