December 22, 2022 - Are Aussie pubs really filled with tiles because it's easier to wash off the pee? History has a slightly different story

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Are Aussie pubs really filled with tiles because it's easier to wash off the pee? History has a slightly different story The “six o’clock swill” is one of the best known terms in Australian history. It captures the unedifying drinking habits of a 50-year period from the first world war until the 1960s, when hotel bars closed at 6pm in the south-eastern states of Australia. Six o’clock closing legislation was impelled by wartime patriotism and austerity, and a temperance mood which aimed for the prohibition of alcohol. Continued here

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Is Donald Trump's tax avoidance ethical or honorable? 4 essential reads The tax records of Donald Trump, details of which were released on Dec. 21, 2022, show the former president used the same aggressive measures to avoid paying high taxes while in office as he did during his business career. Indeed, he paid zero tax in 2020 – the last full year of his presidency – according to figures released by the House Ways and Means Committee in one of its last moves under Democratic control. The panel plans to release redacted versions of six years’ worth of tax returns soon. The Conversation has been covering Trump’s taxes since he began his run for the presidency in 2015. These articles from our archive, all published in the run-up to the 2020 election, explore tax-paying ethics, problems with the U.S. tax code and why the working poor are audited almost as much as the rich. Continued here

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Looking forward into the past: Lessons for the future of Medicare on its 60th anniversary It is, after all, hard to be enthusiastic about a system in crisis. Patients can’t find doctors (almost one in five Canadian adults). Those who have doctors have a hard time getting in to see them (only 18 per cent can get an appointment within a day or two). Doctors are burned out, leaving their practices with no one to replace them. New physicians want to focus on patient care, not the business of health care. Continued here

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The 7 best smartwatches of 2022 Whether you wanted a giant smartwatch for extreme sports or something more casual for tracking your steps, 2022 delivered. While the smartphone market continued to cool, smartwatches only got more interesting in 2022. Continued here

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The University of Adelaide and UniSA merger talks are back on but other Australian unis are unlikely to follow A merger between the universities of Adelaide and South Australia has been talked about for years. The idea is now officially back on the table, with both universities agreeing to work on a feasibility study. Continued here

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Every Australian will be touched by climate change. So let's start a national conversation about how we'll cope Director, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University In an address to the National Press Club this month, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil expressed deep concern about the national security implications of climate change. Continued here

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1923 and the violent TV universe that has electrified the US The first scene of 1923 reminds us exactly who the Duttons are. Taylor Sheridan's latest prequel to his hit Paramount series Yellowstone, about a family that owns a monstrously big ranch in Montana, takes us back to the great-great-great aunt and uncle of Yellowstone's hero, John Dutton III (Kevin Costner). A bloodied Helen Mirren – as that era's matriarch, Cora – chases a man through the woods with a rifle and shoots him dead. Then and now, the Duttons are the killingest family this side of The Sopranos. More like this:– 10 TV shows to watch this December– The 21 best TV shows of 2022– How a metal-detecting show went global In another ideal bit of casting, Harrison Ford plays Cora's husband, Jacob, a no-nonsense rancher who also offers a key to the family's ethos. When a small ranch owner challenges him about having too much land and power, Jacob says in a voice of steel, "I have what my family fought for", a line that could have come straight out of his 2022 descendant's mouth. It's the Duttons v the world, as they fight to hold onto their ranch at all costs, bribing and murdering along the way. Continued here

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Bob Iger Sent an Email to Disney's Fans. With 1 Sentence, He Gave a Brilliant Lesson for Every Brand Give your customers more than they expect. Continued here

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'Midnight Club' star: My 'House of Usher' character is "massively different" Like a lot of people, Ruth Codd got into TikTok during the pandemic. But unlike the rest of us, that hobby turned into a new career. After losing her job as a barber, the 26-year-old Irish actor turned to TikTok as a creative outlet and soon found herself with a sizable following (more than 672,000 followers and 20 million likes to her since-deleted account). But Codd never thought she’d wind up her delivering one of the most memorable TV performances of 2022 as Anya in Mike Flanagan’s The Midnight Club. Continued here

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After the Cold War: Why COVID-19 infection and death rates were so high in eastern Europe Two years ago, we examined where Canada stood compared to similar countries on COVID-19 rates. This was part of a larger study that looked at COVID-19 infections based on a country’s welfare regime: liberal, social democratic or conservative/corporatist. Welfare regimes use income redistribution, sick pay, pensions, maternity leave, unemployment support and social assistance to address inequalities in society. Continued here

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Are Christian souls gendered? Within Christianity, the question of the nature of human identity has been a messy and complex one. For its first 200 years, Christianity adopted the Hebrew understanding of human identity as a unity of physical and spiritual parts, not divided into body and soul. There is no concept of the immortal soul in the Hebrew Old Testament nor in the Christian New Testament. Continued here

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Uber plans a kids service to replace mum and dad's taxi. What's wrong with that? Plenty Ride-share company Uber has just rolled out an option to book vehicles equipped with a children’s car seat across Melbourne. Uber is also considering allowing unaccompanied children to use its service. In Australia, a recent study found most parents remain unwilling to let their children use a ride-share service unaccompanied. (Uber policy, like most ride-sharing companies, currently requires a solo passenger to be over 18.) There appears to be more acceptance in countries such as the United States where child-specific ride-shares are more widespread. Continued here

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Elon Musk Cutting Lunch Perks for Twitter Staff is a Masterclass in Leading Robots, But not Humans  The new Twitter autocrat understands very little about human beings and why eating together is key. Continued here

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How common are severe side effects from COVID vaccines? And how are they detected? Paediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist, Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia Former federal MP Dr Kerryn Phelps has talked this week about the medical problems she and her wife had after their COVID-19 vaccinations around 18 months ago. Continued here

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Lecanemab: Experimental drug is a ray of hope for Alzheimer's disease Étudiant au doctorat en psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) On Nov. 30, Eisai and Biogen announced the results of their latest phase 3 clinical trial in Alzheimer’s disease. The verdict: an 18-month treatment with lecanemab slows functional and cognitive loss by 27 per cent in people with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The study results were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Continued here

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5 Common Job Interview Questions Smart Interviewers Don't Ask, and the Best Candidates Despise Plus what, if you're hoping to hire great employees, you should ask instead. Continued here

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Banking reforms could make the UK a sustainable finance hub, but also threaten financial stability The UK government wants to rewrite the rules designed to keep the country’s banks and financial institutions stable – again. The so-called Edinburgh reforms announced recently by UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt will “unlock investment and turbocharge growth in towns and cities across the UK”, he says. The government is certainly heading in the right direction in some areas, including new measures on sustainable finance. Hunt has promised a 2023 update to its original green finance strategy, published in 2019. This includes regulating the environmental social and governance (ESG) ratings providers from which financial firms get data for green investment and lending decisions. Continued here

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Why electric vehicles won't be enough to rein in transport emissions any time soon Progress towards Australia’s new emissions target of a 43% reduction by 2030 (from 2005 levels) has been decidedly mixed. Emissions in the electricity sector have fallen in recent years, but the upward trend in another major sector, transport, is set to continue. There is a widespread view, implicitly encouraged in some states, that transport emissions can simply be reduced by more use of electric vehicles powered from renewable energy sources. On the contrary, reducing overall transport emissions will require policy reform and infrastructure investment on many fronts. Continued here

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Biodiversity treaty: UN deal fails to address the root causes of nature's destruction A major biodiversity conference, recently concluded in Montreal, Canada, was billed as the event that will decide the “fate of the entire living world”. All well then that the meeting closed with what has been hailed as a “historic” breakthrough: a deal to protect 30% of all land and water on Earth by 2030. How historic is this deal, really? Judging from the effect of protected areas and major environment meetings over the last few decades, we should not get our hopes up. In fact, this deal may force us to reconsider the usefulness of such meetings altogether. Continued here

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NZ's medical licensing system is still a major hurdle for desperately needed foreign-trained doctors Immigration New Zealand’s recent announcement that all medical doctors would be included on the straight-to-residence pathway doesn’t quite give the full picture. In fact, “all” only includes those doctors who can have their medical registration approved before coming to New Zealand. For many foreign-trained doctors already living here, the obstacle preventing them from working isn’t immigration – it’s medical licensing. If more is not done to streamline and speed up the licensing process, New Zealand risks losing prospective doctors to countries that make the process easier. Continued here

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Hungary and the EU are in an endless dispute that challenges the very foundations of the union However, the funds depend on Orbán committing to rule-of-law reforms. And while promises have been made, Brussels refuses to send all the money – which amounts to billions of euros – until meaningful progress has been made. Orbán appears to have little desire to change his ways but is feeling economic pressures at home . This immediate need to cooperate with the EU does not change Hungary’s position as the bloc’s problem child. And at this point, the years-long battle is feeding into a dangerous paradox that undermines the reputation of the European Union as well as Hungary. Continued here

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Drinking alcohol this Christmas and New Year? These medicines really don't mix A glass or two of champagne with Christmas lunch. A cool crisp beer at the beach. Some cheeky cocktails with friends to see in the New Year. There seem to be so many occasions to unwind with an alcoholic drink this summer. But if you’re taking certain medications while drinking alcohol, this can affect your body in a number of ways. Drinking alcohol with some medicines means they may not work so well. With others, you risk a life-threatening overdose. Continued here

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Jafar Panahi’s Ingenious, Tragic “No Bears” Is a Formalist Triumph Formalism gets a bum rap. No style carries intrinsic virtue, but formalism, at its best, is a powerful expression of political crisis, embodying realities too extreme for plain narration. In particular, the formalism of reflexive cinema, which exposes the artifices of fiction, seems made to call out the fabrications of a censorious regime's stage-managed public images. Soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reflexive metafictions became a specialty of the Iranian cinema, led by the late Abbas Kiarostami and followed by his onetime assistant and longtime associate Jafar Panahi. (In Panahi's 1997 film, "The Mirror," a child actress declares, "I'm not acting anymore," and takes her head scarf off—reflexivity doesn't get much more explicit than that.) In recent years, Panahi has had even more radical kinds of reflexivity thrust upon him by the regime itself: in 2010, after his arrest on political charges, he was banned from making films, speaking to the press, and travelling outside the country. He was also given a six-year prison sentence, which was suspended, and he was instead put under house arrest. He responded with a film called "This Is Not a Film," made mostly in his Tehran apartment, in which he diagrams and describes and even acts out a movie that he wouldn't be able to make with cast and crew. His movies since then have involved similar ruses. In "Taxi," from 2015, he plays himself as a cabdriver and builds the action with passengers whom he records on what is ostensibly his security camera. (This July, amid an ongoing crackdown on filmmakers and other artists, Panahi was arrested again; he's currently incarcerated, sentenced to serve out his original six-year prison term.) Continued here

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Buying Ugly: The Inner Beauty of Unattractive Real Estate Forget top-end buildings with marble lobbies. The real value comes with ugly buildings. Continued here

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West Africa has experienced a wave of coups - superficial democracy is to blame West Africa has seen coups and military takeovers in three countries in 2022. Like those of the past, they came with promises of a quick return to civilian regimes once socio-economic and political challenges had been met. The challenges are usually listed as inept governance, corruption, rising insecurity and popular revolts amid economic hardship. One view of governance on the African continent is that liberal democracy has spread since the 2000s, bringing an end to dictatorships. Most African countries, it’s argued, have multiparty democracies with elected governments. Continued here

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Lionel Messi's black cloak: a brief history of the bisht, given to the superstar after his World Cup triumph Shortly before Lionel Messi took to the stage to lift up the World Cup trophy, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani put a black cloak, called a “bisht,” over the Argentinian soccer star’s shoulders. Images of Messi wrapped in black fabric, which might have been construed as obscuring his national jersey, caused confusion around the world. Many fans questioned why the Argentinian soccer star was shrouded in an Arabian cape, with some suggesting that it “ruined an iconic moment.” Continued here

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This 5-Word Sentence Is Killing Your Ability To Be Happy. Everyone Says It Here's what science says to say instead to instantly increase your happiness. Continued here

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How to make the perfect pavlova, Nathan Kilah has previously received payment to write an article on the chemistry of eggs in COSMOS Magazine, published by the Royal Institution of Australia. The pavlova is a summer icon; just a few simple ingredients can be transformed into a beautifully flavoured and textured dessert. Continued here

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Trump’s Tax Returns Reflect a Broader American Problem Thanks to painstaking reporting by the Times and many other media outlets, we've known, for years, some basic facts about Donald Trump the businessman. He greatly exaggerates his wealth. Despite his claims to be an effective chief executive, many of the businesses that he runs, particularly his golf resorts, consistently rack up large losses, at least on paper. And, like so many wealthy Americans, he pays very little in federal income taxes. The Trump tax information for the years 2015-20 that the House Ways and Means Committee released on Tuesday confirms this picture. Although the committee hasn't yet released the former President's full tax returns—a move expected in the next few days—the summary tables that they provided show that, during Trump's four years in the White House, he paid a grand total of $1.1 million in federal income taxes. In 2020, his final year in office, he paid nothing. Continued here

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Jack Dorsey Wanted Elon Musk to Turn Twitter Into Wikipedia. Here's Why That Failed "I don't believe anyone should own or run Twitter," Twitter's co-founder said. Continued here

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Not everything we call AI is actually 'artificial intelligence'. Here's what you need to know Since these humble beginnings, movies and media have romanticised AI or cast it as a villain. Yet for most people, AI has remained as a point of discussion and not part of a conscious lived experience. Read more: The ChatGPT chatbot is blowing people away with its writing skills. An expert explains why it's so impressive Continued here

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Want More Meaningful, Enjoyable Conversations With Your Family This Holiday Season? Think Like an Anthropologist An anthropologist explains how to interview your loved ones about their lives and memories. Continued here

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This physicist helped confirm Einstein's greatest predictions in our cosmic backyard Mariafelicia De Laurentis helped us understand our home galaxy’s supermassive black hole in 2022. Growing up, Mariafelicia de Laurentis always wanted to find more than an occupation. She wanted a calling. Continued here

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Isolation and Belonging in “Two-Spirit” "Two-Spirit" explores the intersection of transphobia with problems like sexism and poverty in an Indigenous community in Colombia. While scanning social media one day, the Colombian filmmaker Mónica Taboada-Tapia happened upon a video interview of a woman named Georgina. "I listened to her, and I was crying," Taboada-Tapia remembers now. Georgina is transgender, and a member of the Indigenous Wayuu community. In the interview, she was describing a violent attack that she survived in her rural village in La Guajira, in northern Colombia—the state that Taboada-Tapia's maternal family was from. She felt an uncanny connection. "That night, I dreamt of her," Taboada-Tapia said. Soon afterward, the two met. "She was so kind, so tender. I was, like, 'Oh, my gosh, this person is beautiful.' " Continued here

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Squirrelpox outbreak detected in north Wales - without a vaccine, the disease will keep decimating red squirrels Concerns over the spread of squirrelpox have increased after a sick red squirrel was found in Bangor, Wales, in late November. It’s not the first time an outbreak has happened in the area – back in 2020/21, the disease caused a loss of 70%-80% of its red squirrel population. Such major outbreaks are devastating and lead to dramatic and ongoing red squirrel declines. Continued here

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China's increasing economic ties with the Gulf states are reducing the west's sway in the Middle East At the end of November 2022, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that the “golden era” between Great Britain and China was over. China may not have been too bothered by this news however, and has been busy making influential friends elsewhere. In early December, Chinese president Xi Jinping met with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – a group made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to discuss trade and investment. Also on the agenda were talks on forging closer political ties and a deeper security relationship. Continued here

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Nurses: attracting more men to the profession could help with talent shortage Seldom has the state of the NHS workforce been more in the public consciousness. A global survey of nurses undertaken by the consultancy firm McKinsey in the summer of 2022 highlighted the perilous state of the sector. The survey, which was conducted in France, Singapore, Japan, the US, Australia, Brazil and the UK, found that around one in four nurses was considering leaving the profession. Central to this desire was the burnout that was caused by being overworked and understaffed. It’s a situation that has been widely discussed in the UK as a result of the first-ever strike by members of the Royal College of Nursing in England. Data from NHS Digital reveals that there are over 133,000 unfilled vacancies across NHS England, with about one in three of these vacancies for registered nurses. The extent of the crisis is underlined by the fact that this figure has grown by 19% on the same period last year. Continued here

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Why I love Else Blankenhorn's Allegory with Imperial Couple, and the love story it reveals Else Blankenhorn (1873–1920) painted Allegory with Imperial Couple during her stay at a mental hospital. The daughter from a wealthy family in Karlsruhe in Southern Germany, Blankenhorn suffered from nervous breakdowns at the age of 26. This led to her first admission for treatment at the private Bellevue Sanatorium in Switzerland in 1899, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Blankenhorn had received a musical education in her childhood, but it was only in the sanatorium in 1908 that she started to paint and draw. Continued here

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Today's winter wonderlands have roots in Jacobean and Georgian frost fairs Skating rinks, funfairs and booths serving hot food and drink spring up across many cities in December. But these festivities aren’t a modern phenomenon – they’re rooted in the frost fairs of our past, held on London’s River Thames from the 1600s until 1814. Frost fairs are associated with the “little ice age” – the long periods of bitter European winters between the 14th and 19th centuries. Although climatic conditions enabled the ice to freeze in a certain way, they weren’t the only part of the story. Continued here

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In Voices of Us, Tim Dunlop considers the outsiders re-energising politics - and takes aim at dumbed-down media and do-nothing politicians Did Bill Shorten lose the unlosable election in 2019 because he was too frank about franking credits? Was John Howard’s defeat in 2007 a voter reaction against WorkChoices? Post-election commentary tends to work backwards from who won, casting the decisions of the vanquished as causal. If Labor had lost the 2022 election, its conspicuous campaign strategy of staying low and forcing attention on an unpopular Coalition government would have been tagged as a fatal mistake. Continued here

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Cluster headache may be more common in men, but it's worse for women - new research Cluster headache may be one of the most painful conditions out there and it’s a neurological condition which affects around one in 1,000 people worldwide. The condition causes recurrent attacks of extreme pain on one side of the head, often around the eye region. Attacks last between 15 minutes to three hours, and may even happen multiple times a day. They may also tend to happen at night, and are more common in autumn and spring. The cause of the disease is currently unknown, and there’s no cure. The only treatments available for managing cluster headache are designed to treat other health conditions, so their effectiveness is not optimal and treatment response may vary for each person. Continued here

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Sabretooth cats hunted on South Africa's coast 5 million years ago: this old one was in pain Over five million years ago, before our ancestors dominated the landscape, southern Africa’s west coast was home to a diverse array of prehistoric beasts. Among them were hyenas, small felines, giant civets, small mongooses, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses. These findings are important because knowing where and when extinct species lived, and what other organisms they interacted with at the time, helps to build an ever-clearer picture of past ecosystems. Understanding the changing biodiversity of past ecosystems helps scientists to study long-term patterns of ecosystem development and species evolution. This, in turn, can help with predictive modelling to respond to the current climatic shifts and ecosystem collapses being seen around the world. Continued here

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Fuelled by hope and fear, cryptocurrency markets are primed for contagion Financial contagions can be triggered easily, if conditions are right. First one financial institution falls and then others follow, like a chain of falling dominoes. The cinder that sparked the global financial crisis in 2007 is considered by many to have been a March 14 briefing by executives of the Lehman Brothers’ investment bank. Continued here

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A Murder, a Confession, and a Fight for Clemency Twelve years ago, Trevell Coleman walked into a police precinct in East Harlem and confessed to a shooting. The crime, which was unsolved, had occurred in 1993. The case hadn’t been touched in more than a decade, and Coleman had never been a suspect. He was eighteen when he had fired three shots at a stranger in a botched robbery attempt, fleeing before he could determine whether his target had lived or died. In the seventeen years since, Coleman had had three children and a prolific rap career. He had made music with Puff Daddy, released his own albums, and helped to popularize the “Harlem Shake.” But, gradually, guilt overtook his success. He turned to drugs and lost his recording contract. He wanted to atone, but he first needed to know what had happened to the man he had tried to rob. After consulting the homicide logbook, detectives were able to give Coleman an answer. He had shot—and killed—a thirty-two-year-old named John Henkel. The judge at Coleman’s sentencing acknowledged that confessing had been “the right thing to do.” Even the prosecutor displayed an unusual amount of sympathy, he remarked upon the “great disparity between the crime itself and the person who committed it.” But Coleman was clearly guilty. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to fifteen years to life. His wife, Crystal Sutton, a former airline hostess with whom he had two young children, was sitting directly behind him in the courtroom. Before the verdict was read out, a wall of uniformed officers surrounded Coleman, shielding him from her sight, before leading him off in handcuffs. Continued here

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Global coal use in 2022 is reaching an all-time high, but Australia is bucking the trend In a year marked by record-smashing floods, fires, heatwaves and droughts, the urgent need to act on climate change has never been more apparent. And yet, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found coal burning for electricity generation will reach record levels this year. Why? Largely because rising natural gas prices, due to sanctions on Russia, is driving demand for less expensive coal to fill the gap in energy supply. The report finds Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “sharply altered the dynamics of coal trade, price levels, and supply and demand patterns in 2022”. Continued here

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Police gun violence is glorified on screen. But more armed and aggressive policing doesn't actually make us safer American popular culture dominates international markets. Among its most enduringly successful products are police dramas and movies. Many of these feature frequent and overwhelmingly positive depictions of police gun violence – a popular example, and a favourite at this time of year, is Die Hard. These works are, of course, fictions. But popular fictional depictions of policing can have real-world consequences for police and communities. Continued here

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The Rationale for Releasing Trump’s Taxes On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to make public six years of the tax returns of former President Donald Trump. The committee also issued two reports, one from its members and another from the Joint Committee on Taxation, that showed that Trump paid no income taxes in 2020, after paying 1.1 million dollars the first three years of his term. The committee revealed that the Internal Revenue Service had failed to audit Trump during his first two years in office—as required by law—and started auditing him only in 2019, on the same day that the Ways and Means Committee's chairman, Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, sent a letter to the agency. The audits were not completed. The committee's decision to make Trump's returns public represents the culmination of a legal battle that Trump and the committee have been engaged in since Democrats retook the House that year; the Supreme Court recently denied Trump's request that the information be kept from the committee. It could take some time for the returns to be released by the committee, as staffers go through the documents to redact any sensitive information. Presidents have traditionally elected to make their taxes public, as a demonstration of transparency. Trump is now a private citizen, however, and Republicans attacked the committee's decision as a threat to taxpayer privacy. John Koskinen, who served as the I.R.S. commissioner under President Obama and during the first year of the Trump Administration, told the Times that the release of Trump's returns set a "dangerous precedent." I spoke by phone with Neal on Wednesday morning. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the legal battle to get the returns, why Trump did not face an audit, and the rationale for releasing his taxes to the public. Continued here

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Terrorist recruitment now happens mainly online - which makes offenders easier to catch Access to the reports discussed in this article was made possible through a collaboration with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service where our study lead, Dr Jonathan Kenyon is based. It is notoriously difficult to work out how and why someone becomes a terrorism risk. While attacks cause immense pain and suffering, the actual number of terrorist incidents in the western world is small. That makes it difficult to arrive at reliable, quantified evidence. Continued here

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David Remnick on the January 6th Committee’s Final Report After a nearly eighteen-month investigation, which included televised hearings and more than a thousand interviews, the January 6th Committee is set to release its final report. As indicated by the executive summary, the report will lay bare who is to blame for the Capitol attack: Donald Trump, unambiguously. The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, authored the foreword to a publication of the full report being co-issued by the magazine and Celadon Books. He joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the committee's exhaustive work, the historic nature of its criminal referral, and the possible outcomes ahead for Trump. Personal History by David Sedaris: after thirty years together, sleeping is the new having sex. Continued here

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3 Benefits of an Employee Holiday Party These apply whether the party is in-person or virtual.Continued here S51 'America is back': how Joe Biden repaired US relationships with the rest of the world in 2022 The US reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has marked a significant transformation in US foreign policy during 2022. President Joe Biden’s wide-ranging backing for Ukraine has met with support from both Democrats and Republicans. In doing so, it has ended any question of a return to his predecessor Donald Trump’s isolationism. In his inaugural address in January 2021, Biden announced that the US would “repair our alliances and engage with the world once again”. Continued here S55 The history of chocolate: when money really did grow on trees Advent calendars with hidden chocolatey treats, huge tins of Quality Street and steaming cups of hot chocolate festooned with whipped cream and marshmallows are all much-loved wintry staples at Christmastime. But how many of us stop to think about where chocolate actually comes from and how it made its way into our culinary culture? The story of chocolate has a compelling, rich history that academics like me are learning more about every day. Continued here S67 5 years ago, Matt Damon made a sci-fi flop that was ahead of its time Alexander Payne’s sci-fi flop has gone from prescient to downright realistic (with one big exception). In November 2022, Earth’s population soared past eight billion. Meanwhile, the economy seems to be teetering on the edge of oblivion, the environment is doing even worse, and oppressive world leaders keep pushing the limits of what they can get away with. But what if there was a solution? Continued here S9 5 Habits That Will Instantly Point to Someone With Good Leadership Skills These are the habits that make legacies, advance careers, and build profitable companies. Continued here S44 The peculiar history of thornapple, the hallucinogenic weed that ended up in supermarket spinach The agent that contaminated baby spinach, prompting the recent national recall, has been revealed. It’s a weed, not deliberate misadventure or a chemical contaminant. The culprit is thornapple, otherwise known as jimsonweed or, to give it its scientific name, Datura stramonium. Continued here S57 Foster children can easily lose their first language - but giving it a place in daily life can make a big difference Senior Practitioner Fellow in the Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication, Birkbeck, University of London Beverley Costa is affiliated with The Pásalo Project https://www.pasaloproject.org/about.html. Continued here S37 Indonesia's 'blue carbon credits' are crucial for global climate mitigation. Here's how to help them flourish Some of the ideas in the article were developed during the IORA Indian Ocean Blue Carbon Hub's 2022 Early Career Visiting Professional Fellowship Program Indonesia’s mangroves and seagrass are one of the key to global climate mitigation efforts, as they store around 17% of the world’s “blue carbon”. Continued here S58 COVID or the common cold? What to do if you have symptoms this Christmas There’s a lot to be jolly about this Christmas. COVID has been significantly, although not completely, “defanged”, thanks to vaccines and treatments. Christmas dos, nativity plays and New Years Eve parties are all back on the festive calendar. However, the return to “normal” brings with it the return of high rates of all the other winter bugs that were kept at bay largely due to reduced socialising during the previous two winters. Continued here S56 Matt Hancock's Pandemic Diaries and the history of the redemptive memoir Matt Hancock has achieved fame in recent months for devouring a cow anus live on television (during his I’m A Celebrity stint) and for releasing questionable TikTok videos cringing about his past “embarrassing” moments. Some will recall that before all this, he was once UK health secretary during the biggest global health crisis in living memory. Back then, he achieved notoriety for (among other things) allowing COVID patients to be sent into care homes and for securing lucrative testing contracts for his friends. Continued here S48 The best art books of 2022 The category of “art book” is vast, like art itself, but the best ones mix beautiful, interesting images with engaging and intelligent text. The books on this short list range from groundbreaking scholarly texts to dreamy, personal reflections, but all find that balance between image and narrative that makes an art book special. Each pushes the boundaries of scholarship, book design and ways of thinking about art and history in exhilarating ways. This book about the seminal and controversial 20th-century photographer Diane Arbus is remarkable and perhaps unique. It was published to accompany the rehang of the record-breaking 1972 MoMA Diane Arbus exhibition at David Zwirner and Fraenkel Galleries in New York, as they jointly took up representation of the artist’s estate. Continued here S50 Four ways to avoid gaining weight over the festive period - but also why you shouldn't fret about it too much This holiday season, as COVID restrictions have eased around the world, we have the chance to break bread together again with friends and family. For some people, however, the festive period comes with anxiety about gaining weight. Popular media articles often cite a study of 195 adults published more than 20 years ago which found that participants gained, on average, 0.5kg during the holidays. But the range of weight change was wide, from losing 9.3kg to gaining 8kg. Continued here S29 LGBTQ Americans are 9 times more likely to be victimized by a hate crime Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy, University of California, Los Angeles In our recent analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey, we found that the odds of being a violent hate crime victim for LGBTQ people was nine times greater than it was for cisgender and straight people from 2017 to 2019. Continued here S45 Grattan on Friday: Liberal post-mortem urges party to address flight of female vote - but not by quotas The Liberal Party’s review of its election rout has highlighted the party’s broad and deep problem with the female vote, but shied away from recommending quotas to elect more women. Like Labor’s recent post-mortem, the Liberal analysis also points to the key importance of voters’ negative perceptions of Scott Morrison in his government’s election loss. Continued here S30 Should you answer a call to crowdfund our under-resourced teachers? In an episode of Abbott Elementary, the sitcom about a group of teachers in an under-resourced Philadelphia school, novice teacher Janine takes to TikTok. The joke is that she needs to use TikTok to fundraise to get her classroom much needed school supplies. Although played for laughs in this award-winning show created by Quinta Brunson, one education blogger wrote: “In tonight’s episode … we learned the lesson that all teachers know — schools are underfunded, and [supply] wishlists have the ability to make teachers REALLY happy.” Continued here S62 Is This the End of Elon Musk’s Twitter Odyssey? On Sunday evening, Elon Musk pulled what might be his ultimate stunt as the owner of Twitter. "Should I step down as head of Twitter?" he tweeted. "I will abide by the results of this poll." More than seventeen million people voted in the poll attached to his tweet; when the final results came in, 57.5 per cent had voted yes and 42.5 per cent no. Previously, Musk had employed a poll to decide whether he should allow Donald Trump back on the platform. (That vote was "yes," too, though Trump has not returned to his reinstated account.) Now Musk had lost his own popularity contest. "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!," he tweeted, on Tuesday. "After that, I will just run the software & servers teams." The change was perhaps inevitable; in November, Musk announced that he did not "want to be the CEO of any company." A number of people, including the podcaster and M.I.T. research scientist Lex Fridman and Snoop Dogg, have since nominated themselves for the C.E.O. position. ("Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it," Musk tweeted, on Sunday night.) At Tesla, Musk has styled himself the company's "Technoking," rather than its C.E.O.—a choice that self-consciously evokes his mercurial style of single-party decision-making. At Twitter, no matter what he tweets, Musk is liable to do anything he likes at any point. The poll came at the end of a week that might have marked the nadir of his Twitter tenure—a two-month span that has comprised a series of catastrophes. On Wednesday, the platform banned an account called @ElonJet, which tracked the location of a private plane associated with Musk. The official excuse for the ban was that the account violated newly established policy by "doxxing" Musk—revealing his location in real time. (In reality, the account only highlighted data that were already publicly available, and tracked the plane, not Musk himself.) Then, on Thursday, a series of high-profile journalists, including reporters from the Times, CNN, and the Washington Post, were banned from Twitter, most ostensibly for tweeting about @ElonJets. It was a betrayal of a significant set of Twitter's power users, and a blatant contradiction of Musk's own calls for protecting free speech. "Twitter's increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter," a CNN spokesperson said. Finally, for a brief period over the weekend, Twitter prohibited users from posting links to accounts on other social platforms, such as Instagram and Mastodon, the open-source Twitter alternative. Continued here S59 From Queen Elizabeth to Sanna Marin, young women in politics have always faced prejudice Two prime ministers meeting to discuss relations between their countries is standard practice in international politics. But New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Finland’s Sanna Marin had to defend a recent summit after a reporter asked whether they met because they are both young, female leaders. As prime ministers, Ardern and Marin have indeed broken barriers in politics. But the prejudice demonstrated by this question has a long history. Young women have always faced scepticism about their experience and ability to rule. Continued here S31 To attain global climate and biodiversity goals, we must reclaim nature in our cities Addressing these crises requires real transformative action and commitments — including plans that call for the conservation of 30 per cent of global land and sea areas within the decade — have been made to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. But where do we start implementing these targets? At the 7th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities, an official parallel event to the COP15 biodiversity conference, cities were brought to the forefront of conversations on how to protect life on Earth. Continued here S52 Royal warrants are good for business - and benefit the British monarchy too When Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8 2022, so too did 686 royal brand endorsements she had granted over the 70 years of her reign. Famous British products including Colman’s mustard, Twining’s tea and Weetabix all lost a valuable part of their business models. Those companies now have less than two years to remove a familiar element of their online presence, packaging, shop fronts and advertising: the late Queen’s royal warrant, comprising the former monarch’s coat of arms and the influential words, “By appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II”. Continued here S32 Research linking soot in Antarctic ice exclusively with early Maori fires was flawed - there were other sources elsewhere When a recent study implicated forest fires set by early Māori in a hemisphere-wide rise in emissions, it ignited controversy. The incriminating evidence comes from Antarctic ice cores containing so-called refracted black carbon – essentially far-flung soot derived from wildfires in the southern mid-latitudes. Continued here S53 The 2,700-year-old rock carvings from when Nineveh was the most dazzling city in the world Archaeologists in northern Iraq, working on the Mashki and Adad gate sites in Mosul that were destroyed by Islamic State in 2016, recently uncovered 2,700-year-old Assyrian reliefs. Featuring war scenes and trees, these rock carvings add to the bounty of detailed stone panels excavated from the 1840s onwards, many of which are currently held in the British Museum. They stem from the ancient city of Nineveh which, for a time, was likely the most dazzling in the world. There is evidence of occupation at the site already by 3,000 BC, an era known as the late Uruk period. But it was under King Sennacherib (705-681 BC), son of Sargon and grandfather of Ashurbanipal, that Nineveh became the capital of Assyria, the greatest power of its day. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Followers Blog Archive ►  2025 (2) ►  January (2) ►  2024 (4) ►  December (4) ►  2023 (542) ►  December (2) ►  November (33) ►  October (27) ►  September (37) ►  August (45) ►  July (30) ►  June (73) ►  May (3) ►  April (33) ►  March (17) ►  February (84) ►  January (158) ▼  2022 (387) ▼  December (84) January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... January 1, 2023 - Argentines have tattoo fever fol... December 31, 2022 - How Unpredictable Schedules Wi... December 31, 2022 - Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Ke... 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