Pelican Press

Ambulances spent more than 4790 hours outside WA hospitals this month marking worst January on record Ambulances spent more than 4790 hours outside WA hospitals this month marking worst January on record The number of hours spent outside WA hospitals is expected to tip over the 5000 mark in the next two days. Source link #Ambulances #spent #hours #hospitals #month #marking #worst #January #record Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

An Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings in Sweden has been killed An Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings in Sweden has been killed STOCKHOLM (AP) — An Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings in Sweden has died, a judge in Stockholm said Thursday. Swedish media reported that he was killed in a shooting in a nearby city. Salwan Momika, 38, staged several burnings and desecrations of Islam’s holy book in Sweden in 2023. Videos of the Quran burnings got worldwide publicity and raised anger and criticism in several ******* nations, leading to riots and unrest in many places. The Stockholm District Court said a verdict scheduled Thursday in a trial in which Momika was a defendant was postponed because one of the defendants had died. A judge at the court, Göran Lundahl, confirmed that the deceased was Momika. He said he didn’t have any information on when and how Momika died. Trusted news and daily delights, right in your inbox See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. Police said they were alerted to a shooting Wednesday night at an apartment building in Sodertalje, near Stockholm, and found a man with gunshot wounds. He later died, and a preliminary ******* investigation was opened. Broadcaster SVT reported, without naming sources, that the victim was Momika. It said Momika came to Sweden from Iraq in 2018 and was granted a three-year residence permit in 2021. Prosecutor Rasmus Öman told Swedish news agency TT that several people had been arrested in the case. He did not elaborate. Momika argued that his protests targeted the religion of Islam, not ******* people. He argued that he wanted to protect Sweden’s population from the messages of the Quran. Swedish police allowed his demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, while filing charges against him. Last March, he was arrested in neighboring Norway, after stating that he would seek asylum there, and was sent back to Sweden, TT reported. Momika and a co-defendant were charged in August with incitement to hatred because of statements they made in connection with the Quran burnings. A verdict was supposed to be handed down on Thursday morning. Source link #Iraqi #man #carried #Quran #burnings #Sweden #killed Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Religious sect followers prayed and sang as an 8-year-old died. All 14 have been found guilty of manslaughter – CNN Religious sect followers prayed and sang as an 8-year-old died. All 14 have been found guilty of manslaughter – CNN Religious sect followers prayed and sang as an 8-year-old died. All 14 have been found guilty of manslaughter CNN14 Convicted in Death of Girl for Depriving Her of Insulin The New York TimesInstead of giving her life-saving insulin, Elizabeth Struhs’s parents prayed over her dying body ABC NewsElizabeth Rose Struhs’s parents and members of religious sect guilty of her manslaughter Sky News Source link #Religious #sect #followers #prayed #sang #8yearold #died #guilty #manslaughter #CNN Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Five skiers killed in French Alps avalanches Five skiers killed in French Alps avalanches AFP/ Getty Five skiers were killed in two separate avalanches in the French Alps on Wednesday, local officials have confirmed. One torrent of snow came in Val-Cenis, in the south-eastern Savoie region, killing four Norwegian skiers, while a Swiss skier died further north in the Haute-Savoie region, near Chamonix. Three of the Norwegians were killed instantly while a fourth, a woman, died in a nearby hospital after suffering severe hypothermia and a cardiorespiratory arrest. They were part of a larger group of seven skiers and the remaining three were unharmed. Jacques Arnoux, mayor of Val-Cenis, told AFP each member of the group had been carrying an avalanche beacon as they were off-piste skiing. Also known as backcountry skiing, it refers to any area not marked or maintained for use by skiers and is considerably more dangerous. “It was an avalanche of great size which was triggered outside the ski area,” Mayor Arnoux added. A team of 10 mountain rescue specialists were despatched in the operation, a police source said. The Swiss victim, a 30-year-old woman, was skiing with her brother, who was taken to hospital for tests, and her father, who was unharmed. All three had anti-avalanche airbags and were skiing off-piste in the Mont Blanc massif mountain range. On Tuesday, a 55-year-old Brazilian-Portuguese skier was killed in a “very large” avalanche on an off-piste section Mont Blanc. Source link #skiers #killed #French #Alps #avalanches Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Interview: Hanif Kureishi on ‘Shattered’ and His Reading Life Interview: Hanif Kureishi on ‘Shattered’ and His Reading Life Life took a sudden, terrible turn when the prolific novelist and screenwriter suffered catastrophic spine damage in late 2022. In an email interview, he described how blogging “helped me survive.” SCOTT HELLER How do you organize your books? I have a vague idea of where everything is, though I have spent whole afternoons looking for particular volumes. Since my accident, when I became tetraplegic, I am unable to access my library at all or open a physical copy of any book. What kind of reader were you as a child? I read a tremendous amount: adventure stories, school stories, biographies of sportsmen and, later, the European classics, which my father had in his library. I am surprised by how little I remember. It’s all gone, except for a memory of pleasure which never leaves me. What’s the last great book you read (or listened to)? In hospital I listened to Miriam Margolyes reading Dickens’s “Bleak House,” doing all the voices. Pure genius. What’s the funniest book you’ve ever read? Probably “Joy in the Morning,” by P.G. Wodehouse. The filthiest? “Story of O.” What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of? Edmund Bergler’s “The Superego: Unconscious Conscience, the Key to the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis.” What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift? Just before my accident somebody gave me a novel by Andrea Lawlor called “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” which I read twice. It’s a picaresque set in the early ’90s in various American locations and concerns leather bars, blow jobs and gender shifts which are fascinating and often very funny. Lying in a hospital bed can be a “good form of shock therapy for a stuck writer,” you write in “Shattered.” Where did getting unstuck take your imagination? A few days after my accident, while I was in intensive care in Rome, I had a very strong desire to record the story of what was happening to me. I hadn’t felt such a strong impulse to write for a long time. This new form of writing — the blog — suited me very well as a kind of diary of distress. And being able to publish it on Twitter and then on Substack gave me access to a huge, responsive audience. This helped me survive the horror of what I was experiencing. What was the challenge of editing these writings into a book? The original blogs were dictated to my partner, Isabella d’Amico, and my sons in very difficult circumstances. I was in bad physical and psychological condition in various hospitals. The following year Simon Prosser, my renowned editor, came to the house day after day, working with my son Carlo and me to create a tight and sharp version of the blogs, a more coherent narrative which could be read all the way through. At one point, you bemoan the absence of explicit sexuality in great literature, wishing you could learn what some “favorite characters did in bed.” Which ones? I think of the characters in Dostoyevsky, an author who fascinated me when I was young. His people are weird and often perverse. But you always feel with him that you are not hearing the whole story, as with many other authors, particularly homosexuals. Your 2017 novel “The Nothing” is about a man in a wheelchair who requires steady care. Have you looked at it since your injury? I never look at my books again unless I have to adapt them for another form, as I did recently with my first novel, “The Buddha of Suburbia,” which was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. As for “The Nothing,” I’m aware it reflects some of my present condition of physical helplessness and frustration. What subjects do you wish more authors would write about? With many of them I wish they would write less. You describe yourself as “relieved not to be a young writer today.” What impact do you think changing literary values have had on your own reputation? As a writing teacher I have become aware of the difficulties some of my students have to endure when it comes to writing across cultures or about subjects that the authors don’t inhabit entirely. I mean, white writers writing ****** characters and vice versa and so on, and issues like so-called cultural appropriation. It is difficult enough as it is to write without these additional barriers, which would certainly have bothered me had I been trying to write “The Buddha of Suburbia” today. You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite? Certainly my dear friend Zadie Smith, whose company I love — a woman full of gossip, filth and gorgeous, intelligent storytelling. I would also invite my pal Salman Rushdie, a brilliant raconteur and fabulous companion, full of jokes and fun. Franz Kafka would be a wonderful addition to the party: I believe he was a witty and wicked companion. Zadie, Salman and I could ask him what has gone wrong with the world? Source link #Interview #Hanif #Kureishi #Shattered #Reading #Life Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Man shot dead in Sweden before Koran burning verdict Man shot dead in Sweden before Koran burning verdict An Iraqi refugee and anti-Islam campaigner has been shot dead in Sweden hours before he was due to receive a court verdict following a trial over burning the Koran, and five people were arrested over the shooting. The five were arrested in connection with the incident and ordered detained by a prosecutor, Swedish police said on their website. They did not say if the shooter was among those detained. Salwan Momika, 38, was shot in a house in the town of Sodertalje near Stockholm, public broadcaster SVT reported, citing unnamed police sources. Momika had burned copies of the Koran, the ******* holy book, in public demonstrations in 2023 against Islam. A Stockholm court had been due to sentence Momika and another man on Thursday in a criminal trial over “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” but said the announcement of the verdict had been postponed. A police spokesperson confirmed a man was shot dead in Sodertalje, but gave no other details. The other defendant in the same court case was giving interviews on Thursday and posted a message on X, saying: “I’m next”. The Security Service said police were leading the investigation but “we are following the development of events closely to see what impact this may have on Swedish security,” a spokesperson told Reuters. Swedish media reported that Momika was streaming live on TikTok at the time he was shot. A video seen by Reuters showed police picking up a phone and ending a livestream that appeared to be from Momika’s TikTok account. Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the Koran burnings, many of them by Momika, outraged Muslims and triggered threats from jihadists. While the Swedish government condemned the wave of Koran burnings in 2023, it was initially regarded as a protected form of free speech. Sweden’s migration agency in 2023 wanted to deport Momika for giving false information on his residency application, but couldn’t as he risked torture and inhumane treatment in Iraq. Burning the Koran is seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act because they consider it the literal word of God. Source link #Man #shot #dead #Sweden #Koran #burning #verdict Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

BioWare Uses “don’t require support from the full studio” as a Cheap Excuse to Dump Staff Before Kicking Off Mass Effect 5 BioWare Uses “don’t require support from the full studio” as a Cheap Excuse to Dump Staff Before Kicking Off Mass Effect 5 As BioWare has bid farewell to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s time for the development company to put all of its focus on Mass Effect 5. This is the franchise that BioWare hasn’t touched for close to eight years now. However, the termination of Dragon Age doesn’t ensure the swift development process of Mass Effect. Mass Effect 5 is in the development phase right now. | Credit: BioWare. A few days ago, one studio veteran of BioWare stated that the company is in a unique situation where it isn’t ready to accommodate a lot of people in the development team. Now in a recently released blog post, the developers have turned 180 degrees as the EA is restructuring BioWare. BioWare doesn’t need its whole development team for Mass Effect 5 A core group in BioWare is focused on the upcoming title. | Credit: BioWare. Following the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare recently posted a studio update on its official website confirming that EA is reorganizing the studio. According to a blog post by general manager Gary McKay, the studio is “reimagining how we work at BioWare” in the interim between projects. This indicates that while a “core team” devotes all of its attention to the upcoming Mass Effect game, EA is moving several of the studio’s developers to other projects within the organization. According to the blog post, veterans of the original trilogy like Mike Gamble and Derek Watts are leading the development of the upcoming Mass Effect game. This is what McKay stated in the blog post: Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit. As reported by IGN, unknown numbers of BioWare developers have already been transferred to similar positions within EA, and some Veilguard team members are being let go completely. Those whose positions have been terminated will have time to apply for other positions at EA. However, for the time being, it appears that a very small team is working exclusively on Mass Effect, which is so early in development that it won’t require assistance from the rest of BioWare. It sounds like the developers have a long road ahead of them, particularly after EA called The Veilguard a letdown. BioWare veteran claims the upcoming game isn’t ready to take on a big staff all at once Mass Effect 5 isn’t ready to have a lot of people in its development team. | Credit: BioWare. According to one BioWare veteran, Mark Darrah, the developing company has been in an odd situation since the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with Mass Effect 5 being its only known ongoing project. They will be looking for other jobs within EA for the time being, though, as he believes the planned sci-fi role-playing game “isn’t ready” to handle a large staff all at once. Before 2021, Darrah spent almost 24 years at BioWare as an executive producer and consultant on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In light of the release of The Veilguard, he has now made public one of his members-only videos from the previous year regarding BioWare’s future plans, as mentioned on ResetEra. The developer’s history of focusing on multiple projects at once is mentioned in the video, but it seems to have changed entirely since then. “Mass Effect isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it,” asserts Darrah. He notes that when the developer moved expertise from one of its projects to another, it was “up and running at full speed” and “had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything” so that it could focus on that project. Although the game was announced years ago, Darrah’s comment that things aren’t exactly moving at full speed just yet is partly due to the fact that there are still very few details available about the upcoming Mass Effect (though it’s important to remember that this video was first released in November for his channel members). It’s still unclear when Mass Effect 5 will be released. Source link #BioWare #dont #require #support #full #studio #Cheap #Excuse #Dump #Staff #Kicking #Mass #Effect Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Intergalactic Shantytowns Where Dice Dictate Your Future Intergalactic Shantytowns Where Dice Dictate Your Future The dice roll is the fundamental engine of numerous games. In a board game, it might determine what type of resources you receive or how far you can move. In tabletop role-playing games, it might determine whether an action is successful. When you swing your sword at an ogre, does it land a fatal blow? Or does your blade accidentally glance off a nearby statue and clatter uselessly to the ground? The dice decide. Although video games often use similar systems to decide the outcome of a player’s actions, the dice roll itself — the machinery of chance — is typically concealed. “The idea with video games is they’re supposed to be this warm bath of immersion that you disappear into,” said Gareth Damian Martin, whose new game Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector subverts convention by placing the dice center stage. The dice in Citizen Sleeper 2, which releases for PCs and consoles on Friday, can be spent on actions within a cyberpunk future where mercenaries, scavengers and outcasts eke out a hardscrabble living on the margins of a galaxy ruled by rival corporations. The higher the number of an assigned die, the greater the chance that the player will successfully work shifts in an intergalactic kelp bar, sell scrap engine components down at the shipyards or overthrow a corporation as part of a labor revolution. “The process of abstracting things to dice gives an incredible flexibility to storytelling,” said Damian Martin, who uses they/them pronouns. “The game inherently supports you and creates drama from any situation.” Damian Martin feeling that it was time for role-playing games to evolve, realized that pulling back the curtain and revealing how the games work would not break the immersion. “Video games have always had this slightly impoverished relationship with Dungeons & Dragons,” they said, “which means we’ve been recreating the same game system in R.P.G.s for decades.” This system remains popular: Baldur’s Gate 3, which also centers dice rolls and recreates Dungeons & Dragons rather faithfully, is one of the most lauded video games of recent years. Damian Martin did not want to bring a fantasy theme or a complex rule book from the tabletop world to video games but rather the core idea that rules and mechanics can be an expressive tool for creating narrative and emotion. Citizen Sleeper 2 casts the player as an emulated consciousness inside a synthetic body, created for the purposes of indentured labor. The game opens with you breaking free from the clutches of an icy gang boss and embarking upon a life on the run across the star system. If your dice roll fails, you are not confronted with a “Game Over” screen or forced to start again. Instead, your story branches off in a different direction, the narrator rolling with the punch and recalibrating your course. “Citizen Sleeper has the bravery to make things not work out sometimes,” said Cameron Kunzelman, a games academic and critic. While similar in format to the first Citizen Sleeper, a surprise success that was released in 2022, the sequel adds more complex gameplay mechanics. There are dice that accumulate stress and can break based on narrative events, as well as new contract missions — high-stakes operations that can (and often do) go spectacularly wrong. Yet the game retains the engaging sci-fi storytelling, stylish prose and complex themes of the original. It asks the player to make choices that are not simple questions of good and evil: Who do you trust? Whose needs take priority? Which sacrifice can you live with? Despite the brutal demands of simply surviving in these intergalactic shantytowns, players can still find salvation in community and offer small gestures of kindness to characters they meet along the way. Beyond the flexible rules of tabletop role-playing games, Damian Martin is inspired by the games’s potential for collaborative storytelling. A group of people can build a narrative together, they said, while using dice to add surprise and provocation “like an improv comedian asking the crowd for suggestions.” Damian Martin said that the market scenes were always the part of “Star Wars” that interested them most, and that they would spend hours wondering who those street-food vendors were, living on far-flung planets. “In a tabletop game, you can tell a story with friends where all the characters are stall owners in a ‘Star Wars’ market,” they said. “You can have Darth Vader turn up as a customer; you could even poison him and that’s how he dies. You don’t have to wait for permission to do this stuff.” Because Citizen Sleeper 2 is a video game written by Damian Martin alone, it cannot invite that degree of narrative collaboration. The video game after that will be a new intellectual property, but Damian Martin said they hoped to turn the entire Citizen Sleeper franchise into a tabletop R.P.G. eventually, allowing the game’s fans to tell their own stories within the universe. “I’ve finished my monologue,” Damian Martin said. “Now you can say something.” Source link #Intergalactic #Shantytowns #Dice #Dictate #Future Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Labour’s border bill to ‘block migrants from claiming slavery protections’ Labour’s border bill to ‘block migrants from claiming slavery protections’ Labour’s new small boats legislation will reportedly retain a number of controversial measures the party previously opposed, including a ban on migrants claiming modern slavery protections and powers to detain children. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill – set to be published on Thursday – is expected to include new counterterrorism-style powers to target people smugglers, including the seizure of mobile phones and financial assets. Sir Keir Starmer has promised to use the legislation to “smash the gangs” and significantly reduce the number of people illegally arriving in the ***, with more than a thousand people having arrived in the *** via small boat this year so far. While Labour previously accused the Tories of trashing slavery protections through their 2023 ******** Migration Act – which the party repeatedly voted against – the new bill will reportedly fail to reverse a number of measures included in the old bill. According to The Times, the legislation is expected to include a ban on ******** migrants claiming protections under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, as well as powers to detain child refugees for up to 28 days. Victims of modern slavery who arrived in the *** illegally were prevented from accessing the ***’s national referral mechanism (NRM) under the last government’s legislation — the system for supporting and identifying victims. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (PA Wire) Sir Keir Starmer said the legislation would “drive a coach and horses” through protections for women who were trafficked to the *** as victims of modern slavery. Meanwhile, Jess Phillips – who now sits in Sir Keir’s government as safeguarding minister – claimed it was as a “a traffickers’ dream, a tool for their control” as it effectively hid modern slavery victims from *** authorities. But the Conservative government argued that the NRM was being unfairly used by migrants to avoid deportation. Mr Sunak’s ******** migration act also allowed unaccompanied children to be detained for up to eight days, and up to 28 if their age was under dispute by the Home Office. This is also said to be retained in the new bill. In addition, the government is expected to retain the cap on the number of migrants who can arrive each year on safe and legal routes – a measure which government sources told The Times was imposed to mitigate criticism from the Conservatives and Reform ***. The legislation is expected to see people-smuggling suspects facing travel bans and social media blackouts as part of an attempt to crack down on organised immigration crime. Court orders to restrict the activity of those under investigation for such crimes will be strengthened, with suspects facing bans on laptop or mobile phones, accessing social media networks, associating with certain people, or accessing their finances under the measures announced by the Home Office. Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPOs) can already be sought to curb the movement of people involved in organised immigration crime. But the government said the measures are not being used to their full effect and plans to introduce new “interim” SCPOs designed to place “immediate” restrictions on suspects’ activity while a full order is considered by the courts. Home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Dangerous criminal people-smugglers are profiting from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. They cannot be allowed to get away with it. A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Wire) “Stronger international collaboration has already led to important arrests and action against dangerous gangs over the last few months. “We will give law enforcement stronger powers they need to pursue and stop more of these vile gang networks. “Border security is one of the foundations of this Government’s Plan for Change, including making people better off, delivering safer streets and strengthening our NHS, and we will do everything in our power to deliver for working people.” The Home Office has been contacted for comment. Source link #Labours #border #bill #block #migrants #claiming #slavery #protections Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

In the Footsteps of the Enslaved In the Footsteps of the Enslaved The terrifying first capture in Africa. The deadly crossing of the Middle Passage. The brutality of slave markets and servitude. It’s almost impossible to imagine, let alone depict, the full horrors of American slavery, although writers, directors and artists have tried. But there’s one moment that seems to have caught their attention less often: the first encounter of kidnapped Africans with the strange new land where they were marched into enslavement. In a remarkable exhibition called “Stony the Road,” at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, the artist Dawoud Bey takes us on the path that tens of thousands were forced to walk, from the slave ships that landed at the James River’s docks to Richmond’s slave pens and markets. With 14 still photos and a vast, two-sided video projection, Bey explores the Richmond Slave Trail that extends for several miles in Virginia’s capital. At Sean Kelly, Bey’s stills are the first art you encounter. Those deluxe ******-and-whites, almost a yard across, show various wooded spots along the trail, avoiding any details that speak of our era. (In fact, the trail now crosses many modern settings.) We get a view of trees and ground, of bits of river and patches of distant sky, such as an African might have encountered 250 years ago. The images were shot on old-fashioned film and printed on traditional photographic paper, so we’re treated to the velvety ******* and sparkling whites of landscapes by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and other pioneers of American photography. It’s tempting to linger with those tasteful, orderly images — in the gallery, and in this review — but I discovered that they get a whole new meaning after seeing Bey’s video at the gallery’s rear. That video is titled “350,000,” an estimate of the total number of enslaved people who passed through Richmond’s trading markets. (The piece was originally commissioned for a major Bey show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond in 2023.) Ten minutes of ******-and-white footage appear on a screen that bisects a big space and reaches almost to its high ceiling. It shows the same wooded path as in Bey’s prints, but to utterly different effect. The piece works hard to put us in the place — physical, but above all psychological — of one of Richmond’s newly disembarked. The images are projected at “life scale,” Bey told me, so that the path’s tree trunks and branches are the same size on the screen as they would be if they were there before us in life. And the trip down the path is captured in a single take, without edits, by a Steadicam held at an adult’s head-height, giving a captive’s-eye view of the passage up the trail. But the goal isn’t to create a crisp, immersive substitute for a past reality. (Bey insists that his piece isn’t about faking some kind of long-lost documentation.) It’s about using the visible artifice of fine art to encourage a trip into a past we need to confront. In some ways Bey’s video has more in common with a poet’s evocative description than with a Spielbergish attempt at historical re-enactment. So Bey’s cinematographer, Bron Moyi, shot all the footage with a century-old Petzval lens, once used for dream sequences in silent movies. It blurs all but the middle of the scene it shows, giving an almost drunken effect to Bey’s footage, which is also shown in somewhat slow-motion. Real vision never really works quite like that, but the Petzval provides an excellent metaphor for the kind of disorientation Africans must have felt on first being shoved ashore in Virginia. They couldn’t have known quite where they were going, or what the endgame might be — most couldn’t understand their tormentors’ language — and “350,000” has a similar lack of plot or endpoint. Its camera’s “eye” rarely looks straight down the path toward some far-off goal. Instead, it veers from earth to treetops; from river, down at right, to undergrowth that hems the path at left. No one knows if captives would really have looked anywhere but at their own stumbling feet or at the back of the chained figure ahead, but the camera’s wandering eye evokes the fracturing of any normal they might have known. Even the flora in Bey’s video, sure to strike most Americans as an average woodland scene, must have seemed foreign. Bey makes his disjunctive technique stand for the utter confusion — physical, cognitive, spiritual — that captives must have felt. A soundtrack, commissioned by Bey from the dance scholar E. Gaynell Sherrod, adds to the effect: It’s a mash-up of random footfalls and birdcalls, of heartbeats and hoofbeats, of grunts and sighs and clinking chains. It doesn’t quite reproduce what the enslaved might actually have heard, but it sometimes adds Hollywood melodrama that the visuals smartly avoid. However, Sherrod’s soundtrack, and its lack of obvious sync to Bey’s visuals, maps onto how trauma can fracture our perceptions. In a final touch, Bey gives art viewers a more immediate taste of that same bewilderment: The occasional visitor who peers around to the other side of Bey’s screen will eventually realize that the view there is actually the same path but seen on a different trudge down it. That gives a sense that Bey’s installation doesn’t recreate a single moment in someone’s pain; it condenses all the moments that thousands of subjects might have suffered on the Richmond Slave Trail. And then, leaving the video behind, you encounter Bey’s stills once again, and now they seem to play a different role in his story. After witnessing the splintered sights in his video, his stills now seem to stand for the very firm and settled present that today’s art world lives in, at so many removes from an enslaved person’s view. They give us something like the stable, settled view favored by Europe’s artistic culture, circa 1800, when wild nature promised escape from the everyday into the sublime. It’s almost as though Bey’s prints offer a bright light at the end of their forest path, so that, as in many an Ansel Adams photo, the white of the immaculate silver print becomes the white of escape and transcendence. The prints have a stable authority, in their confident choice of subject, the snapping of the shutter, their deluxe printing, that isn’t there in the video. Bey’s show gets its name from a passage in the second stanza of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the hymn by James Weldon Johnson that premiered in 1900 and is known as the ****** national anthem: “Stony the road we trod/Bitter the chastening rod.” Here’s how the stanza ends: “Out from the gloomy past/’Til now we stand at last/Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.” Now, 125 years later, Bey’s gloom seems to cast new light on art’s gleam. Dawoud Bey: Stony the Road Through Feb. 22, Sean Kelly Gallery, 475 Tenth Avenue, Manhattan, 212-239-1181; skny.com. Source link #Footsteps #Enslaved Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Euro zone GDP Q4 2024 Euro zone GDP Q4 2024 An employee places an item in the window display at a delicatessen in the Piazza Campo di Fiori in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images The euro zone economy saw zero growth in the fourth quarter, flash figures published by the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat showed Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected growth of 0.1% over the *******, following a larger-than-expected 0.4% expansion in the third quarter. The bloc-wide data comes after worse-than-expected growth prints from the euro zone’s two largest economies, Germany and France. Earlier on Thursday, official data showed that Germany’s gross domestic product fell 0.2% in the fourth quarter, while France’s economy also shrank slightly over the same *******. Italy’s economy also flatlined quarter-on-quarter, data showed earlier Thursday. In stark contrast, Spain’s gross domestic product grew by 0.8% in the fourth quarter, the country’s statistics office INE said Wednesday. The European Central Bank has sought to boost economic activity and investment in the euro zone by implementing four interest cuts last year. The ECB is expected to make another 25-basis-point trim when it meets later on Thursday to bring the key rate, the deposit facility, down to 2.75%. Economists expect the central bank to make further interest rate cuts this year as fears over faltering growth trump concerns over stubborn inflation in the bloc. In December, the central bank forecast that the euro zone economy would grow by 1.1% in 2025, saying that it expects euro area GDP growth to “weaken somewhat in the short term, amid significant uncertainty.” “Survey-based indicators relevant for activity, such as the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) and business and consumer confidence indicators from the European Commission, remain subdued,” the central bank stated in December. The ECB had expected the economy to grow by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024 as the one-off factors supporting growth last summer, such as the Paris Olympics, faded, and amid continuing “subdued confidence, high uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.” The central bank anticipates GDP growth to be 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025. Central bank policymakers will be mindful of inflationary pressures in the region, with the euro zone consumer price index ticking upward in recent months, hitting 2.4% in December. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, was unchanged at 2.7% for the fourth consecutive month in a row. The central bank forecast the inflation rate in the bloc to come in at 2.1% this year. Source link #Euro #zone #GDP Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Americans Feel Isolated. Imani Perry Wants to Help Them Connect. Americans Feel Isolated. Imani Perry Wants to Help Them Connect. Imani Perry often finds herself talking about things people get wrong about the South. For one thing, she says, there isn’t a single South, but many Souths: the upper South, the Deep South, the urban South. The South is also a lot more racially diverse than people give it credit for, and a lot less segregated, she says. It’s also not the sole source of the nation’s racism that people can make it out to be — or even might like it to be. “If you make the South the repository for all of the nation’s sins, that bad place down there,” she said, “then you don’t have to think about what’s going on in your own community.” Perry challenged many of the United States’ most enduring misconceptions about the region in 2022 with “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.” A combination of memoir, travelogue and deep-dive journalism, the book weaves together Zora Neale Hurston, Rosa Parks, RC Cola and rhythm and blues — and leaves clear that, though she may have left Alabama for Massachusetts when she was 5, Perry very much considers the South her home. Three years later, Perry continues to challenge perceptions and draw connections with her ninth book, “****** in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People.” Published by Ecco on Jan. 28, her latest work takes a single color, blue, and examines how it has become intertwined with notions of Blackness, in ways that are well-known (such as blues music, and expressions like “feeling blue ”) or less known (including how indigo-dyed fabrics were traded for enslaved people in the 16th century). “Imani is one of the most important writers of this *******,” said Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a Princeton professor who co-taught a class with Perry on the African American intellectual tradition. “In ‘****** in Blues,’ you get a sense of her capacious mind. She sees relationships that no other writer sees, and you get these extraordinary insights in this beautiful prose.” The years since “South to America” have been thrilling for the writer. There have been career-defining accomplishments and plaudits, including a National Book Award and a MacArthur Fellowship, and the joys of watching her two sons prepare to go off to college. The joys have been tempered by Perry’s ongoing struggles with lupus and Graves’ disease, which she also wrote about in 2023. “Sometimes my body shuts down, and I just have to let it,” she said. And all of this has come at a time of increasing polarity in this country, a nettlesome impediment for a writer whose deepest insights often come from the most intimate of interactions with people of every stripe. “I’m curious about people, and I tend to seek out conversation,” she said. “But there seems to be an intensity of meanness and hostility ramping up.” She added, “I’ve become more cautious.” In “South to America,” Perry describes having friendly conversations with a Confederate re-enactor at Harpers Ferry, and joining hands in prayer with a white Lyft driver from North Carolina whose description of heaven sounded to her curiously like a Southern plantation. In November 2022, the book won the National Book Award for nonfiction. “Alabama now has a National Book Award,” she told the audience at the awards ceremony in New York City. “It was overwhelmingly joyful,” she said. “My children were so happy for me. When you raise children, you’re caring for them and nurturing them. To realize that they want things for you, too, is just an unbelievable gift.” The following year, Perry wrote the audiobook “A Dangerously High Threshold for Pain” about her experiences with lupus and Graves’ disease, which began in 1996 when she was 23. Perry was inspired to tell her story during the pandemic when she learned about people suffering from long Covid. “I had an emotional reaction when I saw all these people experiencing what it was like to live with invisible disabilities, as I had,” she said. She is very careful with diet and exercise now, she said, but even so, there are times when she ends up in the hospital. “As Americans, we want to think of health as a virtue, we want to think of ourselves as superhuman,” she said. “I have to reject all of that in order to accept myself, as opposed to beating myself up because my body is fragile.” The question of how her life might have been different if she didn’t have lupus and Graves’ disease gave her pause. “Whenever I would make a new friend,” she said, “I would think, oh, I wish they knew me before I had these diseases. They would have liked me so much better. I was a lot more fun.” For Autumn Womack, a former colleague at Princeton, the response came as a surprise. “She’s someone I think of as very fun,” she said. In August 2023, Perry joined the faculty of Harvard University, where she holds a joint appointment in studies of women, gender and sexuality and in African and African American studies. Two months later, Perry received a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the genius grant. “Her insightful connections between individual experiences, complex social obstacles and emergent cultural expressions,” the citation read, “infuse her scholarship with an authenticity and sense of discovery that appeals to broad audiences.” According to Womack, the award was overdue. “When I heard she got it, I was like, doesn’t she already have one of these?” Following critically acclaimed works about hip-hop (“Prophets of the Hood”), the “Raisin in the Sun” playwright Lorraine Hansberry (“Looking for Lorraine”) and the fin de siècle hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (“May We Forever Stand”), Perry is currently working on a middle grade book, for Norton Young Readers, about the lives of children in segregated schools. She also hopes to put her Harvard law degree and Georgetown masters of law degree to good use on a work of fiction — her first. “I have this longstanding legal history slash jurisprudence project in my head,” she said. Most of all, Perry wants to create something that might be of use for our current cultural moment, when many Americans are feeling isolated and cleaved from their neighbors. “We need to be, even at the very local level, in community with each other, engaged in mutual aid and sharing,” she said. “We cannot just be concerned with our individual, private lives.” Source link #Americans #Feel #Isolated #Imani #Perry #Connect Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Review: Here Come the Brides ‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Review: Here Come the Brides Ferrell plays Jim, a single dad in Atlanta whose daughter, Jenni (the always-hilarious Geraldine Viswanathan), announces she’s getting married to her college sweetheart Oliver (Stony Blyden). A widower since Jenni was a little girl, Jim is a “girl dad” the way some men are “wife guys”: His life revolves around Jenni, and they’re the best of friends. She is all he has, and once he adjusts to the idea of her getting married, he starts to get excited about the wedding. What if they got married at the same inn on the same tiny island where he and her mother tied the knot? Maybe on June 1? Meanwhile, across the country, the TV producer Margot (Witherspoon) discovers to her delight that her little sister, Neve (Meredith Hagner), is engaged to her beloved Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). Margot isn’t on great terms with the rest of the family — their other two siblings (Rory Scovel and Leanne Morgan) and their mother (Celia Weston), all of whom are genteel Southerners — but she’s determined to plan the wedding anyhow. Wouldn’t it be great if they could have it on the tiny island where Margot and Neve spent summers with their grandmother? Maybe on June 1? And thus the gears of the rom-com are set in motion, with Jim and Margot fated to meet-cute. Of course we know what will occur; the fun is seeing how it occurs, in this case with a combination of comedy of errors and comedy of manners. Along the way, drunk speeches are delivered, profanities are hurled, dirty jokes are told, lessons are learned — about family togetherness, about being a control freak, about not judging people without knowing them — and at least one alligator is wrestled. (There’s the surrealist swerve.) Naturally, love is also in the air. All good, when the formula is the point. But there is something off about “You’re Cordially Invited,” some sense that the whole thing never clicks into place. There are sections (particularly in a sequence taking place at a wedding rehearsal) that feel as if a scene or two were lifted out. Continuity does not feel completely settled — how did that guy get to that room? Why is it sunny out now? What is this side character’s deal? Perhaps most disappointingly, while Witherspoon has her tightly wound but good-hearted big sister thing down perfectly, it doesn’t seem as if Ferrell’s full comedic genius makes it onto the screen. It’s not the fault of his character; the sweet but somewhat bizarre guy fits him well. But there are moments when you can see his impish flair for improvisation shine through, and these moments highlight how little time he gets to let loose — or, at least, how little of it made it into the final cut. Source link #Youre #Cordially #Invited #Review #Brides Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Horoscope for Thursday, January 30, 2025 – Chicago Sun-Times Horoscope for Thursday, January 30, 2025 – Chicago Sun-Times Horoscope for Thursday, January 30, 2025 Chicago Sun-TimesHoroscopes Today, January 30, 2025 USA TODAYToday’s Horoscope – January 30, 2025: Check horoscope for all sun signs Deccan HeraldHoroscope for Thursday, 1/30/25 by Christopher Renstrom SFGATEYour Daily Singles Horoscope for January 30, 2025 Yahoo Life Source link #Horoscope #Thursday #January #Chicago #SunTimes Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Pause on U.S. Funding Spreads Fear of H.I.V. Spike Across Africa Pause on U.S. Funding Spreads Fear of H.I.V. Spike Across Africa As he does every three months, Sibusiso traveled on Wednesday morning to a clinic in the capital of Eswatini, a tiny southern African nation, to get a refill of the H.I.V. medication he needs to save his life. When he arrived, the door was locked and about 20 other patients stood outside, baffled that the clinic was closed. Sibusiso, 39 and unemployed, had heard rumors that President Trump was pulling funding for the program that supported his treatment. Now, though, he learned the reality: The Trump administration had ordered a halt to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, one of America’s most consequential aid programs in Africa. The abrupt pause of a $6.5 billion program established by former President George W. Bush and credited with saving the lives of tens of millions people, sent patients, clinicians and public health activists across Africa into a panic. Many feared a return to some of the darkest days on the continent, when H.I.V. spread rapidly and a diagnosis was akin to a death sentence. As Sibusiso stood outside the clinic, he feared he could be next. He had taken the last of his antiretroviral medication that morning. And even though the Trump administration had backtracked, suddenly announcing on Tuesday that lifesaving medications and treatments could continue to be distributed, the clinic remained shuttered in the confusion. Sibusiso, standing outside, had no idea where or when he could get more medicine. “I’m now thinking of dying,” said Sibusiso, who requested that only his first name be used to protect his privacy. “What am I going to do without this treatment?” The Trump administration has said that foreign assistance programs will be paused for three months as it reviews how money is being spent. If the administration decides to end PEPFAR, it could lead to 600,000 deaths over the next decade in South Africa alone, where the program has its largest number of beneficiaries, according to a study. “The next 90 days are looking so dystopian,” said Nozizwe Ntsesang, the chief executive of a leading gay rights advocacy group in Botswana. Across South Africa and other countries in the region, fear and uncertainty are palpable. Some African leaders had shared optimism and excitement about a second Trump term. But now, one of his first moves appeared to put lives at risk. “I’m scared,” said a 19-year-old South African college student who was born with H.I.V. “People will die. It’s going back to the ’90s where people did not have enough medication to treat the disease.” The student, who also requested anonymity to protect her privacy, said the clinic that she goes to in Johannesburg gave her a three-month supply of her antiretroviral medication on Wednesday instead of the usual six months. Officials explained that they wanted to reserve some stock in case other clinics ran short, she said. PEPFAR does not provide medication for the South African health system, but it does employ around 13,000 medical professionals, from doctors to community health workers, who are responsible for ensuring that people are tested and seek proper treatment. Virtually all of those employees were ordered to stop working after the Trump administration froze foreign aid programs, according to health care activists. The staff shortages, health workers and rights groups said, led to much larger crowds at public clinics in South Africa, where roughly eight million people are living with H.I.V. and 5.7 million receive treatment. Amid the chaos of the freeze and the Trump administration’s backpedaling, many clinics remained shuttered on Wednesday, with medical workers unsure about the new rules and patients frantic to secure their medication. Some patients have been forced to wait 10 hours for treatment, activists said. There were also fears that, without counselors to talk to, some patients, especially those newly diagnosed with H.I.V., would not administer their treatments properly or seek help in the future. “The abrupt stop is not responsible,” said Solange Baptiste, the executive director of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, an organization that works to improve access to treatment for people with H.I.V. “Lives are at risk when you do that.” South Africa is in a better position than many other African countries. The government procures most of its H.I.V. drugs directly and relies on PEPFAR for only about 17 percent of its overall H.I.V. treatment budget. Neighboring Botswana, which has received nearly $72 million in aid from PEPFAR since 2003, also buys its own treatment medication, but the work and funding stoppage has weighed heavily on local organizations. Stanley Monageng said he cried when he learned about the Trump administration’s order. Mr. Monageng, 78, has been running an organization in Molepolole, in southern Botswana, since 2005. It provides support for children with H.I.V. and relies mostly on PEPFAR funding, he said. Mr. Monageng said he was worried all week that he would not be allowed to provide antiretroviral medication to the dozens of children, many of them orphaned, who rely on his organization for help. Mr. Monageng himself has been living with H.I.V. for 25 years and says he has personally benefited from the PEPFAR program. “I asked myself, ‘How are these orphans going to survive? How am I going to help them?’” he said on Wednesday from the three-bedroom house that he uses for the center. “I’ve been surviving all these years because of America.” At HealthPlus 4 Men, the clinic that was closed in Eswatini on Wednesday, officials encouraged anxious patients to go to a public hospital to seek medication. But most patients were uncomfortable with that option. HealthPlus primarily treats gay men, a population that has been historically stigmatized in Eswatini. Many of its patients fear going to government-run facilities, where they worry they will face discrimination. Public hospitals also often provide prescriptions that many patients can’t afford to fill, said Sibusiso Maziya, the executive director of HealthPlus. “It’s a sad moment for us,” Mr. Maziya said. “They want to know when this situation will change, when are we opening.” Despite the waiver issued by the U.S. government on Tuesday, Mr. Maziya said his organization was continuing to withhold antiretroviral medication supplied with PEPFAR funds as it awaits clarity from its funders on what it is allowed to do. Msizi Mkhabela, the operations manager for HealthPlus, added that the organization promotes diversity, equity and inclusion by supporting equal treatment for gay men. That mission could run afoul of the Trump administration’s freeze on such programs and may put the clinic at a higher risk of being permanently defunded. In addition to medication, HealthPlus also has a mobile clinic and outreach programs to make sure that people living in rural areas are being tested and receive treatment for H.I.V. The organization considers those programs an essential part of its efforts to prevent the spread of the disease. But all of that was put on hold because the funding came from PEPFAR and HealthPlus is unsure what activities are allowed to continue. “We are literally shaking and worried,” Mr. Mkhabela said. “Very much frustrated.” Reporting was contributed by Yvonne Mooka from Molepolole, Botswana, Lynsey Chutel from London and Golden Matonga from Blantyre, Malawi. Source link #Pause #U.S #Funding #Spreads #Fear #H.I.V #Spike #Africa Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Shell and Equinor Oil and Gas Production Is Blocked at Sites Off British Coast Shell and Equinor Oil and Gas Production Is Blocked at Sites Off British Coast A court in Scotland blocked the production of oil and gas on Thursday at two large project sites being developed in British waters until their impact on climate change can be assessed. The decision was a blow for the sites’ developers, Shell and the Norwegian company Equinor, which have already spent or committed hundreds of millions of pounds for the projects. But Judge Andrew Stewart of Scotland’s Court of Session said that the companies could continue to drill wells and perform other work at the sites until the government made a decision on whether they could produce oil and gas. The oil and natural gas fields, called Jackdaw and Rosebank, are seen as tests for the flagging British oil industry because of their size and because Shell and Equinor are two of Europe’s largest energy companies. Uplift, an environmental group, which joined Greenpeace in a lawsuit to stop production, called the ruling “a significant win.” The ruling shows the extent that activist groups are able to use the courts in Britain to block or hamper activities such as drilling for oil and gas that they say could threaten the environment. The oil companies welcomed the judge’s concession that allows them to proceed with some work, but Shell issued a reminder of how much was at stake. “We have spent more than £800 million since the regulator approved Jackdaw in 2022,” Shell said in a statement. “Swift action is needed from the Government so that we and other North Sea operators can make decisions about vital U.K. energy infrastructure.” Shell added that Jackdaw could produce enough fuel to heat 1.4 million homes at a time when other fields are nearing the end of their productivity. Equinor said it had already lined up £2.2 billion in contracts for Rosebank, a large oil field with an estimated 300 million barrels of oil and gas. The energy giant said it planned to invest £10 billion in Britain in the next few years, with much of that going to the wind and carbon capture industries that the British government is promoting. The Labour Party government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer is pushing hard for investment to strengthen Britain’s economy, yet it remains to be seen whether the oil and gas industry will be part of these efforts. The government is reconsidering its permitting procedures in light of a 2024 ruling by Britain’s Supreme Court that the assessments of oil and gas projects must include the impact that burning the fuels have on the climate. New guidelines are expected later this year. In his ruling on Thursday, Judge Stewart followed the Supreme Court, saying that the two projects in the North Sea should be suspended to give the government time to develop criteria to assess their impact on the climate. Ithaca Energy, a ********* partner in Rosebank, argued in the case that suspension of the project “would affect the international perception of the U.K., including its reputation for inward investment.” But Judge Stewart did not seem to be persuaded by that argument. “The public interest in authorities acting lawfully and the private interest of members of the public in climate change outweigh the private interest of the developers,” he said in his ruling. Source link #Shell #Equinor #Oil #Gas #Production #Blocked #Sites #British #Coast Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now 5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works Seong-Jin Cho, piano (Deutsche Grammophon) Seong-Jin Cho’s 2017 Debussy recording was full of bold colors and sharply delineated textures, which suited that composer perfectly. So I had high hopes for this set of Ravel’s complete solo piano works. Surprisingly, it leaves a more mixed impression. As elsewhere, Cho plays with remarkable sensitivity and easily meets the music’s technical demands. Yet the high refinement of his pianism sometimes drains these works of their intensity and expressive focus. “Jeux d’Eau,” for example, is beautifully articulated but muted in its sonority, missing the atmosphere other pianists have elicited. I loved Cho’s dignified, unsentimental approach to “Pavane pour une Infante Défante,” but that works less well in “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.” The nightmarish atmosphere of “Gaspard de la Nuit” emerges only fitfully, though the control and dexterity are wondrous. The five-movement “Miroirs” is a microcosm of this album’s strengths and weaknesses. The birdsong of “Oiseaux Tristes” has rarely sounded so desolate, and, with carefully layered dynamics, the bells of “La Vallée des Cloches” seem to drift in from another world. The more extroverted pieces leave less of an impression, as Cho seems determined to rein in “Une Barque sur l’Océan” and “Alborada del Gracioso.” There is so much to admire here, but I just wish Cho had found a bit more in music he plays so well. DAVID WEININGER David Lang: ‘poor hymnal’ The Crossing; Donald Nally, conductor (Cantaloupe) With “poor hymnal,” David Lang has written hymns for a religion that doesn’t exist. There’s no book of worship or complicated dogma. Its only document is this hymnal, which, over and over again, proclaims the virtues of charity and compassion for those less fortunate. Lang fashions lyrics from ****** verse, the Haggadah, Tolstoy and Barack Obama for a collection of sorrowful, monastic a ********* pieces in four-part harmony. The vocal lines move in straightforward, rise-and-fall patterns, and solos have an intimate candor. Church altos will recognize Lang’s loving re-creation of their boring harmonizations of the soprano part. In the score, Lang writes that his imaginary congregation wants to “make our responsibilities to each other the central tenet of our coming together.” The worshipers only ever encounter godhead when providing service to the outcast. The piece doesn’t escape the temptations of self-flagellation and guilt wracking. With a somber, tear-stained tone, Lang mourns his project’s impossibility. Perhaps as countermand, he instructs the singers to be “direct,” “plain-spoken” and “not overly sentimental.” The canny chamber musicians of the Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, oblige with smooth, dry-eyed luminosity that sustains a gently haunted air. And so the work’s title has at least two meanings: This hymnal contains songs for the poor, but it has also fallen into neglect and disuse, its lessons as simple to understand as they are difficult to practice. OUSSAMA ZAHR ‘Inheritances’ Adam Tendler, piano (New Amsterdam) The origins of “Inheritances,” a collection of miniatures written for the pianist Adam Tendler, are as universal as they are unusual. We all experience loss, as Tendler did when his father died several years ago; few of us, though, receive the inheritance of a cash-filled envelope. He used the money to commission these pieces from some of his closest friends. After presenting them in concert, he has recorded them on an album with a prevailingly contemplative mood, but also a variety of perspectives and approaches that accumulate into a sculptural view of grief and remembrance. Many works here take advantage of Tendler’s adventurousness and muscular skill. Missy Mazzoli’s “Forgiveness Machine” has the unrelenting force of heartbroken rage, and Inti Figgis-Vizueta’s “hushing” conjures similar might. But there is also the aching suspension of John Glover’s “In the City of Shy Hunters,” the bright wonder of Angélica Negrón’s “You Were My Age” and the uncanny comfort of Marcos Balter’s “False Memories.” Laurie Anderson’s wistful “Remember, I Created You” incorporates spoken word and artificial intelligence; Tendler’s own voice is sampled in Pamela Z’s “Thank You So Much,” which, in its extended technique, also nods to John Cage, a specialty of Tendler’s. He is most exposed in Darian Donovan Thomas’s “We don’t need to tend this garden. They’re wildflowers,” a musicalized therapy session in which Tendler reminisces, comes to realizations and slides into self-accompanied singing. You will be moved, profoundly and intensely. JOSHUA BARONE Donnacha Dennehy: ‘Land of Winter’ Alarm Will Sound; Alan Pierson, conductor (Nonesuch) Many of the best works of the Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy have a tangible link to the history or geography of his homeland. Think of the use of traditional sean-nós singing in the song cycle “Grá agus Bás,” or the Great Famine’s presence in “The Hunger.” In this new, mesmerizing work — named for Hibernia, the classical Latin name for Ireland — he tries to capture one of the country’s distinctive but elusive features: the quality of light particular to each of its seasons. Divided into a dozen movements (one for each month), “Land of Winter” begins in December, where shivering harmonics and rumbling bass tones conjure a piercing sunlight that slices through the cold, darkness never far away. Rhythmic energy takes over as the piece moves toward spring, with playful dances in April, *****-singing in May and languorous swells in June. Dennehy’s shrewd, sensitive ear for timbre is a large part of what makes “Land of Winter” such enveloping listening. Just as important, though, is the ingenious way that his overtone-rich harmony and use of refrains conveys both cyclicality and change. The way the light swirls through the Irish air, the composer seems to say, is a phenomenon both familiar and mutable over time, so that by the time we arrive at November — granitic and slow, and with allusions to a Bach chorale — we are back where we began the winter’s journey, and yet time also seems to have moved ineluctably, even a bit sadly, forward. DAVID WEININGER ‘The Golden Renaissance: Palestrina’ Stile Antico (Decca) The superb vocal ensemble Stile Antico concludes its anniversary-themed “Golden Renaissance” triptych with Palestrina, who was born 500 years ago this December. Following albums devoted to Josquin des Prez (died in 1521) and William Byrd (died in 1623), this final installment is a concise introduction to an Italian master whose flawlessly smooth, celestially shining sacred polyphony loomed over the second half of the 16th century. Stile Antico’s central offering is Palestrina’s great “Missa Papae Marcelli,” but the ensemble cleverly alternates its sections with six shorter works: “Exultate Deo,” gently surging; a pure “Tu es Petrus”; the stunningly serene, deeply felt “Sicut cervus”; a 12-voice “Laudate Dominum in tympanis”; a “Salve *******” that, in this company, is strikingly austere; and “Assumpta est Maria,” which draws the program to a joyous conclusion. But the “Missa Papae Marcelli” is in every way at the core of the album: Listen to the longing of the “Kyrie eleison” and, in the “Gloria,” the quiet build to rapture of “Qui tollis peccata mundi.” Stile Antico sings this complex yet elegantly polished music with the group’s usual combination of lushness and focus, stillness and energy, bringing expression and nuance to what can sometimes slip into coolly uniform gorgeousness. ZACHARY WOOLFE Source link #Classical #Music #Albums #Listen Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Dems launch group to hit Trump on tax cuts Dems launch group to hit Trump on tax cuts Democrats are launching a tax-focused group as their newest messaging megaphone in an attempt to counter President Donald Trump on one of his signature issues. Organizers said the nonprofit group, Families Over Billionaires, will be backed by an eight-figure funding campaign, which will include advertising, rapid response and surrogate operations. They said the campaign will serve as a centralized war room to attack Trump and Republicans during the looming tax debate in Congress. The details of the group were shared first with POLITICO. The campaign’s launch marks one of the first outside efforts to push back on Trump’s agenda in his second term, as Democrats look to regain ground with voters on economic issues — a major weakness for the party last year. Democrats plan to blast Trump over his effort to extend his own 2017 cuts, which they argue will hand “out trillions in tax giveaways to billionaires and big corporations,” a memo about the group reads, while ignoring his promises to lower costs on everyday expenses. But it’s not clear when Republicans, who have argued that allowing the cuts to lapse would hurt the economy, will take up the debate. There’s still plenty of wrangling on Capitol Hill over how to push through their priorities of tax cut extensions, immigration and slashing spending — a sprawling list of priorities that will be difficult to push through with their razor-thin majority in the House. Democrats, for their part, are still searching for a way to reach voters on the economy. Throughout the 2024 election, more voters trusted Trump on the economy than Kamala Harris, according to public polling. Trump improved his standing with nearly every demographic group last November, when a majority of voters said the economy remained their top issue. Reaching voters on economic issues is becoming an existential challenge for the party. A coalition of elected officials, labor unions and Democratic groups signed on to the Democrats’ messaging effort, including former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), former Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young, the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “For me, politics has never been about left or right, it’s about whose side you’re on. That’s what this fight will come down to,” Brown said in a statement. “Are you fighting for the people who make this country work, or more handouts for the wealthy and the largest corporations? We must make that contrast clear.” Michael Linden, a Biden administration alum and a senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will serve as its director. Source link #Dems #launch #group #hit #Trump #tax #cuts Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Man who burned Quran ‘shot dead in Sweden’ Man who burned Quran ‘shot dead in Sweden’ A man who sparked violent protests after burning the Quran has been shot dead in Sweden, according to local media reports. Salwan Momika, 38, is reported to have been killed in an apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, on Wednesday evening. Unrest broke out after Mr Momik set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023. Stockholm police said in a statement that five people had been arrested after a man in his 40s was shot dead overnight. Mr Momika, an Iraqi living in Sweden, was charged in August alongside one other with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023. The verdict, due to be delivered on Thursday, was postponed after it was “confirmed that one of the defendants had died”, Stockholm District Court said. Mr Momika carried out a series of anti-Islam protests, sparking outrage in many *******-majority countries. Unrest took place at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice, while the Swedish ambassador was expelled from the city amid a diplomatic row. The Swedish government had given Mr Momika permission for the protest in which he burnt the holy book, saying it was in accordance with its free-speech laws. It later pledged to explore legal means of abolishing protests that involve burning texts in certain circumstances. Source link #Man #burned #Quran #shot #dead #Sweden Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Toyota sells 10.8 million vehicles in 2024 to remain world’s top-selling automaker Toyota sells 10.8 million vehicles in 2024 to remain world’s top-selling automaker Toyota Motor sold 10.8 million vehicles in 2024, it said on Thursday, remaining the world’s top-selling automaker for a fifth straight year. The Japanese automaker posted a 3.7 per cent drop in global group unit sales last year, including those of compact car maker Daihatsu and truck unit Hino Motors. The decline was largely due to a steep slump in sales in Japan where the automaker faced fallout from governance issues over certification test procedures, especially at Daihatsu. Second-ranked ******* rival Volkswagen Group earlier this month reported a 2.3 per cent decline in unit sales last year to just over 9 million vehicles, as it seeks to cut costs at home and fight a price war in key market China. Sales of Toyota’s parent-only vehicles, which include those of its namesake and Lexus brands, fell 1.4% from a year earlier in 2024 to 10.2 million vehicles due to a double-digit decline in Japan. While Toyota sold a record number of cars overall, thanks in part due to demand for its hybrid vehicles in the United States, it saw unit sales in China decline by 6.9% amid heavy price competition in the world’s top car market. Of its parent-only sales, gasoline-electric hybrids made up a record 40.8%. Battery electric vehicles accounted for 1.4 per cent. Source link #Toyota #sells #million #vehicles #remain #worlds #topselling #automaker Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Netflix Brings ‘Season Download’ Button to iPhone, iPad Users Netflix Brings ‘Season Download’ Button to iPhone, iPad Users Netflix on Wednesday announced it was introducing a button that would allow users to download an entire season with a single tap on its app for iPhone and iPad. The ‘Season Download’ button isn’t exactly new — it has been available on the Android version of the app for a while. Netflix users can tap the season download button to automatically download all episodes in that season to their mobile device, as long as they are subscribed to one of the platform’s ad-free or ad-supported plans. Netflix Season Download Button Was Previously Limited to Android Devices The streaming platform said in a post that it was updating the Netflix app for iPhone and iPad with a ‘Season Download’ button. Gadgets 360 was able to confirm that the new season download feature had rolled out to Netflix for iOS and iPad. It did not require a software update, which indicates that the new button is being enabled by a server-side switch. Netflix’s new button is visible on every TV show listing on the streaming platform, and it is located to the right of the Share button. Users can tap on the Download Season button, and the app will start downloading all the episodes in that season. It’s worth noting that there are some limitations to using the Season Download button. For example, users on an ad-free plan can have up to 100 downloads per device. Different plans offer varying limits on devices that can download content. Netflix also offers ad-supported plans in some regions (excluding India) and users who are subscribed to these plans have a more restrictive download limit — 15 episodes. As a result, these users might not be able to download an entire season of some TV shows, which include up to 23 episodes. The streaming platform also offers other features that are designed to make it easier for users to watch content offline. For example, if a user downloads a few episodes to watch offline, the Automatic Downloads feature can also keep upcoming episodes offline whenever the device is connected to a Wi-Fi network. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. PS Plus Monthly Games for February Announced; Sony to Shift Away From PS4 Titles on PS Plus in 2026 Source link #Netflix #Brings #Season #Download #Button #iPhone #iPad #Users Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows NEW DELHI (Reuters) – More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget. More than 37% of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014. C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey. Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years. Nearly two thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life. Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class. Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed. Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages. In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programmes have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on. (Reporting by Shivangi Acharya and Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Gareth Jones) Source link #Indians #losing #hope #improved #quality #life #Modi #survey #shows Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Dubai airport sees record 92.3 million passengers in 2024 Dubai airport sees record 92.3 million passengers in 2024 A record 92.3 million passengers travelled through Dubai’s international airport last year, its operator said on Thursday, underlining the Gulf city’s economic *****. The figure broke the previous high of 89.1 million in 2018, Dubai Airports said, despite regional tensions caused by the Gaza war and last April’s unprecedented floods which badly disrupted operations. The United Arab Emirates city, located between Asia, Europe and Africa, has now been ranked as the world’s busiest international air hub for a decade. In a statement, Dubai’s ruler and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum called the airport a “global success story” and said it was targeting 400 international destinations, up from 272 currently. Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said he was confident of breaching 100 million passengers by 2027. Dubai, now expecting competition from a major new airport being built in Riyadh, in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, is also planning a $35 billion expansion and relocation to Al Maktoum International, on the city’s outskirts. The trade, tourism and business centre is also witnessing record real-estate prices and soaring population growth, spurred by the UAE’s efforts to diversify its economy away from oil. th/kir Source link #Dubai #airport #sees #record #million #passengers Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Trump tasks SpaceX with rescuing 'stranded' NASA astronauts – The Jerusalem Post Trump tasks SpaceX with rescuing 'stranded' NASA astronauts – The Jerusalem Post Trump tasks SpaceX with rescuing ‘stranded’ NASA astronauts The Jerusalem PostTrump asks SpaceX to bring “abandoned” Starliner crew home, blames Biden administration for inaction CBS NewsTrump and Musk called for former Starliner astronauts to return ‘as soon as possible.’ Here’s what NASA planned. CNBCElon Musk Suggests SpaceX Will Accelerate Return of NASA Astronauts The New York Times Source link #Trump #tasks #SpaceX #rescuing #039stranded039 #NASA #astronauts #Jerusalem #Post Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content]

Dubai airport notches record 92.3m passengers in 2024 Dubai airport notches record 92.3m passengers in 2024 Officials say Dubai International Airport notched a record 92.3 million passengers in 2024. Source link #Dubai #airport #notches #record #92.3m #passengers Pelican News View the full article at [Hidden Content] For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]