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Volunteers from Mennonite Disaster Service in the Midwest partnered with groups such as the Salvation Army and the Immokalee Unmet Needs Coalition, after coming to Florida to lend their home-building skills to help people like Coe.
“To be able help somebody to recover and rebuild their lives, their hearts, and their homes, to give them hope…it means a lot to us,” said Philip Maneikis, project director with Mennonite Disaster Service.
Friday, several volunteers worked on the new house’s frame, which is on the same Plum Street property Coe has called home for almost a decade.
Since Irma tore through Southwest Florida in September 2017, Coe and her nephew have gone from staying at a hotel, to a relative’s home, and now a camper.
But the toughest part came when she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago.
Other agencies partnering in rebuilding Coe’s home, along with three other homes in Immokalee, include the American Red Cross, the Collier Comes Together Disaster Relief Fund, and Center for Disaster Philanthropy.
Coe’s home is expected to be completed by the middle of March.
Former South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss Shaun Abrahams has found a new job in Botswana.
City Press claims that Abrahams was appointed two months ago after being approached to lead the prosecution team in a politically charged case involving supposed allies of former Botswana president Ian Khama, who are alleged to have looted 250 million pula (R338 million) from that country's National Petroleum Fund.
A prosecutor familiar with the developments said: "Abrahams has been working in Botswana for some months now. I think it is best for him to do something in life after his disastrous career at the NPA."
In Botswana, Abrahams appeared for the state for the first time on Thursday before the Broadhurst Magistrates' Court in Gaborone, where the accused parties in the matter were demanding that the state reveal further particulars about the case they were facing.
The controversial case has among its accused a sitting judge, Justice Zein Kebonang; his cousin Sadique Bakang, who is a former Cabinet minister; Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority executive director Mogomotsi Seretse; and businessperson Kago Stimela.
The case has caused many divisions in Botswana, with some saying the country's law enforcement agencies were being used to settle political scores by the new administration of President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who is at loggerheads with his predecessor, Khama.
However, Masisi's supporters say he is a corruption buster and has identified this case as his administration's first "trophy" in the fight against corruption, and that he has vowed to throw everything at the accused in the National Petroleum Fund.
The case has been beset by several postponements, mostly at the insistence of the prosecution, with the charges being either reduced or altered, and several amendments being made to the charge sheet.
The case centres on the alleged looting of funds that were transferred to the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services for the construction of fuel storage tanks. The money was diverted for the purchase of military hardware from Israel.
The accused face charges ranging from money laundering, abuse of office, theft and giving false information to a person employed in the public service.
SDAH-KNJ LOCAL (31825) departs from SEALDAH Railway Station at 10:52.
SDAH-KNJ LOCAL reach on day 1 to KRISHNGR CTY JN Railway Station. The arrival time of SDAH-KNJ LOCAL at KRISHNGR CTY JN Railway Station is 13:15.
SDAH-KNJ LOCAL covers 102 km to reach KRISHNGR CTY JN Railway Station at average speed of 43 km/hr. SDAH-KNJ LOCAL passes through 30 stations.
After former Raven and beloved running back Ray Rice was released due to his domestic behavior, the city of Baltimore needed a running back to step in and bring balance back to John Harbaugh’s offense. Who knew it would be 29-year-old journeyman Justin Forsett?
Strictly in Baltimore on a one-year deal because of his knowledge of former offensve coordinator Gary Kubiak’s offense, Forsett rose up the depth chart and became one of the NFL’s best surprises of 2014.
The Ravens decided they couldn’t let Forsett walk away, deciding instead to bring back the former Cal Bear on a three-year, $9 million deal.
Forsett led the NFL with a 5.4 YPC mark to go with a career-high 1,266 yards. He also added 263 yards through the air on 44 catches. Forsett was also selected to his first Pro-Bowl in 2014.
With the massive exchange of dollars for other running backs such as LeSean McCoy and DeMarco Murray, the Ravens were able to bring back one of their free-agent priorities for a significantly cheaper price.
Nestled into bush clad hills only 5 minutes walk from central Whangarei is a little piece of paradise nurturing the creative spirit of Northland and known as The Quarry Arts Centre.
Open to the public 7 days a week, visitors can stroll through the grounds and see resident artists in their studios, purchase hand-crafted goods directly from local artists at the Quarry Craft Co-op shop, view exhibitions at the Yvonne Rust Gallery, bring the family for a picnic by the waterfall or take a walk in the Coronation Reserve up to the pa site or over the hill to the Quarry Subtropical Garden – all for free.
We also run a variety of courses throughout the year for adults and children, as well as selling clay and art supplies in the main office from Mon- Fri.
The Quarry incorporates the Yvonne Rust Gallery, Te Kowhai Print Trust and the Quarry Craft Co-op Shop.
There are 16 artists working on site at The Quarry Art Centre. Their studios are open to the public most days offering a vibrant insight for visitors into the art and practice of Northland artists. Our current studio holders include ceramic artists, painters, jewellers, carvers and sculptors.
Mathew Honeyfeild - Painter, currently a student at Elam School of fine art.
Quarry Cigar box guitar company – the makers of beautiful Cigar box guitars with a sound that sums up the Quarry.
Offering a wide range of handcrafted products, the Quarry Craft Co-op is an integral part of the Quarry scene. Art and craft including wood, pottery, glass, jewellery, silks and textiles, leather, bone and pounamu (New Zealand greenstone) carving, sculpture are all on offer and at great prices!
Run by the artists, for the artists means that overheads are kept to a minimum – the result being a wide range of quality handcrafted products at very competitive prices. And with the shop being run by artists/members, you get a unique experience of being able to discuss the artworks with them and to enjoy the working environment and tranquillity of the Quarry at the same time.
The Outdoor Art Rust Ramble is an outdoor extension of the established and renowned Yvonne Rust Gallery - this community art gallery has been at the hub of the Quarry Arts Centre since its founding in 1982 and is now sprawling the artistic talents displayed within outdoors.
Nestled into the bush clad hills on the edge of Whangarei Central Business District the Quarry grounds lends itself perfectly to an outdoor art ramble. With remains from the original Waldron’s Quarry, unique garden surroundings, lawns, unusual buildings and even an ambient waterfall the Quarry Rust Ramble is lovely to wander around and enjoy the artistic creations of sculptors and artists.
All works included in the Rust Ramble are for sale and more information about the works and artists can be found in the Rust Ramble plaques or in the map available from the Quarry Arts Centre Office or Co-Op shop.
The purpose of the Rust Ramble is to exhibit large scale and outdoor works made by the hands of artists enriching the Quarry Art Centre grounds and building a platform for outdoor artist to display their work.
A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me what it was like being a doctor, and I responded that it was like being a film star. Well, not that it was like being a film star in the sense of everyday reality. No... but in the sense that, for some people, being a film star would probably be their dream job.
For me being a doctor and practising clinical medicine was my dream job, a fulfilment of my dream.
Such as walking into the hospital every day feeling that you (excuse the cliche) had the chance to make a really positive difference in the world; of being able to fill in the gaps and explain to vulnerable humans what was going on that was causing their symptoms.
In a great many cases, that meant being able to reassure them that it wasn't as bad as they feared. In other cases it meant being the one that pretty much confirmed their worst fears - but hopefully doing it in a compassionate and skilled way.
Then there is working with great teams and truly amazing consultant physicians at times; knowing on some occasions that the immediate actions you took and decisions you made may have been the difference between life and death.
On the good days, it was feeling ultimately that doing this was your destiny in life.
Being a doctor is a true privilege. You are privy to people's most challenging moments. You perform procedures that are invasive and potentially painful. You are party to potentially life-changing, even life-ending information even before the person themselves is aware of it.
There are no parts of the job to do with patients that are terrible. Yes, they can be difficult, challenging, sad and you can be faced with aggression and rudeness and even physical assault at times, but that's just the deal. None of us really know how we'll behave or react in the most extreme circumstances when we're in pain or frightened for our lives.
I doubt many, if any, doctors consider their future in clinical medicine in Ireland in 2019 because of patient-associated factors.
• "Don't think of phoning in sick unless you're in the intensive care unit" - a consultant on the first day on the job.
• A phone call in Christmas week from hospital management demanding to know why you can't ask a neighbour to mind your two-year old on a night you are simply unable to work and have given months' notice of your unavailability.
• A consultant using foul language when you ask them to sign your time sheet, a ritual experienced frequently by hospital doctors.
• Encountering massive problems almost every time you try to organise annual leave.
• Never, ever being confident you will be able to get out in time to collect your son from childcare.
These are just some of the day-to-day difficulties faced by hospital doctors - the ones that keep the show on the road and without whom (among others) the whole system could ground to a halt.
These difficulties accumulate as a series of irritations and their sum is something more than an irritation. As someone who had a career before medicine, I am aware that some of the behaviours I witnessed in the professional clinical environment simply wouldn't be tolerated in many other professional environments. But there is a bigger picture to be considered - and rightly or wrongly, these issues are put up with, undoubtedly contributing to the problems.
But they are rarely the single source of what drives our so-called junior hospital doctors elsewhere.
In this country, approximately 700 freshly minted doctors graduate every year (actually a lot more than this graduate, but a substantial number are for immediate export as they are not entitled to work in this country).
The traditional model has been that from graduation to eventual "anointment" as a hospital consultant, they are moved around this country to various posts - often at a frequency of every three months with little consideration of any personal circumstances.
Each time they move hospital, they have historically been subjected to emergency tax. They have to find new accommodation. And they have to put up with whatever treatment and call rosters are imposed on them.
There is no small amount of "we put up with it so you have to" in the system - even from physicians who would be considered to be reasonably enlightened.
When the shuffling around Ireland bit of training is completed, it is typical for the junior doctor to be compelled to complete their training abroad (again, frequently because "that was the way we did it in the past") rather than any tangible reason for the training not being possible in Ireland.
Of course, having many doctors experience other systems and world class centres in other countries is of tremendous benefit to ours - but it should not be the only way.
If one can navigate all of the above and formally complete medical training it may now be possible to apply for a consultant post in this country. The problems with filling these posts are well documented and the most recent number of unfilled posts I believe is of the order of 500.
So, a combination of these working conditions and an inequitable remuneration structure are more than enough to keep many of our brightest and best in other countries and outside the domain of clinical medicine here.
Back to myself. I went back to study medicine as a graduate entry student to fulfil a dream after what can be described as a reasonably successful career in another profession. I loved every minute of my four years as a medical student and inhaled all aspects of the education that was on offer.
I paid a high financial price in terms of both lost income and direct course fees (€60,000 or thereabouts for the privilege of studying medicine if you have previously obtained a degree in the EU), but this really didn't concern me at the time. I felt truly privileged to graduate with a medical degree a number of years ago. This level of privilege was enhanced by the knowledge that my five-month old baby son was in the auditorium the day I graduated - that was a good year!
I walked into the hospital on the first day as an intern full of joy and excitement and not a small amount of healthy trepidation about what was to come. Clinical medicine as practised was all I hoped. In the first year, I was certain about so many things and knew exactly what specialty I was going to aim for. The mentors I met in this specialty were simply amazing.
As time went on, the day-to-day issues became a bit more difficult to put up with. There are only so many family occasions you feel you can miss. There are only so many days you can go in knowing that you actually should be at home sick or at home with your sick child.
All those irritations, and the fact I would have to relocate my family at least three times to complete my training, added up to one possible outcome for me: I had to walk away from clinical medicine for now.
So I walked away - with a broken heart but an intact spirit. I walked away knowing I was doing the right thing for my little family.
I'm in a new job now and I'm really enjoying it. I believe it gives me the opportunity to make a difference in our healthcare system and this is important to me.
So many of my positive day-to-day professional experiences and interactions now remind me of the contrast with our broken clinical system and how poorly it treats its most valuable assets.
The recruitment and retention crisis with our hospital doctors (not to mention GPs) is well and truly documented. And so it will continue when we let people walk away and don't even ask why.
On October 13, an AASHE Campus Sustainability Research Award was presented to current UC Davis PhD student Elizabeth (Izzy) Castner, along with a team of researchers from the University of Virginia, University of New Hampshire, Brown University, Colorado State University, Dickinson College, Marine Biological Laboratory, Eastern Mennonite University, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The award recognized work presented in a paper titled "The Nitrogen Footprint Tool Network: A Multi-Institution Program to Research and Reduce Nitrogen Pollution", which was the lead paper in an April 2017 special issue on nitrogen footprints published by Sustainability: The Journal of Record.
The special issue presents the work of eight institutions that were the first to use a campus nitrogen footprint tool for measuring the amount of reactive nitrogen released to the environment as a result of a university's resource consumption. The nitrogen footprint highlights the importance of pollutant losses in food production chains and energy production, linking campus activities like meat consumption and energy use to negative environmental impacts that include smog, acidification, eutrophication, depletion of the ozone layer, and global climate change.
Read the special issue here, or read the press release by AASHE (the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education).
Before the attack in Christchurch, very few people expected New Zealand would witness a terror incident of such magnitude. To all outward appearances, we were a very safe and tolerant society. The Global Peace Index had New Zealand as the second most peaceful country on the planet. Our terror rating was “low” (meaning attacks were believed to be unlikely) and we had a national homicide rate by firearms (about 10 a year for the whole country) that was insignificant by international standards.
Despite these considerations, at the end of August 2016, I warned a select committee of the New Zealand government which was looking into gun regulation legislation that the risk of a mass shooting in the country was rising due to the growing threat from extremists and the possibility of “lone wolf” attacks following recent incidents in Europe and the United States. To me, it was foreseeable that there would be an atrocity in my country. Yet my predictions were laughed off and I was perceived as being melodramatic.
The reason why I believed a major attack was inevitable was that I could see two major factors related to mass shootings and terrorism taking shape in the New Zealand context.
Attackers often profess extremist views or follow an ideology which justifies violence against innocent people. In New Zealand, I could see the extreme right, while small in numbers (perhaps a couple of hundred), becoming increasingly active. It was learning from other extremist groups abroad and was being nurtured by virulent like-minded haters over the internet. At the same time, the authorities did not take any serious action to address the security threat far-right activism posed, nor to counter its poisonous rhetoric. Too many people looked the other way, believing that the extreme right in New Zealand was harmless.
Although some in the New Zealand intelligence community heard what I and others were warning about, the issue was not given a high priority. The security agencies were much more preoccupied with investigating potential “jihadis”, criminal gangs, or Maori “separatists”.
The result was that the extreme right was largely overlooked, as the intelligence community spent millions chasing other would-be terrorists, some real, some imaginary. In practical terms, this meant that there was probably a considerable degree more surveillance of mosques and Muslim worshippers than far-right extremists like Brenton Tarrant and the shooting clubs and chat rooms they were frequenting.
Attackers also need easy access to weapons in order to commit a terror act. New Zealand’s rate of gun ownership is one of the highest in the world and civilians are able to legally obtain semiautomatic guns. Had the perpetrator of this terror attack attempted to do it with a firearm which could only fire one or two bullets before being reloaded, he would have been quickly overpowered and the death toll would have been much lower.
The Australians, like the British before them, figured this one out after suffering a number of large-scale mass shootings. As a result, both countries prohibited semiautomatic firearms which multiplied death tolls from single figures to the dozens. They also implemented elaborate amnesty and buy-back programmes to take as many guns out of circulation as possible.
The New Zealanders did not learn from the Australian or British experience. Despite firearms only being a legal privilege, and not a legal right (like in the US), successive New Zealand governments preferred to close their eyes and cross their fingers that the overseas problems would not hit their country.
Ron Arthur, assistant athletic director for Shawnee Public Schools, has earned the distinction of Certified Athletic Administrator from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
Both Arthur and Todd Boyer, SPS athletic director, completed the requirements for the designation this year.
To earn this distinction, Arthur has demonstrated the highest level of knowledge and expertise in the field of interscholastic athletic administration. The voluntary certification process included a thorough evaluation of the candidate's educational background, experience and professional contributions, as well as a rigorous, comprehensive written examination.
Arthur and Boyer join an elite group of interscholastic athletic administrators nationwide to attain this level of professionalism.
Maria Alvarenga had given up hope that she would ever be able to fix her house.
Nearly one year after superstorm Sandy wrecked her family’s mobile home in Amityville, Alvarenga, a 47-year-old single mother, her disabled brother, Armando, 49, and four of her children, were still living in the damaged, mold-infested unit.
Her family lost all their furniture and most of their clothing, and everything from the walls to the leaky roof needed to be replaced. But her application for federal assistance had been denied.
Now, thanks to a $1 million grant from the American Red Cross of Long Island, Alvarenga’s family will be one of as many as 500 across Long Island that will be connected to the resources they need to rebuild.
The grant, awarded to the United Way of Long Island, will support three Latino nonprofits who are working together in a new Long Island Red Cross Recovery Center in Deer Park.
“The more we share information, the more we speak to each other, the more impact we can collectively make,” said John Miller, CEO of the American Red Cross of Long Island, at the grand opening of the center on Monday.
The facility will be staffed with bilingual disaster case managers from Adelante of Suffolk County, the Hispanic Brotherhood of Rockville Centre, and La Fuerza Unida of Glen Cove. Each had been helping Sandy victims navigate the recovery process, but ran short on funding.
“They didn’t have the money to keep case managers in play, but they had the caseloads,” said Theresa Regnante, president and CEO of the United Way of Long Island. She said the grant is designed to help up to 500 families by February 2015.
Regnante said the organizations were selected by United Way because of their ability to cut through language barriers, but help is available to anyone. "Anybody can come through," she added.
Alvarenga has been assigned a case manager from Adelante, and the process of putting together a plan to rebuild her home has already begun.
You don�t have to know his name to know who Glen Lockett is.
NICEVILLE � You don�t have to know his name to know who Glen Lockett is.

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