Seventh Circuit Vacates Sentence Because Government Failed to Meet Its Burden to Support Uncharged Drug Quantity Under Rule 32
Loaded on Aug. 9, 2022 by Douglas Ankney published in Criminal Legal News August, 2022, page 20
Filed under: Burden of Proof, Drugs - Determination of.
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit admonished that "sentencing proceedings are not a free-for-all" and vacated Edward Gibbs' sentence where the requirements of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 ("Rule 32") were not followed when determining the amount of methamphetamine ("meth") attributable to Gibbs for sentencing purposes.
Gibbs pleaded guilty to conspiring with intent to distribute "500 grams or more of a substance" containing meth in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). The charges stemmed from 0.839 kg of meth found in Gibbs' vehicle and from conspiracies with Hernany Quintana to purchase 0.907 kg of meth on two separate occasions for a total of a little more than 2.6 kg of meth (0.839 + 0.907 + 0.907 = 2.653 kg).
At the guilty plea hearing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney ("AUSA") asserted for the first time that the conspirators had distributed more than 4.5 kg of meth during the charged period. Gibbs refused to agree to that portion of AUSA's account and admitted only to his role with respect to the 500-gram quantity alleged in the indictment. Following the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana's acceptance of the guilty plea, the U.S. Probation Office prepared a Presentence Investigation Report ("PSIR") pursuant to Rule 32(c)(1)(A). The PSR described Gibbs' offense conduct to include the 0.839 kg of meth retrieved from his vehicle and the two unsuccessful conspiracies with Quintana to purchase 0.907 kg on two separate occasions. But the PSIR also stated, without any explanation, that "at least between October 1, 2017, and August 28, 2018, Quintana distributed over 4.5 kilograms of methamphetamine ice to members of the charged conspiracy."
Based on the assumption that the conspiracy involved 4.5 kg or more of meth, the PSR calculated an advisory Guidelines sentencing range of 235–239 months in prison. However, if Gibbs had been sentenced for a conspiracy involving 2.5 kg of meth, his Guidelines range would've been 188–235 months' imprisonment. Gibbs objected to the PSR's use of 4.5 kg, but the AUSA failed to respond with any evidence.
It wasn't until Gibbs' subsequent sentencing hearing that, for the first time, the AUSA attempted to provide a basis for the alleged conspiracy to distribute 4.5 kg of meth. The AUSA told the district court that Gibbs had admitted to receiving more than 36 pounds (roughly 16 kg) of meth from Quintana during an unrecorded proffer session in July 2019. This was the first time in the two-and-a-half-year history of the case that the Government asserted that Gibbs had confessed.
The AUSA had not personally attended that proffer session but claimed he had received this information from the prosecutor who had initially prosecuted the case and from the notes of a law enforcement officer who had allegedly attended the proffer session. But neither the prosecutor nor the officer was called to testify at the sentencing hearing, and the purported notes of the officer were never provided to the defense.
The AUSA then added that Quintana had also provided a proffer statement in which "he made at least 15 trips, receiving approximately 3 pounds of crystal methamphetamine for each trip." It was unclear from the transcript whether the "he" to which the AUSA referred was Quintana or Gibbs.
However, defense counsel objected, stating that he had personally attended the proffer session; that he had no recollection of Gibbs ever making any such confession; and that had Gibbs confessed to such a substantial amount of meth then it would have certainly been included in the sentencing memoranda from the defense and the Government.
The district court overruled Gibbs' objections to the drug quantity based on three reasons: (1) it accepted the AUSA's representations as evidence that Gibbs received 36 pounds of meth for distribution, (2) it noted that Gibbs' co-defendants had pleaded guilty to a conspiracy involving 4.5 kg or more of meth, and (3) the court attributed to Gibbs a statement to the effect that he had made 15 trips to Kansas and picked up 3 pounds of meth each time (even though that statement may, in fact, have been made by Quintana). Relying on its finding that Gibbs was involved in a conspiracy to distribute more than 4.5 kg of meth, the district court sentenced Gibbs to 200 months' imprisonment based upon the higher sentencing Guidelines range. Gibbs appealed.
The Seventh Circuit observed that "[u]ncharged drug quantities that 'foreseeably fall [ ] within the scope of jointly undertaken criminal activity' may be considered in assessing a defendant's relevant conduct and sentence." United States v. Bautista, 532 F.3d 667 (7th Cir. 2008). However, criminal defendants have a right to be sentenced on the basis of accurate information and the Government bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that uncharged drug quantities are attributable to the defendant. See United States v. Helding, 948 F.3d 864 (7th Cir. 2020). While district courts are permitted to consider evidence that would not be admissible at trial, United States v. Clark, 538 F.3d 803 (7th Cir. 2007), such evidence is required to be well-supported and reliable. United States v. Johnson, 489 F.3d 794 (7th Cir. 2007). These principles are enshrined in Rule 32, the Court stated.
Under Rule 32, the burden shifts to the government to prove any drug quantity associated with uncharged conduct. United States v. Noble, 367 F.3d 681 (7th Cir. 2004). The U.S. Probation Office is charged with preparing a PSIR that calculates the defendant's offense level and Guidelines range. Rule 32(c). The sentencing judge may rely on the PSIR if it is "well-supported and appears reliable." United States v. Marks, 864 F.3d 575 (7th Cir. 2017). If the PSIR meets the foregoing criteria, the burden shifts to the defendant to come "forward with facts demonstrating that the information in the PSIR is inaccurate or unreliable." Helding.
But if a PSIR "asserts nothing but a naked or unsupported charge," the Court stated that a defendant's denial is sufficient to "cast doubts on its accuracy." Helding. Likewise, if the PSIR "omits crucial information," then the defendant's denial alone can shift the burden of proof back to the government. United States v. Moreno-Padilla, 603 F.3d 802 (7th Cir. 2010). While a district court may accept an undisputed portion of the PSIR as fact under Rule 32(i)(3)(A), any portion of the PSR that is disputed and relevant to sentencing must be ruled upon by the court. Rule 32(i)(3)(B); see also Helding. "[W]here a district court relies on evidence that substantially increases drug quantity, it must take care in determining the accuracy of that evidence." Helding.
Turning to the present case, the Court stated that the PSIR and the district court's reliance on it did not satisfy the requirements of Rule 32 because "when contested facts are material to the judge's sentencing decision," Rule 32 requires the court to make factual findings based on evidence. United States v. Dean, 414 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2005). To do so, the court is required to determine whether the underlying facts used to by the government are true, the Court explained. Id. But the Court pointed out that the district court wasn't presented with any evidence backing up the AUSA's representations about what the evidence would show, so there was no evidence to resolve the dispute regarding the drug quantity.
At sentencing, the AUSA represented that he could call as a witness a law enforcement officer who was present when Gibbs allegedly confessed to the drug quantity and who had kept notes. But neither that officer nor the notes was ever produced. Ultimately, the only thing in the record was the AUSA's statement, which the Court declared is not "proof." Thus, without any evidence to substantiate the AUSA's statement regarding drug quantity, the Government failed to satisfy "its burden to prove the uncharged conduct by a preponderance of the evidence," the Court ruled.
The Court stated that since the PSIR attributed an unsupported drug quantity to Gibbs, his denial was sufficient to shift the burden back to the Government. See Helding. And the Court concluded that the Government failed to carry its burden to prove that the Guidelines error "did not affect the district court's selection of the sentence imposed." See United States v. Abbas, 560 F.3d 660 (7th Cir. 2009).
Finally, the Court instructed: "Although sentencing proceedings are more informal than trials, that does not mean they are a free-for-all." And when "the government fails to meet its burden to support uncharged drug quantities, 'the government is not permitted on remand to try again and submit new evidence in a belated effort to carry its burden.'" Noble. The government gets only one chance to present this evidence.
Thus, the Court ruled that Gibbs is entitled to be resentenced using the 188–235 months Guidelines range.
Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case for resentencing consistent with the Court's opinion. See: United States v. Gibbs, 26 F.4th 760 (7th Cir. 2022).
United States v. Gibbs
26 F.4th 760 (7th Cir. 2022)
Appeals Court Edition
F.4th
United States v. Helding
F.3d
United States v. Abbas
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Uber's carpooling saved China riders 120 trips around the earth in first 100 days
Michael de Waal-Montgomery@michaeldwm
Image Credit: Shutterstock / Lyu Hu
Just over three months ago, Uber launched its carpooling service, UberPool, in its single most important city in the world: Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan Province. In those first 100 days, Uber said it has saved commuters in the city nearly 4.8 million kilometres — or the equivalent of going 120 times around the earth.
All those saved rides help to free up roads and reduce congestion, but there is another obvious benefit: Uber said it cut 885 tons of CO2 emissions by helping commuters traveling along the same routes share rides, instead of taking their own individual Ubers.
The emissions savings is something that anyone who has been to one of China's major cities should be glad to hear about– China has among the worst levels of air pollution anywhere in the world.
In truth, 885 tons is nothing to shout about in the grand scheme of things. Emissions from the global shipping industry, for example, are said to amount to around 1 billion tons per year. But cars and trucks still account for nearly one-fifth of all emissions in the U.S., and those numbers are likely even higher in fast-growing countries like China.
Remember, this is just one city (albeit China's fourth-largest, with a population of more than 14 million). The numbers really start to add up when accumulated across hundreds of cities around the world, especially if you take into account huge emerging markets like India.
Uber said its carpooling service, known as "People's Uber+" in China, averaged about 36,000 requests per day in Chengdu. That's a big number, and doesn't include its other services. By comparison, the total rides delivered per day across all of Uber's services in New York City stand at about 82,000, as of May. While Uber is already in 340 cities globally, UberPool is in just 12.
In general, Uber continues to face a tough fight to steal and hold market share in China. Just yesterday, news broke that it may have a new (smaller) rival in the country. Private-car service Yidao Yongche is said to be raising $700 million, which would value it at over $1 billion.
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A Wanted Man
Child, Lee.
Format: Eaudiobook
Description: 1 sound file (14 hr., 12 min.) : digital.
Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don't add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia. An hour behind them, a man lies stabbed to death in an old pumping station. He was seen going in with two others, but he never came out. He has been executed, the knife work professional, the killers vanished. Within minutes, the police are notified. Within hours, the FBI descends, laying claim to the victim without ever saying who he was or why he was there. All Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia. All he did was stick out his thumb. But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride. He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy that makes him a threat--to both sides at once.
Series: Child, Lee. Jack Reacher novel (Books on Tape, Inc.)
Hill, Dick.
Reacher, Jack (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.
ISBN: 9780307749635 (electronic audio bk.)
Main (Downtown) In
Main (Downtown) Out (Due: 1/16/2021)
Duration: 14:12:00.
Electronic resource.
Read by Dick Hill.
Requires OverDrive Media Console (WMA file size: 204073 KB).
More By Child, Lee.
Three Jack Reacher novellas
Child, Lee, author, narrator.
The affair : [a Reacher novel]
Die trying : a Jack Reacher novel
The enemy : a Jack Reacher novel
Persuader
Nothing to lose : a Jack Reacher novel


All eyes on popstar Rosalia at extravagant Louis Vuitton show
Show Louis Vuitton menswear FW23, Credit: Launchmetrics, Spotlight
Pop superstar Rosalia grabbed all the attention at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris on Thursday, almost to the point of distracting from the clothes.
The French label spared no expense for the most anticipated show of menswear fashion week, with a vast hangar constructed alongside the Louvre, containing a stage made up like an open-plan house for the models to saunter through.
But the audience struggled to keep their eyes off the Spanish star, who delivered a blistering set of flamenco, rap and pop while parading around the set, lounging in its bed and clambering on top of a car.
Louis Vuitton is still searching for a successor to designer Virgil Abloh, who died aged just 41 from cancer in late 2021.
Thursday's show was given over to a collective, including Colm Dillane, the wunderkind behind hot new brand Kidsuper, and Ibrahim Kamara from Abloh's own label Off-White.
Guests, who included singers J-Balvin and BTS's J-Hope, were given a movie clapper-board for their invitation, and the show was kickstarted by a short film co-directed by Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind").
Somewhere among all this showbiz were some clothes, and those who were able to pay attention got a rich and colourful collection, ranging from high-fashion pieces that evoked the label's recent tie-up with Japanese polka-dot artist Yayoi Kusama, glittering jackets, huge puffy versions of its iconic bags, and a hat-and-suit combo that seemed to be made from sheets of writing paper.
A few names are circulating to succeed Abloh, including Grace Wales Bonner, a Brit who gave a strong showing with her first physical show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.
But Louis Vuitton seems happy to ride the wave created by Abloh, a former Kanye West collaborator who brought an uber-cool edge of US street culture to the fabled French house.
"Abloh put a very strong spotlight on the Vuitton men's streetwear universe," Arnaud Cadart, of PR firm Flornoy Ferri, told AFP.
"Vuitton can afford to continue on this path as long as there isn't a challenger who jostles them."
"They don't urgently need a replacement," agreed Benjamin Simmenauer, a professor at the French Fashion Institute.
"We haven't forgotten Virgil Abloh -- we continue to celebrate him, which is rare in the world of fashion where everything goes extremely fast," he said.(AFP)


Obama's inner circle seen as awkward fit for Flournoy
Former frontrunner for top Defense job could be holding out for a Clinton administration
Michele Flournoy
Witnesses testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 14, 2010, about U.S. policy toward Iran's nuclear program are, from left to right: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, Undersecretary of State for ... more >
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Passing muster in President's Obama's protective inner circle could have been daunting for Michele Flournoy, whose ranking as defense secretary frontrunner collapsed in 24 hours.
For one, the think tank Mrs. Flournoy founded in 2007 harshly criticized Mr. Obama's Pentagon budgets a few months after she left the Defense Department in 2012 as its undersecretary for policy.
But perhaps more pointedly, she signed onto an independent panel's assessment in July that said Mr. Obama's four-year plan for the military, known as the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is too weak and should be rewritten.
Mrs. Flournoy let it be known soon after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his resignation on Monday that she did not want to be considered as his successor.
A source familiar with her thinking said she bowed out for family obligations.
Speculation inside the Pentagon is that she is waiting for a chance at the job from a President Hillary Clinton, with whom she has close ties. Being a new defense secretary in a new administration has its advantages over finishing Mr. Hagel's two years with a White House guard that did not like the current secretary's internal criticism of Syrian policy.
"We are better served with her at the start of an administration," a military officer at the Pentagon said.
Mrs. Flournoy, and fellow Democratic Party loyalist Kurt Campbell, rolled out their new think tank in 2007. And who was there prominently to deliver the keynote address: then-Sen. Clinton, who went on to become secretary of state.
"Hillary Clinton and Michelle Flournoy have spent a lot of time together in the White House Situation Room," said P.J. Crowley, who was Mrs. Clinton spokesman at the State Department. "They know each other well and share a mutual admiration. Given her strategic mind, I believe she would be an outstanding secretary of defense."
Mrs. Flournoy is back at the Center for a New American Security as its chief executive officer.
She initially returned to CNAS from the Pentagon in February 2012 as a member of the board of directors. That May, the center issued a tough-talking paper on the drawbacks of Mr. Obama's defense budget — a plan she helped write on the inside.
"The Pentagon still has not enacted the types of reforms that we believe are necessary to sustain U.S. military pre-eminence into the future," said the report, "Sustainable Pre-Eminence: Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change," written by four think-tank scholars.
"Too many [Department of Defense] structures, processes, programs and operational concepts are legacies of the past, which create unnecessary redundancies, waste valuable resources and encourage unproductive competition among the services, rather than cooperation. These practices are no longer acceptable in the current fiscal environment."
The scholars, including a retired three-star Army general, called for slashing buys of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps F-35 multi-role fighter.
A spokesperson at the time said the report, which carried the center's banner, represented the views of the four authors.
Mrs. Flournoy had a more direct role in another study that took apart Mr. Obama's and Mr. Hagel's four-year military plans.
She sat on the independent 10-member National Defense Panel, a group of ex-military officers, politicians and civilian policy makers appointed by the Pentagon and Congress to review the 2014 QDR. The QDR sets the military's overall structure of troops and weapons based on global threats.
The panel called Mr. Obama's force structure "inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment."
More broadly, the panel said Mr. Obama should retract the QDR's overriding theme which reduced the military's global capacity from being able to defeat two enemies nearly simultaneously to defeating one and denying the objectives of a second.
"The international security environment has deteriorated since then," the report said in July. "In the current threat environment, America could plausibly be called upon to deter or fight in any number of regions in overlapping time frames."


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Kentucky SEC
Calipari signs $86 million, 10-year extension with Kentucky
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky coach John Calipari has signed a 10-year contract extension through 2029 worth $86 million that includes an option in the sixth year to step down and become a special assistant to the athletic director or university representative.
The 60-year-old Calipari and the school previously announced an agreement to a long-term deal in April. The 11th-year coach will earn $8 million each of the next two seasons before his salary increases to $8.5 million annually in 2021 and $9 million annually in 2025. Beginning with the 2024-25 season, Calipari has the option to step down and into the university position that will pay $950,000 annually.
The Hall of Fame coach is 305-71 at Kentucky and won the 2012 NCAA championship among four Final Four appearances. Calipari thanked AD Mitch Barnhart and others in a release on Thursday and added, "There is no other place I want to be."


< Back to Gallery
Hunting Owl
Springstone (Serpentine)
67cm (h)
42cm (w)
23cm (d)
John Takawira
The owl was a frequent choice of inspiration for John, as it symbolises wisdom. This powerful bird glares out, as if challenging the viewer to disagree. The mournful face of its prey peeps out from under its talons.
This is a genuine work by John Takawira from 1988, and has the key elements sought by a collector of his work – the intelligent use of the rough surface of the raw stone, the cultural and spiritual significance of the subject matter, and the substantial form and presence of the work.
It is accompanied by full documentation from the original gallery in Zimbabwe.
Works by either John or his brother Bernard Takawira are very rare on the secondary market. This piece has his characteristic feather-like touch – the majority of the sculpture comes from the texture and form of the raw material and his chisel made superficial marks that release the sculpture within, that suddenly reveals itself to the viewer, while Takawira saw it all along.
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/The Causes and Effects of the...
The Causes and Effects of the French Revolution
Essay by Jaspreet Kaur • April 26, 2018 • Essay • 599 Words (3 Pages) • 457 Views
Essay Preview: The Causes and Effects of the French Revolution
The French Revolution was a very impactful revolution. The French Revolution was caused by the French people having major doubts in the hierarchy due to the ideas in the Enlightenment. The French Revolution made a huge impact on France and the rest of the world.
The French Revolution was caused by many problems in France. New ideas inspired the French to want a better government. Due to wars like the War of 27 years, War of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Polish succession, France spent a large sum of money on war (Hickman, Kennedy). The monarchs of France also tended to live in a luxurious manner which cost a large amount of money. Top of these financial problems France had a imperfect harvest. Thus, the poor people, the commoners, were paying a large amount of taxes and going hungry due to a lack of food. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the monarchs at the start of the revolution. King Louis XVI was aware of the hunger problem in France but continued to live a luxurious life with his wife. Louis XVI even dismissed the reform that financial ministers tried to bring about, that would have benefited the starving French people. Therefore, the luxurious life lead by the monarchs, the expensive wars France had engaged in, and the imperfect harvests had caused a large reason for the people of France to rise (Spooner, Anna).
Also to the political and financial problems in France, the social classes of France were not equal or fair. Before the French Revolution there were three social classes in France, these social classes were a major cause of the revolution. Above all of the social classes in France was the king, who was believed to be chosen by god. The other highest social class in France was the clergy. The clergy worked for the church, owned 10% of the land, and made up 1% of the population. The nobles were the wealthy landowners who made up 2% of the population and owned 25% of the land. The commoners were the lowest of the social classes in France (Schwartz and O'Connor 11) The commoners made up 98% of the population, owned 65% of the land, and paid 100% of the taxes (Jackson J. Spielvogel 14). This lack of balance combined with the financial state of France lead to the French people rising against the government that they began to doubt. Another cause of the French Revolution was the influence of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. The success of the American Revolution evoked some thought from the French people who were unhappy with the state of the France (Spooner, Anna). The Enlightenment was also another cause of the French Revolution. The Enlightenment was a philosophical period during the 1700s and 1800s where ideas like reason, liberty, and the scientific method were talked about in different pieces of work by philosophers. The Enlightenment ideas like Rousseau's Social Contract
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The View from the Trenches
Published by the Cal Alumni Association
Search California Magazine
A discussion with Berkeley public health experts two years into the pandemic
by Glen Martin and Photos by Marcus Hanschen
Two years into the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 continues to defy predictions. At the date of this writing, the Omicron variant—as contagious as ultra-transmissible viruses such as measles, if somewhat less severe than earlier COVID variants—continues to spread rapidly. While the surge appears to be ebbing in some areas of the United States, hospitalizations remain high and, nationally, about 2,500 deaths are reported daily.
While the pandemic has affected every sector of society, none have been under more pressure than those in medicine and public health. Practitioners have endured high risk of infection and long shifts under crisis circumstances while public health authorities, as the bearers of bad news and champions of often unwelcome measures, have had to withstand denunciations and even death threats.
So how, we wondered, are epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists holding up, and what are they thinking at this point in the planet's most serious infectious disease outbreak since the influenza of 1918? To find out, California contributor Glen Martin talked via Zoom with three of Berkeley's leading public health experts: Arthur Reingold, professor of epidemiology; Lee Riley, professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases; and John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus in infectious diseases and vaccinology.
This pandemic has been long and arduous for everyone and, given your professions, you've been in the thick of it. In some ways, your role seems analogous to that of career military officers during wartime. What has the experience been like for you?
Reingold: If you use that analogy of a career military officer, your reaction would depend on whether you're 35 and at the beginning of your career or 65 and near the end. For someone who was sort of hoping to glide into oblivion, well, it's kept me busier than I thought I would be at this stage of life.
Swartzberg: It's been a full-time job, and it's been both exhilarating and depressing. You know, our careers have been bookended by public health crises. The first was in the early '80s, with HIV. And now my career appears to be concluding with SARS-CoV-2.
Can you characterize the differences between those two health crises—AIDS and COVID-19?
Reingold: Well, obviously, for HIV there's a very long incubation or latency period. AIDS takes years to develop, while it's a matter of days with COVID, so things unfold in a very different time frame. Clearly, the public health response to COVID has been more rapid.
Swartzberg: But interestingly, public health in general was a more robust institution [at the advent of the HIV epidemic].
Reingold: Quite right. Over the past 20 years, there has been a steady erosion in the capabilities of state and local health departments.
Swartzberg: But there were similarities in the political response. Reagan wouldn't even mention the acronym AIDS until his second term. And now we've seen this bizarre politicization of an infectious disease that defies all rational thinking. COVID came at a time when our society was already split, and [the virus] has just aggravated that to no end and for no good reason.
And psychologically for me, as a clinician, AIDS and COVID have been very different. I was a lot younger during the AIDS epidemic, and while there are real stresses when you're taking care of patients, it didn't feel very threatening to me personally. I felt more invincible than I do now in my mid-seventies. Now, I wonder every time I go out the door, "Am I going to get infected today?"
Dr. Anthony Fauci has endured ongoing ad hominem attacks and even death threats throughout the pandemic, and other public health officials have also been harassed and threatened. Could you share any thoughts on that, and have you encountered similar abuse?
Riley: It's really sad to see that kind of animosity, but I think it's a small segment of the U.S. population that's responding this way. I haven't experienced any hostility, but I know some of my colleagues have had issues.
Swartzberg: I've gotten maybe a dozen or so emails that were threatening—some very threatening. Some were anti-Semitic. That's been about the extent of it.
Reingold: The only thing I've faced along those lines was about 15 years ago. I had a brilliant student who firmly believed vaccines cause autism, and he took great exception to my views to the contrary. He was in fact manic-depressive and unmedicated. He had a psychotic break, and he went to my office during office hours with a large hammer, presumably intending me bodily harm. The one mistake he made was assuming a Berkeley professor would be in his office during office hours. [Laughs.] I happened to have been in Geneva. I like to say it's one of the few times that a meeting in Geneva saved a life.
So, no, I've never experienced anything like what my colleagues in local public health have experienced, which is very upsetting. Unlike the guy who intended me harm, most people protesting outside officials' homes or sending threatening emails don't have a psychiatric diagnosis; they just have a very different understanding of life than I do.
Have you arrived at any kind of sympathy for, or understanding of, that worldview?
Reingold: The quick answer is "no."
The virus itself has considerable say in this. It is selecting and will continue to select unvaccinated people."
Lee riley
Swartzberg: For years, I've taught a class on vaccine hesitancy in which we try to wrap our heads around it. We have people like Art and Lee as guest lecturers. We have anthropologists, philosophers, English professors, and really, the whole university community coming at it from multiple directions. And after several years of teaching this class, it's still a very tough nut to crack. And I think that's because there are multiple reasons people have for resisting vaccines.
Riley: There has always been a certain resistance to vaccines and modern medicine generally, but I think it's really been exacerbated by social media. Before we had the internet, you couldn't disseminate misinformation at anything close to the current scale. To really be responsive to these kinds of pandemics, we need to change the culture. I'm not advocating an autocratic government to enforce policy, of course, but you can't just be completely individualistic. You have to be mindful of other people. Individualism is good in certain situations, but in terms of pandemics and public health, it can result in widespread infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
But the virus itself has considerable say in this. It is selecting and will continue to select unvaccinated people.
Reingold: One of the things I've found particularly distressing is debates I've had with [some members of] the California Nurses Association around mandatory influenza vaccination for health care providers. Many nurses violently object to mandatory vaccination. My point is that education is not the only issue. It may be part of the issue, but in terms of the general population, we are never going to achieve a higher level of biological and medical education than exists among nurses. Yet many remain adamantly opposed. I can argue with them until I'm blue in the face, and it doesn't change anything. I find that really depressing.
Arthur Reingold
One achievement from this pandemic has been the rapid development and deployment of effective mRNA vaccines. How significant is that?
Riley: It's the biggest development in vaccines we've seen in a very long time, although it didn't start with SARS-CoV-2. An mRNA vaccine had been developed against Ebola during the last big outbreak, in fact, but by the time they were ready to do clinical trials, [the epidemic] had largely disappeared, so they could never demonstrate efficacy. But our experience with the COVID vaccines shows they're safe and highly effective.
Reingold: It may well revolutionize vaccine production, and I hope that people resisting the COVID vaccines will lose their fear because at the moment, some say the reason they're afraid of them is because they're produced by "new" technology.
Swartzberg: The most important advance in the biological sciences in many years is CRISPR, but I'd put mRNA vaccines right up there. We've been working [with mRNA vaccines] for quite a long time, and it was fortuitous that it all came to fruition at the same time as the pandemic. There was a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine [which could include cold viruses] with mRNA technology. And what about a pan-influenza vaccine? Both possibilities are very realistic, and people are working on them right now. So, yes, it is huge.
Riley: And there are many other mRNA vaccines we're thinking about, including one for urinary tract infections, which currently is the most common bacterial infection among women. One thing with the COVID pandemic and mRNA vaccines: We somehow got focused on the concept that two doses would be all we needed. And there was some confusion and maybe resentment when the booster was recommended later. I think we're going to have to approach this as we do influenza. It's likely we'll need to be vaccinated annually, or maybe even semi-annually. It all depends on the severity of the epidemic. That's going to be the norm, I think, and we're just going to have to accept the concept that there's not going to be any "right" vaccine dose.
One of the things they teach in medical school is that you are not the patient—you need to maintain a certain emotional distance to treat serious illnesses and injuries. Has that concept applied to your experience with this pandemic?
Reingold: Well, I left clinical medicine after finishing my residency and went into public health because I just found clinical medicine too depressing. Treating a 35-year-old woman dying of breast cancer, or a 16-year-old boy with lymphoma—it was just very difficult emotionally, and I was far more comfortable in public health and prevention, where we're operating at population levels.
Riley: Like Art, I'm in public health rather than the clinical side these days, and I haven't seen patients in many years. But even those of us in research and teaching have seen some burnout, particularly among the older faculty. Some of us are reluctant to accommodate in-person teaching, either due to personal concerns or concern for the health of family members. There's also the frustration caused by not being able to teach in-person because that's our profession; it's something we take pride in and enjoy.
I also run a laboratory research group, and the shutdowns and gradual reopenings have been very stressful for my students. Their work and research have really been set back by all of this. These people need to graduate and get their Ph.D.s, and get out there and work, and the pandemic has hindered all that and put a great deal of strain on them.
For that matter, I've been stressed by the supply chain impacts the pandemic has imposed. It now takes many months just to obtain simple things we need for research.
Swartzberg: Having had a foot in both sides, public health and clinical medicine, I'm glad I'm in public health right now. As Art says, it's more comfortable to sit back and think about things rather than confront the crisis directly on a day-to-day basis.
John Swartzberg
Has the pandemic taught us any lessons that will make our public health response stronger going forward?
Swartzberg: We've clearly learned that we've underfunded public health for too long. We need to stop thinking in terms of five-year packages for our public health infrastructure and demand robust funding on a continual basis. We can't afford short-term thinking, given we're dealing with SARS-CoV-2 now, and could very well face SARS-CoV-3, or -4, or -28, or -35, and so on. And there are some influenzas that are also a threat. So, I hope we come away with the fundamental message that strong public health support must be a fundamental part of not just American society, but global society.
"I'd say our science has accelerated 10 years beyond where we would be without COVID. So, I think that's the good news."
John swartzerg
Reingold: I would say I do think the pandemic will accelerate and augment some improvements to public health infrastructure, particularly on the technology end—better computers and so forth. And I think that's to the good, but unlike many countries, health care is primarily a state rather than a federal matter in the United States, and we're going to continue to be a very fractured country in that regard. I don't see much interest in many states, including California, in funding health care at a robust and ongoing level. So I don't know how that will turn out.
Swartzberg: On the other hand, we're also seeing what's been termed the Fauci effect: Medical school applications are way up, and applicants are expressing a tremendous interest in public health. A lot of people want to matriculate into public health, so there's certainly a growing societal awareness of its importance.
Riley: We've had a huge increase in the number of applicants to our infectious disease Ph.D. program—I think it's doubled over the last year.
Reingold: As is true with every disease, with a few exceptions, COVID has clearly pointed to the social class disparities in health care and health outcomes. Often that appears in the form of race and ethnicity, but it remains largely a question of economics and social class in the absence of a national health care system. And I don't think that's going to be fixed anytime soon, frankly.
Swartzberg: I'm going to put a positive spin here: I think COVID has accelerated our basic knowledge about biological sciences in general and infectious diseases in particular. Just guessing, I'd say our science has accelerated 10 years beyond where we would be without COVID. So, I think that's the good news.
How concerned are you that a virus worse than SARS-CoV-2 could be coming down the pike? And how ready are we socially and medically for something like that?
Riley: I think COVID is a wake-up call for the whole world. This is the third coronavirus pandemic that we've seen in this century—and obviously, this isn't going to be the last one. But until recently, we weren't really worried much about coronaviruses. The first one, I think, was discovered in the 1960s, and they were typically associated with common colds and mild respiratory illnesses. But SARS, in 2003, came out of the blue—no one expected a coronavirus to do anything like that. And then it disappeared on its own after six months. We know these viruses circulate in animal reservoirs, and as we encroach on wild habitats, people can get infected, and you can eventually get something that's transmitted person-to-person. And if it's a highly virulent virus, you can get a pandemic along the lines of what we're seeing now—or worse.
Reingold: So if "it" turns out to be something like smallpox or Ebola, are we in trouble? Yes. Or if you have [a coronavirus] as equally transmissible as SARS-CoV-2 but instead of causing a tiny fraction of the people to become sick or die, it's more like 30 percent, then sure, it's going to be very serious. But anyone who says they can predict when something like that is going to happen—they're just guessing. I don't care if they're a Nobel Prize–winning biologist or animal ecologist or epidemiologist or infectious disease specialist, it's all a guess.
Swartzberg: But we should absolutely plan for it.
Reingold: I agree with that.
Swartzberg: From my perspective, we were all born in a very blessed time in human history. From the earliest civilizations, there were endemic diseases that were killing people right and left, all the time. But the world we've lived in for the past few generations has been far safer. And perhaps it will turn out that this has been the exception. Maybe the future will be more like the world we lived in before modern medicine, including vaccines. I know it's anathema to think that, but it could be the case.
You mentioned the importance of better funding for public health, but what does that look like? What can we do with more money?
Reingold: Some of it is just about having the appropriate number of people with appropriate training and paying them salaries that are reliable and competitive. You have to think about the needs at the state and local levels. Some of it is maintenance, some of it is better technology and better communication. And it's also about consistency—just ensuring that state and local infrastructure is reliable, that it's going to always be there.
Swartzberg: I agree, and I'd just double underline "consistency." It doesn't do any good to just fund a five-year program. You need to have people in positions who understand the system, and you need to have them long term: people who've had 20 years of experience, so they understand what to do when the next pandemic hits. You can't depend on filling in with new hires when there's a crisis.
Riley: When I worked at the Centers for Disease Control, I was in a program that was essentially an intelligence service. We were sent out to investigate outbreaks. I was sent out all over the world, part of a tiny army of people who do that kind of work. I think it's time we greatly expanded that program, including domestically. We need this kind of resource at the state level, not just the federal level. I think this pandemic reveals that our current public health system is totally ineffective—but we now have the opportunity to do something about it.
In a more positive light, I think the CDC will regain its reputation at some point. In the past, the CDC was highly respected and recognized as an important public health organization by a large segment of the U.S. population. They did a very good job with the 2001 anthrax scare and the emergence of the Zika virus, for example. Sometimes the problem is that when there's nothing going on, the CDC and other public health organizations are invisible, but the reason they're invisible is because they're doing their jobs. Then when something happens, the response can be negative.
Reingold: A really fundamental problem is that there is no political support—or even support in the general population—to empower public health to do the important and necessary things that would allow it to effectively address or avoid pandemics.
And does that imply ensuring that government has the power to enforce mandates?
Reingold: Mandates are part of it. There are other ways to get things done, but at the end of the day, public health is intrinsically political, and laws and enforcement are a part of that entire process. Thankfully, SARS-CoV-2 is not preferentially killing young adults and children. But do you think the response would be radically different if that were the case?
My friends in gerontology and geriatrics have a real concern about ageism with this pandemic–the attitude that, "You're old and we really don't care if you die or not."
Swartzberg: You know, I spoke to some young people recently. They were in their late teens, and their take was this doesn't seem so serious, let's just get it and get it over with. And that struck me as analogous to our approach as a nation—that as long as we're protected, as long as we're vaccinated and get the number of infections down, we're okay. And we're seeing that somewhat selfish approach to the pandemic breaking along age differentials as well. They're wondering why they should curtail things they want to do to protect other people. It points to still another fracture line in our society, this one based on age.
Reingold: My friends in gerontology and geriatrics have a real concern about ageism with this pandemic—the attitude that, "You're old and we really don't care if you die or not," or, "Too bad for you, you've had a good life, so get over it." And that outrages my friends, who are committed to taking care of all people of all ages. You know, this country mobilized itself to get rid of polio because there were children paralyzed and in iron lungs. But the fact is that only 1 in 200 children infected with the poliovirus developed paralysis. The other 199 were either asymptomatic or had very mild or limited illnesses. But we went to a great deal of trouble to prevent those incredibly uncommon but very serious illnesses because they were horrible, and we weren't willing to say, "Well, let's just let the poliovirus rip through the population and get it over with."
Glen Martin is a longtime contributor to California.
Smooth Sailing? A Public Health Expert Is Hopeful About the Vaccine Rollout
California periodically touches base on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley Public Health Clinical Professor Emeritus and an international authority on infectious diseases and vaccinology. In October, Dr. Swartzberg was hopeful that forthcoming vaccines would be at least 70 percent effective; as it turned out, they far surpassed that figure, with both […]
Image source: The Spanish Influenza. Emergency military hospital during influenza epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas, United States. // Creative Commons
How Will it End? A Q&A on Pandemics, Past and Present
Health and medicine historian Elena Conis puts coronavirus into perspective. Elena Conis is a historian of U.S. public health and medicine, with a special focus on the history of infectious disease, environmental health, and vaccines. She is also the director of the joint graduate program in public health and journalism at Berkeley. The current COVID-19 […]
As the Pandemic Rages on, a Conversation about Stress and Coping
California Surgeon General and Berkeley alumna, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, talks long-term health impacts of the pandemic. As California's first-ever surgeon general, how do you hope to shape the position? Dr. Nadine Burke Harris: Governor Newsom established the position of California Surgeon General with the understanding that some of the most pernicious, but least-addressed health […]


Cheerleaders at Arkansas high school under fire for 'Make America Great Again' banner
Hope Schreiber
Yahoo Lifestyle September 16, 2019
A public school in Arkansas is under fire after cheerleaders held a sign that read, "Make America Great Again, Trump the Leopards" during a football game against a school with a high percentage of black students. (Photo: Twitter)
A public high school in Arkansas is under fire after cheerleaders lifted a banner at a football game that read, "Make America Great Again."
On Friday, cheerleaders from Lake Hamilton High School in Pearcy, Ark., displayed a banner featuring President Donald Trump's campaign slogan with the words "Trump the Leopards" at a football game against Malvern High School.
According to State Sen. Joyce Elliott, who tweeted an image of the poster on Saturday, the sign was "totally inappropriate" for a public school.
Related Video: NC Cheerleaders on Probation After Posing With Trump Sign
"We are all entitled to our politics of choice but not to using public entities to advance our politics," the senator wrote.
If this is a public school, this is totally inappropriate. If it's a private school, it's poor judgment. We are all entitled to our politics of choice but not to using public entities to advance our politics. pic.twitter.com/sOUrapPIkT
— Joyce Elliott (@xjelliott) September 15, 2019
Hours later, State Rep. Aaron Pilkington responded to Elliott's tweet, telling her to "chill out."
"It's a play on words," Pilkington wrote. "God forbid kids use political slogans to make a joke about beating a team in football."
Chill out, it's funny. It's a play on words. God forbid kids use political slogans to make a joke about beating a team in football 🙄 https://t.co/pATGyzuUN5
— Rep. Aaron Pilkington (@pilkingtonforar) September 15, 2019
While Pilkington regards the banner as a joke, others in the Malvern community believe the message to be racially-motivated, as Trump's campaign slogan is considered racist-coded language by some critics.
"Lake Hamilton this is not a good look, the bad part is that you went to a majority African American/Hispanic School District with this," one person wrote on Facebook.
Another commented: "Lake Hamilton High tried to be slick and use a play on words to support their team. It would've flown under the radar if this game was at Lake Hamilton. But they did it in MALVERN for a reason because of the demographics in that city and school. It was a low underbelly political message."
According to the Arkansas ADE Data Center, Malvern High School's student body is more than 30 percent black, while 3.4 percent of Lake Hamilton High School's student body is black.
While Lake Hamilton School District did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle's requests for comment, the following statement was provided to KFSM: "The Lake Hamilton School District believes that all school activities should be conducted in an environment where good sportsmanship and respect are shown. The banner displayed at the football game this past Friday was not intended to make a political statement or endorsement. The district has taken steps to ensure that all future banners do not mention or reference political or controversial issues."
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#racist
#pearcy,-arkansas
#racism
#aaron-pilkington
#donald-trump
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#lake-hamilton-school-district
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Terry Crews Criticized For 'AGT' Comments Referring To Gabrielle Union's Ouster


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Governor's Prayer Breakfast featured Basketball "Royalty"
Posted by Capital Living in News
50th Governor's Prayer Breakfast, AcoUstiKats, Clark Davis, Coach Calipari, Frankfort, Frankfort Convention Center, Governor, Governor Matt Bevin, Govnernor's Prayer Breakfast, John Calipari, Kentucky, Matt Bevin, Miss Kentucky, Miss Kentucky Clark Davis, My Old Kentucky Home, Nerlens Noel, Prayer Breakfast, UK, University of Kentucky
The 50th Governor's Prayer Breakfast brought out hundreds and some basketball heavyweights too! On Tuesday morning, hundreds filed into the Frankfort Convention Center to celebrate their respective faith under one roof. Breakfast was fixed for nearly 1,000 people. The convention center floor maxed out with tables and chairs with a waiting list of 25 more tables desired! The general public was also invited to participate in this momentous event. This was Governor Matt Bevin's first time out in leading this annual worship service. The nondenominational faith based breakfast is a chance for all to come together and worship under the same principles with propelled our nation to it's freedom.
Many may have come to see the guest speaker, some highfalutin men's college basketball coach from some nearby nationally recognized athletic program from Lexington. We'd hardly heard of the man until this day. Perhaps you've heard of him? Coach John Calipari was the gust speaker at this year's event. He opened up with a great one-liner that had everyone in the room going. He said, "I'm going to try to give you more time than I coached that last game," a reference to his quick ejection from the Wildcats game Saturday at South Carolina. He went on talk about why he attends services on a regular basis, "Because I'm a sinner". Driving home the fact that, no matter how much money you make or what background you come from, we are all human and make our fair share of mistakes.
Calipari was inspiring as he pointed out former UK player Nerlens Noel in the audience, who now plays for the Philadelphia 76ers. He believes in treated each person as an individual. And that belief came through strong in his words and stronger in his daily actions of giving back, "Would I like to coach kids more than one year? Yeah, I'd like to have teams for four years and win every game and win every national title, and we'd all be happy. But I always say, you've got to do what's best for these young people." He inspires his players to give back as well. Noel was not scheduled to speak at the breakfast. But was gracious enough to stay afterwards take photos with fans and sign autographs.
During the prayer breakfast, Bevin gave the William Cooper Faith and Community in Action Award to Barb and Hilton Duncan of Integrated Community Ministries of McCreary County for serving the needy in Eastern Kentucky for nearly 17 years. It's been said that this county is the poorest county in the United States.
William Cooper, the namesake of the award, was inspired to begin a prayer breakfast in Kentucky after having the privilege of attending several Presidential Prayer Breakfasts in Washington, D.C. With Cooper's vision and under Gov. Bert Combs, Kentucky hosted its first Governor's Prayer Breakfast in 1965.
The William Cooper Faith and Community in Action Award was established in 2009 in honor of the Rev. William Jefferson Cooper, Sr., of West Port, Kentucky. Mr. Cooper, a man of faith and vision, and was the founder of the Kentucky Govenor's Prayer Breakfast.
Also in attendance at this event were the 2015 Miss Kentucky Clark Davis and the nationally recognized AcoUstiKats, the men's A Capella group from the University of Kentucky. Each of them were phenomenal in their respective singing roles during this year's prayer breakfast. Please take some time to listen to the clips we have provided.
If you're interested in any of this year's prayer service photos, please contact April at CapitalLivingKY@gmail.com.
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And so cricket is back. After more than four months of no international cricket — the longest period without international cricket since World War 2 — England played the West Indies in Southampton. And, as if they wanted to remind their fans of what the normal, pre-COVID world was like, England capitulated in both the first and second innings, losing yet another first Test match in a series.
That's not to say that the West Indies didn't deserve the victory. They mostly certainly did. They dug in and got the runs and wickets they needed, and while England were guilty of poor play at times, a great deal of that was down to the pressure put on them by the West Indies' batters and bowlers. It was a great Test match, and I think one that we all sorely needed.
I will admit that I didn't watch a great deal of it. Work is super busy and my mornings just kept getting away from me. But on Sunday I was able to belly up to Willow TV and take it all in. I had a coffee, and the match streaming on the big TV in the living room. It was sunny but cool outside, and the windows were open to the world. And the match quietly paced itself out in front of me, lulling me into perfect contentment. More than once I thought to myself: :"holy macaroni do I love this game."
For the most part, I was able to nearly forget all about about the pandemic. Sure, the stands were empty, but cricket of all games probably suffers the least from the empty stadiums. I mean, we've all watched some great cricket matches in some very empty arenas. The one moment of incongruity was when a wicket was taken, and the only roar heard was that from the players on the field. There wasn't a peep from the galleries. It was a stark reminder of the world we all now live in.
But other than that, it felt like old times. Times that a few weeks ago I thought were gone forever.
I have watched other sports in the last few weeks. Primarily soccer. But there is something a little more dystopian about that. Something about the juxtaposition of the piped in crowd noise against the empty stadium. It feels like watching a video game. And in soccer the stands are shown all the time, just because of the location of the cameras and the movement of the game. But in cricket, the stands are more or less never shown during the game play — especially in a Test match where sixes are more of a rare commodity.
Maybe I am being a bit over dramatic. But there was something yesterday in those few hours I was able to spend watching cricket that made me like everything was going to be okay. If there can something so almost unbearably normal in this oh-so-abnormal world, something so utterly familiar, something like a Test match, then maybe there really is another side to this. Where life goes on. And there are concerts and movies and full stadiums cheering wickets.
When I turned off the TV, the moment was gone. I put on my mask and packed hand sanitizer and biked to a friend's house where we sat socially distanced in his back yard and watched Arsenal lose to Tottenham and, of course, talked about the pandemic: grocery shopping and politics and getting tested. It was nice to hang out, but it still felt so different.
And that seems to be the case with most with most everything else that's coming back from the "before times:" to entertain and distract us. It all feels so dystopian. The empty soccer stadiums. The NBA and their bubble, where the talk is not about sports but about how the virus is raging in Florida. The restaurants with quickly converted patios and the servers in gloves and masks. The live streamed concerts in empty venues. All of it is fine, but none of it takes you far enough away from the virus to where things feel even slightly normal again.
But cricket was different. At least, yesterday was different. It felt normal. Virus-free. A relic from a recent past now long gone, but a relic without rust, that maintained its shine.
A few days ago I humbugged the idea of the importance of sport. That it needs to come back in order for our world to heal. A load of nonsense is what I thought of that. They are just games. If it's not safe, then we shouldn't do it. But after yesterday I am not entirely sure. The cricket and the breeze through the windows and the iced coffee and the drone of the commentators and the sound of the run up and the chatter of the fielders all felt so normal that I couldn't help but be comforted by it. The virus never completely left my brain, of course, but the taste of normalcy gave me some hope that there is another side of this.
Right now, we don't know what that other side will look like, nor when this will be over. It's going to be months and months, and it's going to be a slow unwinding with stops and starts and two steps forward and three steps back and that can be so distressing and upsetting, all that time and hardship yet to come. But yesterday I was reminded that, one day, this will end. And that while it will be different, it will still be the same, the world that we used to know. It was a comfort that so far nothing else in this big broken world has been able to provide me.
I don't think this means that we should have sports at all costs, but maybe it is a reminder of the importance of even a hint of normalcy. We should not pretend that nothing is wrong, we need to stay vigilant, but we also need to remember the rewards of the maintained vigilance: cricket, on a Sunday morning, with the windows open, and the crowd rising as one in celebration of a wicket well earned.
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Ford's $2.6 billion Valencia investment
By aladmin2015-02-05T10:31:39+00:00
Spain – An initial $1.25 billion was announced in 2011, followed by a further $1.37 billion since 2013. The OEM says that Valencia is now one of the "most advanced, flexible and productive" automotive plants worldwide, and will be the sole European source for all six Ford nameplates assembled there.
A new, 89,000 sq.m bodyshop constructed over the course of eight months will raise the plant's daily output to 2,000 vehicles. Retooling will enable production of the Mondeo and Mondeo Hybrid using hydro-formed high-strength steel. Over 900 robots now operate in the bodyshops at Valencia.
An extra paintshop has also been built, featuring automated processes which remove the need for drying between paint applications, plus dirt detection technology. This will improve quality, energy use and productivity.
In assembly, new processes have been implemented to accommodate a more complex model mix than any other Ford facility in Europe. In line with the Ford Production System, all components will now be transported alongside the vehicle in a pre-assembled kit. There are now 34 robots in the final assembly area.
As a result of the upgrade, Valencia will increase its output this year by about 40% to 400,000 vehicles; it will have the capacity to build up to 450,000 per annum. The plant now employs 8,000 personnel, up from just under 5,000 in early 2013, while suppliers supporting the operation have increased their employment by 1,500. Furthermore, the number of parts handled at the facility will increase from 7,000 to 18,000 with production of the Mondeo, S-MAX and Galaxy.
Valencia currently builds the new Mondeo wagon, five-door, and four-door including the Mondeo Hybrid, Kuga SUV, Transit Connect light commercial vehicle and Tourneo Connect people-carrier. The new S-MAX MPV, Galaxy seven-seat people-carrier and the Vignale Mondeo will go into production later this year.
www.ford.com


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Antiviral clinical trial underway for new COVID-19 treatment
At St. David's South Austin Medical Center, some patients are being enrolled into a study for a new antiviral drug called Merimepodib.
Author: Luis de Leon
Published: 9:31 PM CDT July 21, 2020
Updated: 9:32 PM CDT July 21, 2020
AUSTIN, Texas — While the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, doctors are working to find ways to better treat patients for the virus.
At St. David's South Austin Medical Center, some patients are being enrolled into a study for a new antiviral drug called merimepodib, for the treatment of advanced COVID-19 in adult patients.
St. David's is currently the only medical center in Texas participating in the study.
"I think it's very needed," said Dr. Matthew Robinson, the medical director of infectious disease at St. David's South Austin Medical Center. "I think, you know, we're still struggling to find effective therapies that I think truly, you know, impact the outcomes of this illness."
Dr. Robinson told KVUE Tuesday that they've enrolled close to 10 patients so far.
Credit: Staff
What is Merimepodib?
Dr. Robinson said that Merimepodib is an investigational antiviral medication that has been evaluated in the lab and shown to be active against the SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19.
"It was also shown to enhance the activity of another antiviral called Remdesivir, which is presently the standard of care from an antiviral standpoint with regard to treating patients with this," Dr. Robinson said. "And so, this study is designed to evaluate this in humans and determine whether this is actually an effective therapy and is beneficial to patients that are suffering from COVID-19."
The medication itself would be dissolved into liquid. As far as side effects, Dr. Robinson said the most common could be upset stomach or loose stool.
While it's not being used to fight other illnesses, Dr. Robinson said he feels it is safe as it has been studied enough.
"There is a fair amount of human data with regard to this medication because it has been investigated in other viral infections. And so, you know, the preponderance of the data suggests that it is a safe medication to administer. So far, my anecdotal experiences would include the same," Dr. Robinson said.
A potential antiviral tag-team
Dr. Robinson added that Merimepodib was shown to work well with Remdesivir.
"The reason to have optimism with this medication is because of its effect that was shown with regard to this inhibiting this virus in a laboratory cell culture," Dr. Robinson said, referring to Merimeodib. "But also it was shown in concert with Remdesivir that those cells that were infected with the virus in the lab were exposed to Remdesivir and the Merimepodib at the same time, and it seemed to enhance the activity of Remdesivir beyond what one would expect. And so, there was hope from that standpoint that it may actually – the combination of the two may, in fact, be quite beneficial."
Overall, it could be a way of evaluating combination therapy, according to Dr. Robinson.
He said he encourages patients that have an opportunity to be part of a trial like this to think about it.
"This is how we make these important discoveries that go towards better treatments," Dr. Robinson said.
Other methods of treatment
Other methods of treatment doctors have been using include convalescent plasma, which is plasma from patients who recovered from COVID-19.
Dr. Robinson also brought up a type of steroid that could work well with current antiviral medications like Remdesivir.
"From an antiviral standpoint, Remdesivir is really considered the standard of care at this point. There are a few other things. Dexamethasone, which is a corticosteroid, was recently shown in another randomized trial to be effective at reducing mortality in patients with COVID 19," Dr. Robinson said.
WATCH: Convalescent plasma therapy shows hope as COVID-19 treatment
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Theater on Film
Expect Great Things
Houston audiences get a chance to see the Great Expectations adaptation currently thrilling London's West End
By Michael Hardy April 1, 2013
Image: Courtesy SpectiCast
One of the most exciting trends in the performing arts over the past decade has been the increasing presence of opera and theater at the multiplex. Traditionally, if you wanted to see world-class performers you had to spend the time and money to visit a venue like Jones Hall or the Wortham Theater Center. While there's still no substitute for live theater or classical music, the next best thing is probably watching the performance in a state-of-the-art cinema auditorium, especially if you don't live in a city as blessed with performance spaces as Houston. One of the pioneers of this new distribution model is New York's Metropolitan Opera, whose Live in HD program beams masterpieces by Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini to 1,700 screens in 50 countries each season. People who have never been to New York and have never seen an opera can now watch La Traviata in the same place they just watched the latest Tom Cruise film.
Of course, opera is only one of the possibilities offered by new digital distribution technology. The Alamo Drafthouse, never slow to jump on a trend, has teamed up with the Philadelphia-based distribution company SpectiCast to offer Houston an exclusive HD screening of Great Expectations, a new play adapted from the Dickens novel by Jo Clifford and currently winning rave reviews on London's West End. How often do you get to see a cutting-edge London production from the comfort of your local movie theater? With nachos and a beer (since this is the Alamo, after all)?
Although the play won't be broadcast live—it was taped on February 7—this is as close as you'll get to the West End without buying a ticket to Heathrow. Adding to the screening's interest is the fact that Dickens's novel, although it has been turned into two films (David Lean's 1946 adaptation and the Mike Newell version last year), has never been produced on Broadway or the West End, and was generally considered unadaptable for the theater. So come celebrate the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth at the Alamo in the company of Miss Havisham, Pip, Magwitch, and the other denizens of what many consider the author's finest work.
Tuesday, April 2 at 7:30
Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park
114 Vintage Park Blvd, Bldg H, Ste J
drafthouse.com/houston


County schools' lunch prices to increase next year
By Sharon Myers The Dispatch
Jun 5, 2017 at 10:43 PM Jun 5, 2017 at 10:43 PM
At its regular meeting on Monday night, the Davidson County Board of Education voted to increase the amount for lunches at the middle and high schools by 25 cents for next school year.
School lunch prices at the elementary schools will remain at $2.75, but the price will increase to $3 for middle and high schools, for a monthly revenue increase of $7,732.75.
Kristen Bealler, director of school nutrition for Davidson County Schools, gave a presentation to the board explaining the proposed meal price increase was due to a requirement by the federal Healthy-Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 that school lunch prices must be increased until the average meal cost for paid lunches is equal to or exceeds the difference of free to paid lunch reimbursement rates, which is currently $2.86 per meal.
Alan Beck, chairman of the board, said that it is not a decision that the board likes to make but it is one that has to be made due to the circumstances.
"Over time these increases come up just like everything else," Beck said. "We don't ask for increase in lunch prices often, but when we do it is because it is a necessity."
Since the implementation of the new federal standards, the average months' operating balance for school nutrition program has been steadily declining.
Other options presented to the board, were to increase school lunch prices to $2.85 for all schools; to keep prices at $2.75 for elementary students and increase the price to $2.95 for middle school and high school students or for the school board to supplement the current meal prices for 10 cent per paid meal at approximately $60,423 for the year.
Also during the meeting, the school board unanimously voted to change honors designation for graduates, eliminating the designation of valedictorian and salutatorian by using class rank as means of recognizing academic achievement.
Tabitha Broadway, director of secondary education for Davidson County Schools, gave a presentation to the school board explaining that since the North Carolina School Board changed the grading system to a 10-point scale, where a 90 percent grade has the same weighted point as a 100 percent score, many students have the same grade-point average.
Broadway said that many of the school systems' current 10th-grade students have the identical grade-point average, making it impossible to identify one student as valedictorian and one as salutatorian. She said that currently three high schools have three students tied at number one rank and up to 14 tied for the next highest ranking.
"All six high schools have multiple students tied to the top ranking as well as the next GPA ranking," Broadway said. "We are seeing lots of ties and we expect these ties will only increase…This is in no way an attempt to diminish the recognition of our students. Logistically, the changes at the state level will make it impossible to select on valedictorian and one salutatorian."
She said the ranking has also been impacted by the change in weighted honors from a one-point scale to a half-point scale and that AP course and college promise courses carry the same additional weight.
Billy Hunt, principal of West Davidson High School, said all the principals in the Davidson County School system want to develop a committee to determine speakers at graduation.
"We are proposing to develop a committee to develop options for the board of education to consider on how to select speakers at graduation," Hunt said. "We want to include administrators, teachers, parents and students. It is extremely important to get all of our stakeholders involved in the process."
Angie Kieger, principal at North Davidson High School, said the changes are not to prohibit recognition students, but is a logistical necessity.
"It has become impossible to choose one person as valedictorian," Kieger said. "We still want to recognize our honor students in any way possible way that we can."
Broadway said the school systems will still be recognizing the Latin honors including, summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cume lade as well as club, band, chorus and other awards.
Sharon Myers can be reached at (336) 249-3981, ext. 228, or at sharon.myers@the-dispatch.com. Follow Sharon on Twitter: @LexDispatchSM


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Telenor to sell remaining 90m common shares in Veon
September 21st 2017 | Multiple countries | Fixed | Multiple companies
On September 21st Telenor ASA said that it had offered to sell its remaining 90m common shares in Veon Ltd, a Dutch operator. Priced at US$4.2per share, the 5.1% stake sale is expected to rake in US$365m for Telenor.
The Norwegian telecoms company has been divesting its stake in Veon since 2016, following allegations that the Dutch company was involved in a bribery scandal in Uzbekistan. Telenor sold off a 4% stake in April this year and a 24.5% stake in September 2016. The company has so far earned US$2bn from its divestment in Veon.
Following the latest sale, Telenor will be left with about 256.7m American Depository shares in Veon, amounting to about 14.6% of the latter company's outstanding common shares. Telenor will sell the remaining stake, which is tied to an exchangeable bond, when it becomes due in 2019.
The current offering is likely to close by September 25th. The sale amount is expected to be accrued to the state-controlled company's cash flow statement for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.
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Home Tags Posts tagged with "milan shooting"
milan shooting
Milan shooting: Gunman Claudio Giardiello arrested after killing three people
Suspect Claudio Giardiello has been arrested in Milan, Italy, after he shot dead three people at the Palace of Justice.
A fourth person was found dead at the court, from an apparent heart attack.
Claudio Giardiello was reportedly a defendant in a bankruptcy case. He was arrested in a Milan suburb after fleeing the scene on a motorbike.
The dead are said to include his former lawyer and a bankruptcy court judge. The shooting has prompted scrutiny of security procedures at the courthouse.
Questions are being asked about how Claudio Giardiello managed to smuggle a weapon into a well-guarded building, use it several times and escape.
He was arrested by carabinieri officers in Vimercate, about 15 miles north-east of central Milan, near the town of Monza.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the "presumed assassin" was now being held at a military police barracks in the Milan area.
Citing officials and witnesses, the newspaper La Repubblica reported that Claudio Giardiello had been attending a bankruptcy hearing when a fight broke out inside the third floor courtroom.
Claudio Giardiello pulled out a weapon and shot the lawyer, named as Lorenzo Alberto Claris Appiani, as well as another man, who is said to have been a co-defendant in the case.
According to La Repubblica, Lorenzo Alberto Claris Appiani was a former lawyer for Claudio Giardiello who was acting as a witness in the case.
The gunman then left the courtroom and headed to the office of appeals court judge, Fernando Ciampi, shooting him dead.
It is not known if Claudio Giardiello had any links to the judge.
A fourth person was found dead inside the building after apparently suffering a heart attack.
Another two people were wounded and are being treated at a hospital.
After hiding inside the Palace of Justice for more than an hour, Claudio Giardiello fled on a motorbike, according to La Repubblica.
Claudio Giardiello was described as "aggressive" and "a little paranoid" by his former lawyer, Valerio Maraniello, in comments quoted by AFP news agency.
Visitors to the Palace of Justice have to pass through metal detectors.
Lawyers and courthouse employees with official identification are, however, regularly waved through, according to the Associated Press.
ANSA reported that one of the metal detectors was broken on April 8.
Italian PM Matteo Renzi described the attack as "a moment of great pain, of sadness".
Matteo Renzi praised the police who arrested the gunman but said it was "unthinkable" that someone could enter a court with a weapon, and promised an inquiry into the incident.
The Palace of Justice is in the centre of Milan, only a few streets away from the city's cathedral and main shopping district.
Milan shooting: At least two people shot dead inside Palace of Justice
At least two people, including a judge, have been shot dead by a gunman at Milan's Palace of Justice in Italy, officials say.
Appeals court judge Giovanni Canzio told the official ANSA news agency that a defendant in a bankruptcy case opened fire at the entrance to a courtroom.
Bankruptcy court judge Fernando Ciampi was one of those killed, ANSA reported.
The gunman has been identified as Claudio Giardiello.
He is believed to still be at large inside the Palace of Justice.
The building was being evacuated, with women allowed to leave first, the Associated Press reported. Men are being let out after having their identification checked.
The sound of gunfire inside the Palace of Justice reportedly sparked panic, with hundreds of people pouring down stairways towards the exits while police and military police officers searched for the gunman.
Sky TG24 reported that the gunman was barricaded in an upper-floor room.
It was unclear how he managed to bring a weapon into the Palace of Justice, as visitors have to pass through metal detectors.
The building is in the centre of Milan, only a few streets away from the city's cathedral and main shopping district.
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Alexander "Howard" Dumble, legendary amp builder of Dumble Amps, has passed away
NewsGear
Paul Cochrane teases a new Tim overdrive: "With luck I'm hoping it'll be ready by the end of winter"
The effects builder revealed he tried to release the pedal back in 2016.
By Daniel Seah
Image: Paul Cochrane via Facebook
Version three of the revered Tim overdrive pedal appears to be coming soon, as builder Paul Cochrane shows off a new prototype of the dual-footswitch stomper online.
READ MORE: Jargonbuster: Overdrive – how to understand your overdrive pedal
In a Facebook post last week (2 December) Cochrane revealed that he had intended to release the third iteration of the Tim back in 2016, but that the "stars wouldn't align." Five years has given him time to work on a new prototype, however, which will soon be ready for release after a few more circuit and enclosure tweaks.
"It's a shorter box than the old one with all the pots on top and all the jacks on back," Cochrane wrote in his post. "The three-way clipping switch has the same top and middle settings but with a new, more 'open' asymmetrical third setting."
He added: "A three-way 'Hi-Cut' switch is added which helps it sit better with brighter amps/speakers. It's flat in the middle with -3dB at 5khz, and -3dB at 2khz settings. The FX loop is now tied in with the boost for added flexibility in that mode […] with luck I'm hoping it'll be ready by the end of winter and not another 5 years."
5 years later… I tried to bring this out in 2016, but the stars wouldn't align… This is a new proto of the Tim V3!…
Posted by Paul Cochrane on Thursday, December 2, 2021
Last year, Cochrane partnered with MXR to launch a mini-version of the beloved Timmy overdrive. Unlike the mass-manufactured mini-stomper however, the Tim V3 will be hand-built.
Essential Guides 18th January 2022