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Airline personnel misbehaving with passengers had come into focus after a video of IndiGo ground staff allegedly assaulting a passenger went viral last year. A parliamentary panel too had raised concern over "rude" and "arrogant" behaviour of airlines staff towards passengers, saying it should stop. |
Earlier, Shiv Sena lawmaker Ravindra Gaikwad from Maharashtra had thrashed an Air India cabin crew with a slipper over seating issue, which prompted the government to roll out a no-fly list in September last year for people who misbehave during air travel. |
Video (02:46) : Mikayla Holmgren demonstrates some dance moves for the camera at Bethel University. |
When Mikayla Holmgren applied for the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, she submitted a lengthy résumé that highlighted her past pageant experience, her status as a triple-threat athlete and her work as a mentor for other young women like her. |
The 22-year-old has Down syndrome, something that pageant directors had not seen before in a contestant. |
"Mikayla is a trailblazer," said Denise Wallace, executive co-director of the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, which is part of the Miss Universe Organization. |
When Holmgren takes the stage later this year, she will be the first woman with Down syndrome to compete in the state pageant, and as far as pageant officials know, the first in the country. |
Her participation reflects the new strides toward body acceptance and more diverse beauty ideals that are being made not only in pageants, but on fashion runways and television. Late last year, a 19-year-old St. Cloud woman became the first person to compete in the same Minnesota pageant wearing a hijab and burkini. In... |
Society's traditional view of what's beautiful is changing, pageant insiders say. |
"I'm ready for this," Holmgren said recently after practicing in a dance studio on the Bethel University campus, where she is a student. "When I'm performing on stage, I just want people to see me." |
Indeed, pageant directors say they saw more of Holmgren's talents, goals and self-confidence than they saw of her disability. They accepted her application without hesitation. |
"To have women from all walks of life truly be represented on stage shows that pageants are accessible for all and that beauty isn't a box that we can fit in," said Jordan Buckellew, the director of Minnesota Miss Amazing, a pageant for girls and women with disabilities. "We're stepping away from the 'Miss Congeniality... |
Holmgren was crowned Minnesota Junior Miss Amazing in 2015 and went on to represent the state in the national Junior Miss Amazing pageant in Los Angeles. |
From the neonatal intensive care unit to the glitzy world of pageants, Holmgren has always been determined to prove her disability doesn't define her. |
Born six weeks early with Down syndrome and without an esophagus, a condition that required surgery, Holmgren has always been a "go-getter" who has never been defined by her disability, said her mother, Sandi Holmgren. |
"At first you're handed this child and the doctors are telling you she may never talk and she may never walk," Sandi Holmgren said. "You're thinking, 'What does her future hold?' She's achieved more than I ever dreamed of." |
Holmgren is no stranger to the stage. She's been dancing since she was 6, when her parents signed her up for classes in her hometown of Marine on St. Croix. |
"From the start, my husband and I decided that she's a child first and the Down syndrome is secondary," Sandi Holmgren said. "We never said that she can't do this because she has Down syndrome; instead we asked, 'Why not?' " |
Holmgren competes solo and with the dance team at Bethel University, where she's in her first year of a two-year postsecondary program for students with intellectual disabilities. |
She choreographs most of her own dances, which are typically modern in style. She moves gracefully, doing back bends, jumps and the splits to her favorite music. |
"I like to dance for people because it brightens their day," Holmgren said. "Down syndrome means I have something special. I can warm hearts." |
While Holmgren won't get the chance to perform a dance routine at the Miss Minnesota USA pageant in November (there's no talent category), she'll be able to talk about her passion for dancing during the interview portion, which she's been practicing with her advisers at Bethel. |
What else does a young woman need to do to prepare for a pageant? |
Mikayla Holmgren laughs while doing an interview with the media at Bethel University. |
"I have to practice walking in high heels," Holmgren said. "I'm working out a lot to get my body in shape. I have to wear a swimsuit." |
With no nervousness detected in her voice about donning a swimsuit and heels, Holmgren also said she hopes that by competing in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant she will help change the way that society views disabilities and the notion of beauty. |
"I want the whole world to see that I can do things that are hard and that people with Down syndrome are beautiful and talented," she said. |
Although Wallace said that the Miss Minnesota USA pageant has always valued inclusion and diversity, what's changed is that more women with different backgrounds want to participate. |
"What is amazing and beautiful about this is the fact that women are finally seeing representations of themselves in this capacity," Wallace said. "It makes the next woman feel like they can do that, too." |
If Holmgren wins Miss Minnesota USA in November, she would go on to compete in the Miss USA competition. The winner of that goes on to Miss Universe. |
A Virginia Commonwealth University professor has been awarded a nearly $1.5 million grant to expand the Richmond region’s capacity to prevent HIV and substance abuse, particularly among young African-Americans. |
A Virginia Commonwealth University engineering professor has received a $5 million grant to develop a more cost-effective way to manufacture two important drugs used to treat HIV and AIDS. |
Health specialists from Virginia are on their way to Indiana today, lending their expertise to that state’s HIV outbreak response. |
VCU researchers have characterized a new bacterial species that has an extremely strong association with trichomoniasis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection (STI). |
The Virginia Department of Health and Walgreens recently announced a collaborative effort to offer rapid HIV testing at no charge through 2016 at select Walgreens locations throughout the Commonwealth. |
The most recent surveillance data collected by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) indicates that 6,600 women are living with HIV disease in Virginia. |
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and colleagues in Russia are launching an ambitious effort to check the growing public health threat posed by drug-resistant tuberculosis, especially to people with HIV, in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. |
South African student explores innovative HIV ideas at UVa. |
Lufuno Mavhandu, who grew up in the small village of Muduluni, is conducting research at UVa. as part of an important collaboration between the Myles H. Thaler Center for AIDS and Human Retrovirus Research in the School of Medicine and the Department of Microbiology at South Africa’s University of Venda. |
For breast cancers of stage 1 and 2, surgical treatment options include mastectomy and breast-conserving surgery, also called lumpectomy. Mastectomy has a higher risk of complications. Dr. Roshni Rao of The University of Texas reported that 18 to 30 percent of mastectomy patients experience flap necrosis, which is deat... |
Dr. Virginie Rondeau and colleagues in Bordeaux, France, performed a study on the statistics of cancer recurrence in breast cancer patients who received lumpectomies. They reported that several randomized trials have shown lumpectomy and mastectomy provide equivalent survival rates. However, lumpectomy patients risk re... |
Rondeau and coauthors studied 919 women treated with lumpectomy for primary invasive breast cancer between 1990 to 1994. Almost all had radiation therapy after surgery. Chemotherapy or endocrine therapy was prescribed according to individual characteristics. The median follow-up time was 12.7 years. During this time, t... |
Women with a family history of breast cancer may want to get genetic testing for BRCA gene mutations. Dr. Marijke R. Wevers and colleagues from a group of hospitals in The Netherlands reported that 5 to 10 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a hereditary form of the disease. These authors developed a pro... |
Posted on November 29, 2014. Brought to you by golocal247. |
Career clothing with a casual, conservative flair. |
Very appalled to find out one of your sales associates told a friend that she was fat and needed to lose weight. No members of my family will be doing business at this location when visiting New Orleans. The company and this location's management should be very ashamed with the very insensitve and hurtful comment made ... |
Posted by Dennis Roscom on July 17, 2015. Brought to you by facebook. |
Posted by Contributor1fa 8dc on August 21, 2008. Brought to you by rateitall. |
Ever since Zillow introduced its “coming soon” listings section a few months ago, people have been talking about these listings. The subject is at more of a simmer than a boil right now, and we don’t see the emotion today that we did some months ago, but some are still debating whether there are merits to “coming soon,... |
It seems to me to be much ado about nothing. |
In Gwinnett County, Georgia, one of the larger counties in the state, there are 4,259 listings for sale on Zillow. For-sale-by-owner listings comprise 119 of the total. There are 737 new homes for sale. The number of “coming soon” listings? One. Looking at the entire state of Georgia, there are a grand total of 10 “com... |
Now, many have argued that “coming soon” listings are good for sellers and listing agents. But how? Five out of the 10 “coming soon” listings in Georgia have only one photo. Six listings have three or fewer photos. The most any listing has is 10 photos, which is hardly acceptable for true property marketing when we can... |
What I have seen, too, is that previously listed homes had older photos that will populate the listing again on Zillow, so you may have outdated photos that could be a detriment to the property. One “coming soon” listing showed photos on Zillow of a home that had been there for a few years, and those photos showed the ... |
I can’t stress enough how critical both buyers and buyer’s agents can be of a new listing! I have an upcoming renovation listing for a seller right now that both he and buyers are dying to see on the market, but he is not 100 percent finished with it. I know that if I put it out there when it’s 95 percent completed, it... |
Here’s another question: If a listing is “coming soon,” how can buyers view it today? It might whet the buyers’ curiosity a bit, but if they can’t see quality photos of the home in a “coming soon” status, why should they care? Buyers want to see homes today. A home that is not available for two to four weeks might be i... |
This brings me back to my point: It seems like a lot of fuss over nothing. Maybe we can look at “coming soon” listings in the same way we do open houses: They are a good way to show your seller that you have some marketing ideas, but the reality is that neither tactic will necessarily appeal to buyers. |
If I were going to buy a new car today, I could look online at the next updated car models, but what good would they be to me as a consumer if I need a car today? And car manufacturers have some of the best marketing strategies for “coming soon” vehicles — better certainly than the “coming soon” home marketing I have s... |
Because Norman Reedus is scared of horses, he requested a minor adjustment. |
The Walking Dead has long been home to one of the best TV love stories of all time: Daryl Dixon and his motorcycle. It’s a love so pure that not even the zombie apocalypse can keep these two apart for long—a relationship so compelling that it even got its own spin-off. (I mean, basically.) On Wednesday, actor Norman Re... |
“I’m a huge fan of the show, and such an iconic part of your character is the motorcycle, and the bow—and then I find out that originally you were supposed to ride a horse,” O’Brien said. |
The rest, as they say, is wind-blowing-in-your-hair history. |
Unfortunately, this story kind of kills any pet-fan theories about Daryl’s secret love for horses—which were the natural result of the character’s deep equine storyline in Season 5. Yes, it ended as tragically as ever for the horse, but it also gave a bit more insight into Daryl—and naturally inspired some truly transc... |
R.I.P., Daryl Dixon: Horse Girl. We barely knew you. |
"After the chemical weapons massacre of April 4 on Khan Sheikhun in northwestern Syria, a military installation of the Syrian regime was destroyed by a US air strike last night," the statement, issued after a morning phone call, said. |
"President Assad bears sole responsibility for this development." |
"His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own people call for sanctions, which France and Germany already demanded in the summer of 2013 after the massacre of Ghuta," the site of another chemical weapons attack. |
They added that "France and Germany, together with their partners and within the framework of the United Nations, will continue their efforts to hold President Assad responsible for his criminal deeds". |
Berlin and Paris "jointly call on the international community to join forces for a political transition in Syria in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 and the Geneva Communique," they said, referring to a statement issued on June 30 2012 by the UN-backed Action Group for Syria. |
Merkel and Hollande were each informed "one to two hours before the strikes," a source close to the French president's office said. |
Later Hollande said that the US response should now be followed up at an international level "under the auspices of the United Nations if possible." |
This could include tightening sanctions against Assad "preventing any further chemical attacks and the crushing by this regime of its own people," Hollande said during a visit to southern France. |
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel earlier said the strike was "understandable" after the UN Security Council was "unable to clearly and unequivocally respond to the barbaric use of chemical weapons against innocent people in Syria". |
His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault, with Gabriel on a trip to Mali, said he hoped the strikes would show Syria's allies Russia and Iran that they should withdraw their support for Assad. |
"The Russians and the Iranians must now understand that they cannot prop up Bashar al-Assad's regime... it cannot go on, it makes no sense," Ayrault told France Info radio. |
In Wisconsin, the nearly 600,000 residents of Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, endure long winters where temperatures stay below freezing for months at a time. But when the end of spring arrives, throngs head to city’s shoreline to sunbathe and frolic on Lake Michigan’s beaches. Managed by the state or county, the ... |
The state’s largest urban park sits near the heart of downtown on an island between Harbor Drive and Lake Michigan. Open year-round, Lakeshore State Park (friendslsp.org) spans 22-acres and includes Pebble Beach, a fishing pier, a great lawn, gathering areas for activities and plenty of facilities for boating, kayaking... |
Bradford Beach is the city’s most popular beach area for sunbathing and swimming according to Milwaukee County. It is the only county beach with lifeguards on duty during the summer months. Located on 2400 N. Lincoln Memorial Drive, its amenities include concession stands, a bathhouse and beach volleyball areas. Bradfo... |
The county manages eight other beaches including three in Milwaukee or South Milwaukee. McKinley Beach at 1750 N. Lincoln Memorial Drive has unreserved picnic areas. South Shore Beach at 2900 S. Superior St. has a bathhouse for its visitors. Grant Park Beach in South Milwaukee has nearby picnic areas. Other beaches in ... |
Stay abreast of and obey advisories about beach closings. Sometimes the county might close a beach because of the presence of E. coli bacteria in the water. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources monitors beaches during the warmer months and publishes up-to-date advisories on its “Beach Health” website (wibeache... |
Miller, Lauren. "Beaches in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin." Travel Tips - USA Today, https://traveltips.usatoday.com/beaches-milwaukee-county-wisconsin-104183.html. Accessed 20 April 2019. |
Taken by myself, Jeramey Jannene, during a Milwaukee Brewers game on the 5th of September last year. The game was against the Cinncinati Reds. |
Mutiny by sections of the police and the army today forced Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed to step down and hand over power to the Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed Hassan. |
An empowered Group of Ministers (GoM) today fulfilled a long-pending demand of private airlines by giving the go-ahead for the direct import of jet fuel - a move that will now help cash-strapped carriers save on high sales tax charged by some states and significantly lower staggering financial losses. |
The Union Budget delayed because of elections in five states will now be presented on March 16, four days after Parliament will begin its budget session. The budget session, which normally commences in the third week of February, will start on March 12 with President Pratibha Patil addressing the joint sitting of membe... |
The much-awaited elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee have been stayed. The elections to the cash-rich and politically influential body of Sikhs were slated for March 11. |
Two ministers of the BJP government in Karnataka were caught watching a �pornographic clip� when proceedings were on in the Assembly. |
The ISRO row showed no signs of abating as former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair today hit back at his successor K Radhakrishnan dubbing as "another lie" the latter's claim that an inquiry was conducted into charges and lapses relating to the Antrix-Devas deal. |
He could have been like any other 'raagi' after his retirement in 1998 from the Golden Temple, where he worked for 30 years. But Bhai Gurmej Singh had a wish: Being blind, he wanted many like him to read the holy Gurbani. |
QUANTUM weirdness can forge a molecule in space that shouldn’t exist by classical chemistry rules. |
Astronomers recently detected methoxy radicals in the Perseus molecular cloud, 600 light years away. Hydroxyl radicals and methanol gas can react to make methoxy radicals, but only if they have enough energy, which is impossible in the cold of space. |
Dwayne Heard of the University of Leeds, UK, and colleagues suspected the process of quantum tunnelling might kick in. It would allow hydroxyl to cheat by digging through the reaction’s energy “barrier”. Indeed, when the team chilled hydroxyl and methanol vapour, they made methoxy radicals (Nature Chemistry, doi.org/m4... |
The cold slows the molecules so they contact for longer when they collide, making tunnelling more likely. It seems space chemistry is richer than we thought. |
Life is all about prioritizing, and with over 1000 bands showcasing at 50+ venues, Canadian Music Week is an exercise in time management. To make your life a little bit easier, we’re cherry-picking some of the best sets of the festival every day and giving you a heads up on what you can’t miss. |
Tonight, you’re faced with the challenge of choosing between the golden child of Toronto rap and a genuine synth savant. Good luck. Check out our CMW Survival Guide for more pro-tips on how to get the most out of your wristband. Here are our picks for Thursday night. |
Wed. December 14, 2005: Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious hack dem... |
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines. |
A test election was run in Leon County on Tuesday with a total of eight ballots. Six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thompson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked... |
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes. |
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine. |
The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator, a step cited by Diebold as a protection against memory card hacking. The central tabulator is the "mother ship" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. However, the GEMS central tabulator failed to notice that the... |
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