Seven ways an offer can be terminated

Vladimir Putin is offering a tidy sum to any mum in Russia who can give birth to 10 children. Suffering a steep population decline , the president is hoping the £13,000 sum will encourage more Russian women to have huge families to address the country's population decline . The new decree was signed by Putin on Monday, August 15. It is a revival of the Soviet-era title of ‘Mother Heroine' brought in by dictator Joseph Stalin following the massive casualties Russia suffered in World War 2. Stalin also introduced the Order of Maternal Glory in third, second and first class. The first class went to mothers who had nine children, while third class went to those who had seven. Putin signed a decree giving mums of 10 children £13,000 ( Image: Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images) The mums will receive the payment when their 10th child reaches the age of one and they will only receive the cash if all of their children are still alive. Some exemptions apply if a child … [Read more...] about Vladimir Putin offers £13,000 to Russian mums who give birth to 10 children

A man was in fear for his life after a shocking accident saw him become stuck in an oily pit for a night. The 32-year-old fell in the pit when he was returning home from work in the Russian oil region of Tatarstan and was unable to get out. The man had to be rescued after becoming stuck for around seven hours in a pit full of bitumen. Remarkable footage showed the man up to his neck in oil, with only his head and hands exposed. It wasn't until dawn that a person heard his calls for help and the emergency services used a rope and hook to pull him out of the murky black swamp. Walking home turned into a dangerous task for the 32-year-old ( Image: bugulma_inform/east2west news) NTV reported: "When the victim realised that he would not be able to get out on his own, he began to call for help." The incident occurred in the town of Bugulma, which has a population of around 90,000. Tartarstan is an area rich in oil reserves and estimates in 2019 said around 3.4 … [Read more...] about Man gets stuck all night up to neck in oily pit after falling in on way home for work

Researchers from the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences claimed in a recently published study to have developed a gene-editing method that is allegedly “more efficient and safer” than established techniques because it uses the CRISPR gene-editing tool to target RNA instead of DNA, the South China Morning Post ( SCMP ) reported on Wednesday. Relaying the development on August 17, the Hong Kong-based newspaper wrote: Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the new tool uses CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technology – a natural defence mechanism that allows bacterial cells to detect and destroy the viruses that attack them and has become one of the most commonly used gene-editing techniques in recent years. The most widely used system employs CRISPR-associated protein-9 (Cas9), an enzyme that can cut the two strands of DNA in the genome to add or remove material. But the new approach uses the Cas13 enzyme, which targets … [Read more...] about China Claims to Have Developed ‘Safer’ Way to Edit Human Genes

HOUSTON — Dr. Amanda Horton, an obstetrician who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, had been counseling pregnant patients at a small hospital in rural Texas last month when a woman arrived in crisis: It was only 17 weeks into her pregnancy and her water had broken. The fetus would not be viable outside the womb, and without the protection of the amniotic sac, the woman was vulnerable to an infection that could threaten her life. In Colorado or Illinois, states where Dr. Horton also practices and where abortion is generally legal, there would have been an option to end her pregnancy. Texas has a ban on most abortions, providing an exception when a woman’s life is threatened. But the patient’s life in this case was not in immediate danger — yet. The hospital sent her home to wait for signs of infection or labor, Dr. Horton said. Worried and with nowhere else to turn, the woman instead traveled hundreds of miles to New Mexico for an abortion. “She ended up taking … [Read more...] about Women Face Risks as Doctors Struggle With Medical Exceptions on Abortion

In the evenings, when my particular piece of Earth has turned away from the Sun, and is exposed instead to the rest of the cosmos, I sit in front of a keyboard, log on, and seek out the windows that look down at the planets and out at the stars. It's a markedly different experience from looking at reproductions on paper. What I see is closer to the source. In fact, it's indistinguishable from the source. These are images that have never registered on a negative. Like the Internet itself, they are products of a digitized era. Over the past couple of years I've been monitoring the long rectangular strips of Martian surface being beamed across the void, in a steady stream of zeroes and ones, from the umbrella-shaped high-gain antenna of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. These pictures are so fresh that their immediacy practically crackles. Call it "chrono-clarity." That bluish wispy cloud, for example, hovering over the Hecates Tholus volcano, which rears above the pockmarked surface … [Read more...] about A Space in Time

A recent study published by PEN America found that legislative efforts toward censoring classroom curricula have increased by 250 percent over last year. PEN America, a nonprofit working to defend free expression, said the legislation is an effort to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history and LGBTQ+ identities in grades K-12 and in higher education. The study found that 36 states introduced 137 "educational gag order bills" this year, compared to 22 states introducing 54 bills in 2021. PEN America reported a year-over-year decline in passing the bills—seven have passed this year after 12 were passed last year. Legislation restricting education has passed in Florida twice, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota and Tennessee in 2022. The majority of these laws restricted education on race and U.S. history , but several have also restricted certain curricula on gender, identity and ethnicity and culture. The study also found bills proposed … [Read more...] about Campus censorship efforts up 250 percent since 2021: Study

For the benefit of transit passengers, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has set up sleeping pods at the arrival hall of the domestic terminal at Chennai airport. The facility “Sleepzo” has four bed-sized capsules near the baggage belt no. 1 and will help those who have to stay long to take their connecting flights get some sleep, according to a release. “The sleeping pod facility at Chennai Airport can be availed on an hourly basis and has amenities like reading lights, charging station, USB charger, luggage space, ambient light & blower control and a nice plush bed. Each capsule can accommodate one person (and kid, if under 12) offering full rest to the tired passenger,” the release said. … [Read more...] about Sleeping pods set up at Chennai airport

by JOSEPH WECHSBERG 1 THE claque at the Vienna Staatsopor was an exclusive group of forty innocent opera lovers with uncompromising ideas about good music and good singing. Joseph Schostal, the claque chef, a dignified man with black sideburns, high-toned principles, and great authority, who gave us free standing room admissions in the fourth gallery in return for applause, never failed to remind us of the claque’s “classical tradition.” I became a full-fledged member of the illustrious body in the twenties, when I studied music at the Vienna Conservatory. Every once in a while, Schostal called a meeting at his permanent headquarters, the back room of the Peterskeller, a traditionless beer cellar across from the Staatsoper, and over foam crowns of Gösserbräu reminisced about the history of the claque. The founder of the noble institution was the Great Schoentag, who commanded a social position in Kaiser Franz Josef’s Vienna before the turn of the century. Schoentag went out … [Read more...] about The Battle of the Claque

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California would have what proponents call the nation's most sweeping law to seal criminal records if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation sent to him Thursday by state legislators. The bill would automatically seal conviction and arrest records for most ex-offenders who are not convicted of another felony for four years after completing their sentences and any parole or probation. Records of arrests that don't bring convictions also would be sealed. It would take effect in July, and excludes those convicted of serious and violent felonies, and felonies requiring sex offender registration. Proponents say about 8 million Californians have a criminal or arrest record, or about one of every five state residents. A criminal record can trigger nearly 5,000 legal restrictions in California, many of which can limit job opportunities as well as the ability to get housing and educational opportunities, supporters said. They estimate that 70 million people … [Read more...] about California advances broadest US law sealing criminal records

As a boy, I watched the epochal photo exhibit "This Is the American Earth" come together in 1955 at Ansel Adams's studio in Yosemite Valley. Three years later, at the photographer's house in San Francisco, I witnessed the exhibit's transformation into a book. My vantage point in San Francisco was the edge of the big, image-strewn table where the book's layout was done. My strategy was to keep quiet. I remember the clarity of Adams's original prints. I can still see the gradations of his grays—no other darkroom maestro had his control of halftones—and the darkness of his darks. Of all the great black-and-white photographers, Ansel Adams was the blackest and the whitest. Those strong contrasts, his trademark, seem to have fixed themselves indelibly in my memory. I remember the creative electricity among the three collaborators: Adams; the exhibit designer Nancy Newhall, who wrote the text; and my father, David Brower , who edited the book. Adams was even then recognized as the … [Read more...] about Ansel Adams at 100