View time : 1 min 28
Level : Intermediate
Author: natixis-ezine
World Health Assembly hopes to reinforce pandemic preparedness after bold treaty project stalls
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press
GENEVA (AP) — Member countries kicked off the World Health Organization’s annual assembly on Monday with hopes of improving global readiness for deadly outbreaks like COVID-19, after an ambitious “pandemic treaty” ran aground last week.
Health officials are racing to get the world to agree to new ways to prepare for and fight an inevitable future pandemic. COVID-19 is fading into history as elections and crises like climate change and war compete for the public’s attention.
A bold project to adopt a pandemic “treaty” at this week’s World Health Assembly was shelved on Friday as 2 1/2 years of work ran into disagreements over sharing information about pathogens that cause pandemics and the technology used to fight them.
Experts say the best chance now to address pandemics at the assembly will be proposed changes to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, which were set up in 2004. Amendments would urge countries to boost alert, detection and containment capacities and cooperate internationally.
One proposal would let the WHO director-general declare a “pandemic emergency.” Continue reading
More money is going to African climate startups, but a huge funding gap remains
View time: 1 min 25
Level : Advanced
New York will set aside money to help local news outlets hire and retain employees
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Level : Advanced
By MAYSOON KHAN Associated Press/Report for America
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat.
The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, driven by factors including a loss in advertising revenue as outlets have moved from primarily print to mostly digital. That prompted state lawmakers to help in a measure passed in the state budget.
New York’s three-year program allows some news organizations to tap into refundable tax credits each year, with a single outlet able to receive tax credits of up to $320,000 annually.
State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said preserving journalism jobs is vital for the health of democracy. As evidence, he cited the weakened New York news media’s failure to research the background of George Santos, a Republican who fabricated many details of his life story, until after he had been elected to Congress. Continue reading
What a blast to work at NASA. Space agency is sky-high again in latest survey of federal employees
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Level : Intermediate
By REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Exploring the cosmos makes for happy employees, federal workers like to work from home like everyone else, and an agency that has struggled with low morale is showing improvement.
Those are some of the highlights of a survey released Monday of more than a million federal workers.
In a city that revolves around the federal government, the annual Best Places to Work survey is a closely watched annual event worthy of bragging rights — provided you’re one of the agencies such as NASA or the Government Accountability Office who topped the survey.
The survey uses information from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and is produced by the Partnership for Public Service and the Boston Consulting Group. Continue reading
Bicycle shops have bumpy ride since pandemic
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Level : Intermediate
What’s behind the weird flavors popping up on store shelves?
View time: 2 min 03
Level : Advanced
Overtourism Is Expected to Peak in 2024, While 95% of Destinations Remain Unexplored
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
Emese Maczko | Wealth of Geeks undefined
Last year, Phuket, Thailand, was the most overcrowded tourist destination. For each of the island’s 416,000 inhabitants, 118 vacationers showed up, according to a study by MoneyTransfers.com.
In 2019, environmental tracking and analysis site Murmuration noted that 80% of the world’s tourists visit only 10% of global destinations. They predicted if this trend wasn’t reversed, by 2050, tourism would have doubled energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Has travel become a double-edged sword? On one hand, popular tourist destinations groan under the weight of traffic, transforming them into unbearably crowded spectacles. On the other, the allure of undiscovered places comes with the risk of turning them into mass tourism targets we seek to escape.
Is there a middle ground in travel that allows us to explore without exploitation, to enjoy without eroding? Are there destinations that offer the best of both worlds and manage visitors sustainably? Continue reading
Fine dining, at a new high. A Michelin-starred chef will take his cuisine to our upper atmosphere
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
By JAMES BROOKS Associated Press
COPENHAGEN (AP) — Ever since humans have journeyed to space, their meals there have proved to be, well, nothing to write home about.
But that could change after a Michelin-starred chef teamed up with the Florida-based startup Space Perspective to take fine-dining to our upper atmosphere in late 2025.
Six guests are set to ascend aboard Spaceship Neptune to the stratosphere, where they will enjoy an immersive dining experience served up by Danish Michelin-starred chef Rasmus Munk.
Munk, 33, will travel with the guests and serve the meal himself, from a small kitchen. He says his menu will be inspired by the impact of space innovation.
“We want to tell stories through the food,” Munk says. “We … want to talk and highlight some of the research that’s been done through the last 60 years.” Continue reading
Biden administration commemorates 70 year anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
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Level : Intermediate