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Good evening. Here is the Wednesday, March 29 edition of Today in Slovakia - the main news of the day in less than five minutes. Skryť Turn off ads Article continues after video advertisement Skryť Turn off ads Article continues after video advertisement Try a sauna tent at Zlaté Piesky resort (Source: Courtesy of Slovak Sauna Community.) A sauna in a tent is something between a Finnish sauna and a steam sauna. It’s not too hot, the heat doesn’t drive you out of it, and thanks to a powerful stove with a huge reservoir of rocks, there’s amazing fine steam. The sauna tent is one of five outdoor saunas that the Slovak Sauna Community has constructed at Wakelike Beach at the Zlaté Piesky summer report. Skryť Turn off ads More stories on Spectator.sk TRAVEL: Meadows turn purple in central Slovakia's mountain saddle. These meadows are strewn with saffron . SCHOOL: Košice to get first … [Read more...] about News digest: One man’s mission to improve science in Slovakia

In 1980 an ecologist and an economist chose a refreshingly unacademic way to resolve their differences. They bet $1,000. Specifically, the bet was over the future price of five metals, but at stake was much more -- a view of the planet's ultimate limits, a vision of humanity's destiny. It was a bet between the Cassandra and the Dr. Pangloss of our era. They lead two intellectual schools -- sometimes called the Malthusians and the Cornucopians, sometimes simply the doomsters and the boomsters -- that use the latest in computer-generated graphs and foundation-generated funds to debate whether the world is getting better or going to the dogs. The argument has generally been as fruitless as it is old, since the two sides never seem to be looking at the same part of the world at the same time. Dr. Pangloss sees farm silos brimming with record harvests; Cassandra sees topsoil eroding and pesticide seeping into ground water. Dr. Pangloss sees people living longer; Cassandra sees rain … [Read more...] about Betting on the Planet

With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit , Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called “misleading” claims that Trump’s policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table. The North’s official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a “dangerous attempt” to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim’s summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in . At the summit, Kim agreed to a number of measures aimed at improving North-South ties and indicated he is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula, though exactly what that would entail and what conditions the North might require have not yet been explained. Trump and senior U.S. officials have suggested repeatedly that Washington’s tough policy toward North Korea, along with pressure on its main trading … [Read more...] about North Korea says U.S. ruining mood of detente ahead of Trump-Kim summit

Narcan, a prescription nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses, can now be sold over the counter, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday, authorizing a move long-sought by public health officials and treatment experts, who hope wider availability of the medicine will reduce the nation’s alarmingly high drug fatality rates. By late summer, over-the-counter Narcan, could be for sale in big-box chains, vending machines, supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations and even online retailers. The commissioner of the F.D.A., Dr. Robert M. Califf, said in a statement that the over-the-counter authorization was meant to address a “dire public health need.” “Today’s approval of OTC naloxone nasal spray will help improve access to naloxone, increase the number of locations where it’s available and help reduce opioid overdose deaths throughout the country. We encourage the manufacturer to make accessibility to the product a priority by making it available as soon as … [Read more...] about F.D.A. Approves Narcan for Over-the-Counter Sales

WASHINGTON — After the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2010, it created a review mechanism intended to prevent exorbitant increases in health insurance rates by shaming companies that sought them. But this summer, insurers are turning that process on its head, using it to highlight the reasons they are losing money under the health care law and their case for raising premiums in 2017. That has ignited an election-year fight between insurers and consumers, who are complaining bitterly about the double-digit increases being sought across the country. The conflicts have been on vivid display at hearings in states like Pennsylvania, where Highmark, one of the state’s largest insurers, has proposed rate increases averaging 41 percent. “The health of the citizens of Pennsylvania is worth more than the profits desired by health insurance companies,” Rose Lynd, 35, of Pittsburgh, testified at a hearing in Harrisburg held late last month by the Pennsylvania insurance … [Read more...] about Health Insurers Use Process Intended to Curb Rate Increases to Justify Them

On the morning of Oct. 5, President Bush and his education secretary, Margaret Spellings, paid a visit, along with camera crews from CNN and Fox News, to Friendship-Woodridge Elementary and Middle Campus, a charter public school in Washington. The president dropped in on two classrooms, where he asked the students, almost all of whom were African-American and poor, if they were planning to go to college. Every hand went up. “See, that’s a good sign,” the president told the students when they assembled later in the gym. “Going to college is an important goal for the future of the United States of America.” He singled out one student, a black eighth grader named Asia Goode, who came to Woodridge four years earlier reading “well below grade level.” But things had changed for Asia, according to the president. “Her teachers stayed after school to tutor her, and she caught up,” he said. “Asia is now an honors student. She loves reading, and she sings in the school choir.” Bush’s Woodridge … [Read more...] about What It Takes to Make a Student

I. A Broken Economy As Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic nomination this week, it is clear that the economic policies of the next president are going to be hugely important. Ever since Wall Street bankers were called back from their vacations last summer to deal with the convulsions in the mortgage market, the economy has been lurching from one crisis to the next. The International Monetary Fund has described the situation as “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression.” The details are too technical for most of us to understand. (They’re too technical for many bankers to understand, which is part of the problem.) But the root cause is simple enough. In some fundamental ways, the American economy has stopped working. The fact that the economy grows — that it produces more goods and services one year than it did in the previous one — no longer ensures that most families will benefit from its growth. For the first time on record, an economic expansion seems … [Read more...] about Obamanomics

One of the Republican Party’s most astute pols, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, recently reflected on his party’s status among voters. In a 20-page memo for his colleagues, Davis wrote, “If we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” Bad as things are, they may get worse. The signs of Republican trouble are everywhere. Eighty-one percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, the worst number since The New York Times and CBS started asking the question in 1991. Consumer sentiment in May, as measured by the University of Michigan, was at its lowest level in 28 years. Republicans have lost three consecutive special elections for House seats in rock-ribbed Republican districts, a particularly ominous harbinger of electoral catastrophe. Yet Democratic successes right now are driven more by Republican failures than by an enthusiastic public embrace of what Democrats stand for. The Democratic-controlled Congress, after all, has a lower approval rating … [Read more...] about Back to the Center

close Video Fox News Flash top headlines for March 29 Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Poland’s agriculture minister promised financial support from the government and the European Union and easier rules for constructing grain storage as he met Wednesday with farmers angered by falling grain prices. Farmers in Poland blame the drop in prices on the market glut from the inflow of huge amounts of Ukrainian produce that was supposed to go to Africa and the Middle East. Bulgarian farmers also staged a border protest Wednesday over the issue. Poland and other countries in the region have offered to help transit Ukraine grain to third country markets after Russia blocked traditional routes when it invaded Ukraine 13 months ago. The European Union, which borders Ukraine, has waived customs duties and import quotas to facilitate the transport — also through Romania and Bulgaria — to markets that had … [Read more...] about Poland promises relief as Ukrainian grain floods market, sinks prices

close Video Pentagon officials testify before Congress on the China threat Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports on Pentagon leaders detailing the growing threat from China. China is on a "disturbing" path to become militarily "superior" to the United States by mid-century, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley testified Wednesday, while warning that the United States probably would not be able to "stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict or destroy" China’s nuclear development program. Milley testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a hearing dedicated to the fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Department of Defense. US INTEL COMMUNITY WARNS OF 'COMPLEX' THREATS FROM CHINA, RUSSIA, NORTH KOREA During the hearing, Milley stressed that the United States needs to "outpace" China’s development, specifically their military … [Read more...] about China on ‘disturbing’ path to eclipse US military by mid-century, Milley warns