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NPR's Scott Simon talks with Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports about the American connection to the Philippines women's soccer team competing in the World Cup. Copyright 2023 NPR NPR's Scott Simon talks with Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports about the American connection to the Philippines women's soccer team competing in the World Cup. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/the-upset-scoring-philippines-womens-soccer-team-has-strong-roots-in-the-u-s	2023-07-29T12:36:22	0	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/the-upset-scoring-philippines-womens-soccer-team-has-strong-roots-in-the-u-s
Congress leaves for recess despite a big to-do list. New charges filed against former President Donald Trump. Promising new economic numbers. Copyright 2023 NPR Congress leaves for recess despite a big to-do list. New charges filed against former President Donald Trump. Promising new economic numbers. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/week-in-politics-congress-on-recess-new-charges-against-trump-economy-looks-up	2023-07-29T12:36:28	0	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/week-in-politics-congress-on-recess-new-charges-against-trump-economy-looks-up
A group of crafters has come together to finish items for those who can no longer work on them, or for those who have recently died. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on June 20, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR A group of crafters has come together to finish items for those who can no longer work on them, or for those who have recently died. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on June 20, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/when-illness-or-death-leave-craft-projects-unfinished-these-strangers-step-in-to-help	2023-07-29T12:36:34	0	https://www.wboi.org/2023-07-29/when-illness-or-death-leave-craft-projects-unfinished-these-strangers-step-in-to-help
Trader Joe's has recalled its frozen falafel for potentially having rocks in it, after it recalled two of its cookie products for the same reason recently. The company's supplier informed them of the concern, and Trader Joe's said in a statement Friday that "all potentially affected product has been removed from sale and destroyed." Customers who purchased the product should discard it or return it to a Trader Joe's location for a full refund, the company said. The falafel, which is fully cooked and frozen, has the SKU number 93935 and is sold in Washington, D.C., and 34 states. Last Friday, Trader Joe's said rocks could also possibly be found in its Almond Windmill Cookies and Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/trader-joes-recalls-its-frozen-falafel-for-possibly-having-rocks-in-it	2023-07-29T12:36:40	0	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/trader-joes-recalls-its-frozen-falafel-for-possibly-having-rocks-in-it
BEIJING, July 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hundreds of English education experts and scholars from all over the world assembled in Macao on Friday for a three-day event to explore new opportunities for global cooperation in English education brought by China's development. The 2023 Global English Education China Assembly, an online-and-offline event that opened at the City University of Macau (CityU), attracted over 1,600 experts, front-line educators and scholars from more than 20 countries and regions. Participants were mainly from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Thailand, Russia, Singapore, Nepal, Mongolia, Indonesia and Pakistan. They shared their insights to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and discussed the most recent trends in English language teaching. The event's theme is "New opportunities for the world with new advances in China's development: Opening up new prospects in English education cooperation worldwide", and features nine keynote speeches and 23 parallel sessions. This year's assembly is hosted by China Daily and Shanghai International Studies University, and co-hosted by the Macao SAR Government Education and Youth Development Bureau, and organized by CityU and China Daily's 21st Century English Education Media. For the first time, the assembly, which started in 2018, was held in Macao — one of the engine cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This location echoes the Outline Development Plan for the GBA released in 2019, which set out to, among other goals, build the region as a model area for high-quality education and promote opening up education to the world. At the event's opening ceremony, Qu Yingpu, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, highlighted that 2023 marks the 10th year since President Xi Jinping put forward both the idea of "building a community with a shared future for mankind" and the Belt and Road Initiative. It is, therefore, appropriate that for the first time, the conference this year has moved out of the Chinese mainland to Macao where East meets West and multiple cultures blend, Qu said. He said he believes the event will catalyze many innovative outcomes. Qu further said that English education could be a bridge to promote high-quality development of the BRI and people-to-people cultural exchanges could provide momentum for "building a community with a shared future for mankind". He urged the audience to cultivate talent in order to bolster the promotion of the three global initiatives brought forward by Xi — the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. Qu also said China attaches great importance to education and cultural exchange. Xi, in his several correspondences with foreign students studying in China, has encouraged the latter to see with their own eyes the development of China and tell the world about what they have seen, to boost people-to-people bonding and friendship between their countries and China. Zha Mingjian, vice-president of Shanghai International Studies University, said development in recent times has brought many opportunities as well as challenges. In this context, the English education sector in China has the responsibility to serve as a vital bridge for English education globally. Opening education more extensively to the outside world will significantly strengthen China's efforts to modernize education in the new era, Zha said. Svetlana V. Sannikova, coordination council chairperson of the National Association of Teachers of English in Russia, said the Macao event offers a high-end international academic platform where teachers can learn many practical ideas and methods to improve their English teaching skills. On Friday, the event's organizer and CityU jointly established the Belt and Road English Education Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Exchange Base, which will use English education as a means to promote cultural exchanges and people-to-people bonding in countries and regions participating in the BRI. The GBA Exchange Base will also strive to promote high-quality development in the BRI landscape. Liu Jun, rector of CityU and president of the International Research Foundation for English Language Education, and Zeng Qingkai, editor-in-chief of 21st Century English Education Media, were the signatories of the document for the establishment of the base. Among the several dignitaries who graced Friday's opening ceremony were Ao Ieong U, secretary for social affairs and culture of the Macao SAR government, participating in the event on behalf of Macao SAR Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng; Yan Zhichan, deputy director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macao SAR; Liu Xianfa, commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Macao SAR; Kong Chimeng, director of the Macao SAR government Education and Youth Development Bureau; and Chan Meng-kam, chairman of the council of CityU. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE China Daily	https://www.ktre.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/experts-foresee-china-role-english-learning/	2023-07-29T12:36:44	1	https://www.ktre.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/experts-foresee-china-role-english-learning/
SAN FRANCISCO — The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant "X" sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons. The X appeared after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand's iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they hadn't taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell. Any replacement letters or symbols would require a permit to ensure "consistency with the historic nature of the building" and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said earlier this week. Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday. "Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign. The city is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation," he said in an email. Musk unveiled a new "X" logo to replace Twitter's famous blue bird as he remakes the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday. Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated with the letter X and had already renamed Twitter's corporate name to X Corp. after he bought it in October. One of his children is called "X." The child's actual name is a collection of letters and symbols. On Friday afternoon, a worker on a lift machine made adjustments to the sign and then left. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate	2023-07-29T12:36:46	0	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate
ODESSA, Ukraine, July 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ukrainian entrepreneur, Vadim Novynskyi has announced a donation of up to $1 million to help restore the Transfiguration Church in Odessa, Ukraine that was seriously damaged during rocket attacks on Sunday, July 23. The destruction of one of the most beautiful Ukrainian churches, which was erected by the founders of Odessa at the end of the 18th century is a true tragedy. This cathedral was the center of the spiritual life of Odessa. This is not the first time the church has been destroyed. In 1936, the Bolsheviks destroyed the cathedral and it was restored in the early 2000's after tens of thousands of ordinary people participated in the restoration with their donations. "I sincerely mourn with the inhabitants of Odessa and I want to assure them and all the people of Ukraine that this cathedral will be rebuilt and the people of Odessa will once again be able to worship and seek community in this hallowed place," said Vadim Novynskyi. "In the days of war and persecution of the Church, it is very important to be able to protect and revive the shrines of Orthodoxy, demonstrating faith, unity and mutual support. After all, the true Orthodox Church is based on these principles." View original content: SOURCE Vadym Novynskyi	https://www.ktre.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/restoration-transfiguration-chuch-odessa-ukraine-by-ukrainian-entrepreneur-vadym-novynskyi/	2023-07-29T12:36:51	1	https://www.ktre.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/restoration-transfiguration-chuch-odessa-ukraine-by-ukrainian-entrepreneur-vadym-novynskyi/
Flor Marte knows someone will die. She knows when and how, because it came to her in a dream. That's her gift – all the women in the Marte family have one. But Flor refuses to share who the dream is about. Instead, she insists on throwing herself a living wake, a reason for the entire family to come together and celebrate their lives. That's the starting point for Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel for adults, Family Lore. Acevedo grew up in Harlem, with summer visits to the Dominican Republic, and aspirations of becoming a rapper – until a literature teacher invited her to join an after-school poetry club. She attended reluctantly; but what she found in spoken word performance broke her world and the possibilities of language wide open. "I think for folks who maybe have felt it difficult to occupy their bodies and take up space and demand attention, to have three minutes where that is the requirement is really powerful," she says. Acevedo went on to become a National Poetry Slam champion and earn degrees in performing arts and creative writing. After college, she taught language arts in Prince George's County, Maryland. Teaching, she says, is its own kind of performance – one where the audience doesn't always want to be there. But her students were struggling in other ways. "So many of my young people weren't at grade level, but they'd also not encountered literature that they felt reflected them," she says. "Trying to meet some of those students where they were was really a kickoff for my writing." So Acevedo began writing young adult books. The Poet X, her first novel about a Dominican-American teen finding her voice through poetry, won a National Book Award in 2018. Pivoting to a new audience Now, with Family Lore, Acevedo turns her attention to adult readers. "I think the way this pushes forward her work and the growing body of Dominican-American literature is how deeply she writes into the interiors of her women characters," says author Naima Coster, who read an early draft of the novel. The story is told through memories, out of order, sometimes a memory within a different memory. Acevedo jumps from the Dominican countryside to Santo Domingo to New York, as sisters Matilde, Flor, Pastora and Camila – along with younger generation Ona and Yadi – reflect on their childhoods and teenage romances and the secrets that bind them all together. Though the Marte women grow older together, their relationships do not get easier. "What does it mean if these women have really just had a different experience of their mother?" says Acevedo. "And how that different experience of their mother automatically will create a schism, because now it's like, 'You don't remember her the way I remember her, and because of that, I can't trust you." There are infidelities, miscarriages, childhood love affairs and therapeutic dance classes. Acevedo explains that she needed to tell this story in a non-linear format, in the way memories surface and warp; the way family gossip is passed on from person to person, in a roundabout way. Returning to the body That format, she says, was more suited for adult readers; and writing for adults also allowed her to be candid about bodies: how they move, change, excite, disappoint. "The generation I was raised by felt like their relationship to their body was very othered," Acevedo says. "When I speak to my cousins, when I think about myself, it's been a return to desire, a return to the gut, a return to health in a way that isn't necessarily about size but is about: who am I in this vessel and how do I love it?" That tension is felt especially by the younger Marte women, whose supernatural gifts radiate from within. Ona has a self-described "alpha vagina," Yadi has a special taste for sour limes. Naima Coster says it's easy to feel pressure to write about marginalized communities as clean-cut, exemplary characters. But Family Lore relishes in airing out the Marte family's dirty laundry– in showing Afro-Dominican women as full, complicated protagonists. "It feels major, the way she writes about the ways that these women misunderstand each other, but still love each other," she says. Acevedo says those themes – family, home, Blackness, power – will be in every book she writes, "because those are the questions that haunt me." Family Lore reads like the feeling of getting older and no longer having moms and aunts lower their voices when you enter the room – like finally being privy to what makes a family flawed and perfect. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-family-lore-award-winning-ya-author-elizabeth-acevedo-turns-to-adult-readers	2023-07-29T12:36:52	1	https://www.wboi.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-family-lore-award-winning-ya-author-elizabeth-acevedo-turns-to-adult-readers
A program in Oklahoma uses art to re-integrate women recently released from prison By Elizabeth Caldwell Published July 29, 2023 at 5:00 AM PDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Women who are soon to be released from prison in Oklahoma get help with the transition by focusing on the arts. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/a-program-in-oklahoma-uses-art-to-re-integrate-women-recently-released-from-prison	2023-07-29T12:39:03	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/a-program-in-oklahoma-uses-art-to-re-integrate-women-recently-released-from-prison
Northeast Ohio Weather: Mixed weather Bag this weekend Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 7:53 AM EDT\|Updated: 45 minutes ago CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Spotty showers and thunder can be expected today as highs approach 80. Clouds will be decreasing tonight amid lows in the lower 60s. Sunday’s sun/clouds mix will include highs only in the upper 70s. Skies continue to clear Sunday night as lows retreat to around 60. We finalize July on a mainly sunny Monday with highs in the upper 70s. Tuesday will feature mainly sunny skies as we welcome August with highs again in the upper 70s. Wednesday will feature a sun/clouds mix and highs in the lower 80s. Copyright 2023 WOIO. All rights reserved.	https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/29/northeast-ohio-weather-mixed-weather-bag-this-weekend/	2023-07-29T12:39:04	0	https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/29/northeast-ohio-weather-mixed-weather-bag-this-weekend/
NPR's Scott Simon speaks with a resident of Odesa, Ukraine about what the last several days — and nights — have been like, under repeated attack from Russian missiles and drones. Copyright 2023 NPR NPR's Scott Simon speaks with a resident of Odesa, Ukraine about what the last several days — and nights — have been like, under repeated attack from Russian missiles and drones. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/a-resident-of-odesa-ukraine-describes-life-amid-russian-missile-and-drone-strikes	2023-07-29T12:39:04	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/a-resident-of-odesa-ukraine-describes-life-amid-russian-missile-and-drone-strikes
There are dueling efforts in Florida by activists on both sides of the abortion issue to insert language into the state constitution. Copyright 2023 NPR There are dueling efforts in Florida by activists on both sides of the abortion issue to insert language into the state constitution. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/activists-on-both-sides-of-the-abortion-issue-are-trying-to-change-floridas-constitution	2023-07-29T12:39:08	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/activists-on-both-sides-of-the-abortion-issue-are-trying-to-change-floridas-constitution
Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/an-artist-explains-why-marvels-use-of-ai-to-animate-a-sequence-is-worrying	2023-07-29T12:39:09	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/an-artist-explains-why-marvels-use-of-ai-to-animate-a-sequence-is-worrying
One of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S. is losing congregations over disputes over LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage. (This story first aired on Morning Edition on July 25, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR One of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S. is losing congregations over disputes over LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage. (This story first aired on Morning Edition on July 25, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/congregations-leave-united-methodist-church-over-defiance-of-lgbtq-bans	2023-07-29T12:39:09	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/congregations-leave-united-methodist-church-over-defiance-of-lgbtq-bans
How to Watch NASCAR, F1, IndyCar & More: Auto Racing Streaming Live - Saturday, July 29 Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 6:44 AM EDT\|Updated: 2 hours ago Need more auto racing in your life? Well, you're in luck. The race slate on Saturday, July 29 includes Formula 1, Formula E, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Racing Series, and NHRA Drag Racing action that can be watched on Fubo. For a complete list, along with information on how to watch or live stream it all, check out the article below. Watch even more racing action with ESPN+! Auto Racing Streaming Live Today Watch Formula 1: Belgium Grand Prix - Sprint Shootout - Series: Formula 1 - Game Time: 5:55 AM ET - TV Channel: ESPN - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch Formula 1: Belgium Grand Prix - Sprint - Series: Formula 1 - Game Time: 10:25 AM ET - TV Channel: ESPN - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch Formula E: Round 15: London - Race - Series: Formula E - Game Time: 11:30 AM ET - TV Channel: CBS Sports Network - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch NHRA Drag Racing: DENSO Sonoma Nationals - Qualifying - Series: NHRA Drag Racing - Game Time: 12:00 PM ET - TV Channel: FOX Sports Networks - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch Formula E: Hankook London E-Prix - Series: Formula E - Game Time: 12:00 PM ET - TV Channel: CBS - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch NASCAR Cup Series: Cook Out 400 - Qualifying - Series: NASCAR Cup Series - Game Time: 12:30 PM ET - TV Channel: USA Network - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch NASCAR Xfinity Racing Series: Henry 180 - Series: NASCAR Xfinity Racing Series - Game Time: 3:00 PM ET - TV Channel: NBC - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch NASCAR Xfinity Racing Series: Road America 180 - Series: NASCAR Xfinity Racing Series - Game Time: 3:00 PM ET - TV Channel: NBC - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Watch NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series: Worldwide Express 250 - Series: NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series - Game Time: 7:30 PM ET - TV Channel: FOX Sports Networks - Live Stream: Watch on Fubo! Make sure you're following along with racing action all year long on Fubo and ESPN+! © 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved.	https://www.cleveland19.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/auto-racing-live-stream/	2023-07-29T12:39:10	1	https://www.cleveland19.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/auto-racing-live-stream/
COLOMBO – Japan's Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China. Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo. The initiative, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation. Last year Sri Lanka, which owed $51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis. While Japan is Sri Lanka's largest creditor, about 10% of its debt is held by China, which lent Colombo billions to build sea ports, airports and power plants as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In March, China agreed to offer Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on loan repayments. Hayashi said that he conveyed expectations for further progress in Sri Lanka's debt restructuring process. He welcomed Sri Lanka’s efforts under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which includes anti-corruption measures and transparency in the policy-making process. Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Sabry said that he, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, invited Japan to resume investment projects already in the pipeline and to consider fresh investments in sectors such as power generation, ports and highways, and dedicated investment zones, as well as in the green and digital economy. Over many decades, Japan became one of Sri Lanka's key donors, carrying out key projects under concessionary terms. However, relations between the two countries came under strain after Wickremesinghe's predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa unilaterally scrapped a Japan-funded light railway project following his election in 2019. Sri Lanka's Cabinet has already approved a proposal to restart the railway project. Rajapaksa was forced to resign in July 2022 amid angry public protects over the country's worst economic crisis.	https://www.wsls.com/business/2023/07/29/with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/	2023-07-29T12:39:20	1	https://www.wsls.com/business/2023/07/29/with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/
BEIJING, July 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hundreds of English education experts and scholars from all over the world assembled in Macao on Friday for a three-day event to explore new opportunities for global cooperation in English education brought by China's development. The 2023 Global English Education China Assembly, an online-and-offline event that opened at the City University of Macau (CityU), attracted over 1,600 experts, front-line educators and scholars from more than 20 countries and regions. Participants were mainly from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Thailand, Russia, Singapore, Nepal, Mongolia, Indonesia and Pakistan. They shared their insights to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and discussed the most recent trends in English language teaching. The event's theme is "New opportunities for the world with new advances in China's development: Opening up new prospects in English education cooperation worldwide", and features nine keynote speeches and 23 parallel sessions. This year's assembly is hosted by China Daily and Shanghai International Studies University, and co-hosted by the Macao SAR Government Education and Youth Development Bureau, and organized by CityU and China Daily's 21st Century English Education Media. For the first time, the assembly, which started in 2018, was held in Macao — one of the engine cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This location echoes the Outline Development Plan for the GBA released in 2019, which set out to, among other goals, build the region as a model area for high-quality education and promote opening up education to the world. At the event's opening ceremony, Qu Yingpu, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, highlighted that 2023 marks the 10th year since President Xi Jinping put forward both the idea of "building a community with a shared future for mankind" and the Belt and Road Initiative. It is, therefore, appropriate that for the first time, the conference this year has moved out of the Chinese mainland to Macao where East meets West and multiple cultures blend, Qu said. He said he believes the event will catalyze many innovative outcomes. Qu further said that English education could be a bridge to promote high-quality development of the BRI and people-to-people cultural exchanges could provide momentum for "building a community with a shared future for mankind". He urged the audience to cultivate talent in order to bolster the promotion of the three global initiatives brought forward by Xi — the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. Qu also said China attaches great importance to education and cultural exchange. Xi, in his several correspondences with foreign students studying in China, has encouraged the latter to see with their own eyes the development of China and tell the world about what they have seen, to boost people-to-people bonding and friendship between their countries and China. Zha Mingjian, vice-president of Shanghai International Studies University, said development in recent times has brought many opportunities as well as challenges. In this context, the English education sector in China has the responsibility to serve as a vital bridge for English education globally. Opening education more extensively to the outside world will significantly strengthen China's efforts to modernize education in the new era, Zha said. Svetlana V. Sannikova, coordination council chairperson of the National Association of Teachers of English in Russia, said the Macao event offers a high-end international academic platform where teachers can learn many practical ideas and methods to improve their English teaching skills. On Friday, the event's organizer and CityU jointly established the Belt and Road English Education Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Exchange Base, which will use English education as a means to promote cultural exchanges and people-to-people bonding in countries and regions participating in the BRI. The GBA Exchange Base will also strive to promote high-quality development in the BRI landscape. Liu Jun, rector of CityU and president of the International Research Foundation for English Language Education, and Zeng Qingkai, editor-in-chief of 21st Century English Education Media, were the signatories of the document for the establishment of the base. Among the several dignitaries who graced Friday's opening ceremony were Ao Ieong U, secretary for social affairs and culture of the Macao SAR government, participating in the event on behalf of Macao SAR Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng; Yan Zhichan, deputy director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macao SAR; Liu Xianfa, commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Macao SAR; Kong Chimeng, director of the Macao SAR government Education and Youth Development Bureau; and Chan Meng-kam, chairman of the council of CityU. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE China Daily	https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/experts-foresee-china-role-english-learning/	2023-07-29T12:39:20	0	https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/experts-foresee-china-role-english-learning/
ODESSA, Ukraine, July 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ukrainian entrepreneur, Vadim Novynskyi has announced a donation of up to $1 million to help restore the Transfiguration Church in Odessa, Ukraine that was seriously damaged during rocket attacks on Sunday, July 23. The destruction of one of the most beautiful Ukrainian churches, which was erected by the founders of Odessa at the end of the 18th century is a true tragedy. This cathedral was the center of the spiritual life of Odessa. This is not the first time the church has been destroyed. In 1936, the Bolsheviks destroyed the cathedral and it was restored in the early 2000's after tens of thousands of ordinary people participated in the restoration with their donations. "I sincerely mourn with the inhabitants of Odessa and I want to assure them and all the people of Ukraine that this cathedral will be rebuilt and the people of Odessa will once again be able to worship and seek community in this hallowed place," said Vadim Novynskyi. "In the days of war and persecution of the Church, it is very important to be able to protect and revive the shrines of Orthodoxy, demonstrating faith, unity and mutual support. After all, the true Orthodox Church is based on these principles." View original content: SOURCE Vadym Novynskyi	https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/restoration-transfiguration-chuch-odessa-ukraine-by-ukrainian-entrepreneur-vadym-novynskyi/	2023-07-29T12:39:21	1	https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/restoration-transfiguration-chuch-odessa-ukraine-by-ukrainian-entrepreneur-vadym-novynskyi/
Compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America. Angels even get more credence than, well, hell. More than astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that physical things can have spiritual energies. In fact, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. “People are yearning for something greater than themselves — beyond their own understanding,” said Jack Grogger, a chaplain for the Los Angeles Angels and a longtime Southern California fire captain who has aided many people in their gravest moments. That search for something bigger, he said, can take on many forms, from following a religion to crafting a self-driven purpose to believing in, of course, angels. “For a lot of people, angels are a lot safer to worship,” said Grogger, who also pastors a nondenominational church in Orange, California, and is a chaplain for the NHL's Anaheim Ducks. People turn to angels for comfort, he said. They are familiar, regularly showing up in pop culture as well as in the Bible. Comparably, worshipping Jesus is far more involved; when Grogger preaches about angels it is with the context that they are part of God's kingdom. American's belief in angels (69%) is about on par with belief in heaven and the power of prayer, but bested by belief in God or a higher power (79%). Fewer U.S. adults believe in the devil or Satan (56%), astrology (34%), reincarnation (34%), and that physical things can have spiritual energies, such as plants, rivers or crystals (42%). The widespread acceptance of angels shown in the AP-NORC poll makes sense to Susan Garrett, an angel expert and New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It tracks with historical surveys, she said, adding that the U.S. remains a faith-filled country even as more Americans reject organized religion. But if the devil is in the details, so are people’s understandings of angels. “They’re very malleable,” Garrett said of angels. “You can have any one of a number of quite different worldviews in terms of your understanding of how the cosmos is arranged, whether there’s spirit beings, whether there’s life after death, whether there’s a God … and still find a place for angels in that worldview.” Talk of angels, Garrett said, is often also about something else, like the ways God interacts with the world and other hard-to-articulate ideas. The large number of U.S. adults who say they believe in angels includes 84% of those with a religious affiliation — 94% of evangelical Protestants, 81% of mainline Protestants and 82% of Catholics — and 33% of those without one. And of those angel-believing religiously unaffiliated, that includes 2% of atheists, 25% of agnostics and 50% of those identified as “nothing in particular.” The broad acceptance is what fascinates San Francisco-based witch and author Devin Hunter: Angels show up independently in different religions and traditions, making them part of the fabric that unites humanity. “We’re all getting to the same conclusion,” said Hunter, who spent 16 years as a professional medium, and started communicating as a child with what he believed were angels. Hunter estimates that a belief in angels applies to about half of those practicing modern witchcraft today, and for some who don't believe, their rejection is often rooted in the religious trauma they experienced growing up. “Angels become a very big deal" for long-time practitioners who've made occultism their primary focus, said Hunter, an angel-loving occultist. “We cannot escape them in any way, shape or form.” Jennifer Goodwin of Oviedo, Florida, also is among the roughly seven in 10 U.S. adults who say they believe in angels. She isn’t sure if God exists and rejects the afterlife dichotomy of heaven and hell, but the recent deaths of her parents solidified her views on these celestial beings. Goodwin believes her parents are still keeping an eye on the family — not in any physical way or as a supernatural apparition, but that they manifest in those moments when she feels a general sense of comfort. “I think that they are around us, but it’s in a way that we can’t understand,” Goodwin said. “I don’t know what else to call it except an angel.” Angels mean different things to different people, and the idea of loved ones becoming heavenly angels after death is neither an unusual belief nor a universally held one. In his reading of Scripture as an evangelical Protestant, Grogger said he believes angels are something else entirely — they have never been human and are on another level in heaven's hierarchy. “We are higher than angels,” he said. “We do not become an angel.” Angels do interact with humans though, said Grogger, but what "that looks like we’re not 100% sure.” They worship God who created this angelic legion of unknown numbers, he said, adding that evangelicals often attribute the demonic forces in the world to the angels who fell from heaven when the devil rebelled. The Western ideas about angels can be traced through the Bible — and to the worldviews of its monotheistic authors, Garrett said. Those beliefs have changed and developed for millennia, influenced by cultures, theologians and even the ancient polytheistic beliefs that came before the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, she said. “There are sort of lines of continuity from the Bible that you can trace all the way up to the New Age movement,” said Susan Garrett, who wrote “No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus.” The angels in the Bible do God's bidding, and angelic violence is one part of their job description, said Esther Hamori, author of the upcoming book, “God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible.” “The angels of the Bible are just as likely to assassinate individuals and slaughter entire populations as they are to offer help and protect and deliver,” said Hamori. She doesn't believe in these angels, but studies them as a Hebrew Bible professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York where she teaches a popular “Monster Heaven” class. “They’re just God’s obedient soldiers doing the task at hand, and sometimes that task is in human beings' best interests, and sometimes it’s not," she said. The perception that angels act angelic and look like the idyllic, winged figurines atop Christmas trees could be attributed to an early centuries belief that people are assigned one good angel and one bad — or have a good and bad spirit to guide them, Garrett said. This idea shows up on the shoulders of cartoon characters and is likely what Abraham Lincoln was alluding to in his famous appeal for unity when he referenced “the better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address, she said. “It’s also tied in with ideas about guardian angels, which again, very ancient views that got developed over the centuries,” Garrett said. For Sheila Avery of Chicago, angels are protectors, capable of keeping someone from harm. Avery, who belongs to a nondenominational church, credits them with those moments like when a person’s plans fall through, but ultimately it saves them from being in the thick of an unexpected disaster. “They turn on the news and a terrible tragedy happened at that particular place,” Avery said, suggesting it was an “angel that was probably watching over them.” ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.	https://www.wsls.com/news/national/2023/07/29/do-you-believe-in-angels-about-7-in-10-us-adults-do-a-new-ap-norc-poll-shows/	2023-07-29T12:39:22	0	https://www.wsls.com/news/national/2023/07/29/do-you-believe-in-angels-about-7-in-10-us-adults-do-a-new-ap-norc-poll-shows/
CANBERRA – The United States will expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years, the allies announced on Saturday as they ramped up defense cooperation to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. The new cooperation on guided weapon production follows a trilateral partnership announcement in March that will see Britain provide Australia with a fleet of eight submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology. The greater integration of U.S. and Australian militaries was announced after annual talks between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts, Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. They agreed to cooperate on Australia producing Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025, a communique said. U.S. companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin only established an Australian enterprise to build such weapons last year. That followed the drain on Western countries' munitions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Austin said the move on missiles would strengthen the two allies’ defense industrial base and technological edge. “We’re racing to accelerate Australia’s priority access to munitions through a streamlined acquisition process,” Austin told reporters in Brisbane, Australia. Marles welcomed U.S. support to achieve Australian missile production within two years. “We are really pleased with the steps that we are taking in respect of establishing a guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise in this country,” Marles said. The two governments also agreed to upgrade joint military facilities in Australia and to increase U.S. nuclear submarine visits as the United States increases its focus on the South Pacific. The region came to the forefront of the U.S. competition with China for influence last year, when Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands and raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established there. Austin became the first U.S. defense secretary to visit Papua New Guinea and Blinken visited New Zealand and Tonga before they arrived in Australia. Saturday’s meeting was overshadowed by the loss of an Australian Army helicopter with four air crew late Friday, during military exercises with the U.S. off the northeastern coast of Australia. U.S., Australian and Canadian militaries are taking part in the search for potential survivors near Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland state coast. Austin and Marles will travel to north Queensland on Sunday to inspect Talisman Sabre, a biennial military exercise between the two countries that this year includes 13 nations and more than 30,000 military personnel.	https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2023/07/29/us-pledges-to-help-australia-manufacture-guided-missiles-by-2025/	2023-07-29T12:39:22	0	https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2023/07/29/us-pledges-to-help-australia-manufacture-guided-missiles-by-2025/
Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/if-you-see-a-hammerhead-worm-remember-salt-dont-slice	2023-07-29T12:39:24	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/if-you-see-a-hammerhead-worm-remember-salt-dont-slice
A visit to the Paris suburb where riots first broke out in France, following the police killing of a young man of North African descent. Copyright 2023 NPR A visit to the Paris suburb where riots first broke out in France, following the police killing of a young man of North African descent. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/in-the-paris-suburb-where-riots-erupted-protests-have-died-down-but-anger-remains	2023-07-29T12:39:30	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/in-the-paris-suburb-where-riots-erupted-protests-have-died-down-but-anger-remains
Indigenous communities in Taiwan celebrate summer with the harvest festival By Emily Feng Published July 29, 2023 at 5:05 AM PDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email A visit to a harvest festival in Taiwan, a celebration of summer by the island's indigenous communities. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/indigenous-communities-in-taiwan-celebrate-summer-with-the-harvest-festival	2023-07-29T12:39:36	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/indigenous-communities-in-taiwan-celebrate-summer-with-the-harvest-festival
At a time of increasing isolation for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the world stage, he just concluded a summit with leaders from Africa. Copyright 2023 NPR At a time of increasing isolation for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the world stage, he just concluded a summit with leaders from Africa. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/isolated-by-the-west-putin-hosted-a-summit-for-leaders-from-africa-in-st-petersburg	2023-07-29T12:39:42	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/isolated-by-the-west-putin-hosted-a-summit-for-leaders-from-africa-in-st-petersburg
Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/lydia-kiesling-on-her-new-novel-mobility	2023-07-29T12:39:48	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/lydia-kiesling-on-her-new-novel-mobility
The Lincoln Dinner in Iowa hosts the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 - as hopefuls try to stand out against front-runner Donald Trump. Copyright 2023 NPR The Lincoln Dinner in Iowa hosts the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 - as hopefuls try to stand out against front-runner Donald Trump. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/new-charges-against-trump-didnt-keep-him-off-the-campaign-trail-in-iowa	2023-07-29T12:39:54	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/new-charges-against-trump-didnt-keep-him-off-the-campaign-trail-in-iowa
This may be the most scorching month in the most scalding summer of what may become the hottest year in recorded history. From Arizona, where it's been above 110 degrees Fahrenheit every day for a month, to Sardinia which hit 118 F this week, to Xinjiang, China, where the temperature soared to 126 F. It felt a little mournful, then, to turn on summer playlists and hear lyrics like, "Summer breeze makes me feel fine." And, "Summer's here and the time is right / For dancing in the street." This summer — these past few summers, really — has meant weeks of swelter, smoke, wildfires, and peril, across much of the hemisphere. It was 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Rome last week. The Italian health ministry put 23 cities under a red alert, and cautioned people not to walk outside, and to avoid wine and coffee. Too hot in Italy to stroll, enjoy a glass of soave, or sip an espresso. Next they'll say stop boiling pasta. 170 million people in America were under heat alerts this week. The National Weather Service warns, "Take the heat seriously and avoid time outdoors." Isn't being outdoors the beauty of summer? For most of my life, summer has been a time to shuck off all the layers of winter cold and gloom, to feel warmth and sunlight. School is out. Vacations are planned. We can go coatless, feel carefree, dawdle, travel, and play. But this summer in America many outdoor shows, concerts, and festivals have been canceled, and sporting events postponed because of unsafe heat, and wildfire smoke in the skies. How many families have avoided picnics, camping trips, or games of catch in the yard, because it's just too darn hot? The temperature of the water in Manatee Bay at Everglades National Park in Florida has been 101.1 F. The heat of ocean water — water — may be too dangerous for fish to survive. This excruciating heat, driven by human activity, can be dangerous for every living creature, as well as the plants that bear the fruits and vegetables we need to survive. For humans, the heat is especially hazardous for seniors, children, and people who are unsheltered. Will red alerts, heat emergencies, wildfires and temperatures in the triple digits become the new signs of summer? And will that make summer, as my friends and I used to dream about through frigid and forbidding Chicago winters, now seem a season to fear? Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/opinion-its-too-hot-in-here	2023-07-29T12:40:01	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/opinion-its-too-hot-in-here
National parks and hiking trail networks around the country are facing dual pressures - crowds and changing weather. Preservationists in New Hampshire are painstakingly restoring one such trail. Copyright 2023 NPR National parks and hiking trail networks around the country are facing dual pressures - crowds and changing weather. Preservationists in New Hampshire are painstakingly restoring one such trail. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/preservationists-are-trying-to-restore-national-park-trails-destroyed-by-the-weather	2023-07-29T12:40:07	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/preservationists-are-trying-to-restore-national-park-trails-destroyed-by-the-weather
Alligators prefer dogs to people \| ECOVIEWS Dogs, alligators and humans have a perverse connection. A journalistic adage asserts that “dog bites man” is not a story, but “man bites dog” makes the front page. The opposite is true of alligators. “Person bites alligator” is not news because folks bite into alligators in restaurants every day. “Alligator bites person” makes headlines. Indeed, of the slightly more than two dozen confirmed human deaths from American alligators during the past half century, all have made the news. Often a dog was involved. More:Not all snakes bite, except when they do \| ECOVIEWS Someone recently asked me at a social event, “Did you hear about the lady at Hilton Head who was attacked and killed by a big alligator?” I had not heard of that incident. Instead, I asked my own question, “was she walking a dog?” Answer, “yes.” Large alligators make a living eating waterfowl, turtles and snakes, as well as mammals encountered alongside wetlands. They will instinctively go after a deer, bobcat or dog walking along a shoreline — oblivious that the dog's leash is held in a person’s hand. One scenario: the gator lunges for the dog, yanking the owner into the middle of the ensuing fracas, with everyone ending up in the water. Whether trying to save the dog or getting accidentally entangled in the leash, the person ends up confronting a predator intent on killing its prey. The dog walker has inadvertently brought a four-legged prey animal into an alligator’s hunting zone, which includes many shorelines in Southern states. This is in no way to place blame on the person, who may have been completely unaware of the presence of alligators in an area and the predisposition of the big reptiles to go after mammals as meals. Another common cause of perceived alligator attacks is a female alligator guarding a nest or her recently hatched babies. The nests are constructed on land just a few feet from the water, and the mother will often assist newly hatched babies to the water. The maternal instinct, especially from June to October, is powerful. Protective mothers with gaping mouths and lots of teeth will hiss and charge out of the water at a suspected threat to their offspring. Some will challenge an adult human as readily as they will a fox or raccoon. However, according to alligator expert Thomas Rainwater, research scientist at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center in South Carolina, no human fatalities have been documented from defensive attacks by mother alligators. Nonetheless, the prudent course of action is to stay away from alligator nests and baby alligators. The native range of American alligators is the southeastern Coastal Plain, from coastal North Carolina along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts into Texas and up into Oklahoma and Arkansas. Alligators occur throughout Florida and Louisiana. Any body of water within their natural geographic range could potentially be home for an American alligator. As with shark bites, how much lingering attention a fatal alligator attack gets depends on what else is happening in the news. A hurricane, an asinine statement by a politician or Taylor Swift’s position on ticket sale snafus can readily take top billing, keeping wild animal attacks below the fold and soon on the trailing edge of the never-ending “breaking news.” A serious bite or fatality from an alligator or any other animal is devastating to the victim’s family. They deserve our sympathy. For future dog walkers, being aware of alligators in an area should be a foremost consideration. Large adult alligators can travel overland or along waterways and end up in a lake miles away from their point of origin. Staying several feet away from the shore of any body of water that might serve as alligator habitat is advisable for anyone unfamiliar with the area. Scientists who study the ecology and behavior of alligators and other crocodilians worldwide have helped us understand the motivations for the rare attacks inflicted on humans. The next step is to effectively modify the behavior of humans who are around them. Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.	https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/opinion/2023/07/29/alligators-prefer-dogs-to-people-ecoviews/70450578007/	2023-07-29T12:40:12	1	https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/opinion/2023/07/29/alligators-prefer-dogs-to-people-ecoviews/70450578007/
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China. Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo. The initiative, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation. Last year Sri Lanka, which owed $51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis. While Japan is Sri Lanka’s largest creditor, about 10% of its debt is held by China, which lent Colombo billions to build sea ports, airports and power plants as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In March, China agreed to offer Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on loan repayments. Hayashi said that he conveyed expectations for further progress in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process. He welcomed Sri Lanka’s efforts under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which includes anti-corruption measures and transparency in the policy-making process. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Sabry said that he, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, invited Japan to resume investment projects already in the pipeline and to consider fresh investments in sectors such as power generation, ports and highways, and dedicated investment zones, as well as in the green and digital economy. Over many decades, Japan became one of Sri Lanka’s key donors, carrying out key projects under concessionary terms. However, relations between the two countries came under strain after Wickremesinghe’s predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa unilaterally scrapped a Japan-funded light railway project following his election in 2019. Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has already approved a proposal to restart the railway project. Rajapaksa was forced to resign in July 2022 amid angry public protects over the country’s worst economic crisis.	https://www.seattletimes.com/business/with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_business	2023-07-29T12:40:12	1	https://www.seattletimes.com/business/with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_business
Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/saturday-sports-the-week-ahead-in-the-womens-world-cup-orioles-defeat-yankees	2023-07-29T12:40:13	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/saturday-sports-the-week-ahead-in-the-womens-world-cup-orioles-defeat-yankees
BAGHDAD (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah said Saturday that if governments of Muslim-majority nations do not act against countries that allow the desecration of the Quran, Muslims should “punish” those who facilitate attacks on Islam’s holy book. The comments by Hassan Nasrallah came in a video address to tens of thousands gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs to mark Ashoura, a Shiite holy day commemorating the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein. Nasrallah often uses religious occasions to send political messages to followers, and on Saturday slammed recent incidents in which the Quran was burned or otherwise desecrated at authorized demonstrations in Sweden and Denmark. He said Muslims should watch for the outcome of an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, scheduled to take place in Baghdad on Monday to discuss the organization’s response to the Quran burnings. The organization and its member states should “send a firm, decisive and unequivocal message to these governments that any repeat of the attacks will be met with a boycott,” Nasrallah said. If they do not, he said, Muslim youth should “punish the desecrators.” He did not elaborate what such a boycott and punishment should entail. Members of the crowd, who carried banners with religious slogans alongside the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Palestine, chanted, “Oh, Quran, we are at your service; Oh, Hussein, we are at your service.” Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and view Hussein as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in battle at the hands of Sunnis at Karbala, south of Baghdad, ingrained a deep rift in Islam and continues to this day to play a key role in shaping Shiite identity. Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, while Saturday marked the culmination of the observances in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala, where Hussein is entombed in a gold-domed shrine. In the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, mourners gathered to watch reenactments of the Battle of Karbala and Hussein’s death. In the streets, young men clad in black and white slashed their heads with swords and knives to demonstrate their grief. Friends swabbed each other’s heads with tissues and handed each other water. In Syria’s capital, Damascus, the crowds were mourning not only the death of Hussein but a deadly attack in the suburb of Sayida Zeinab, home to a shrine to Zeinab, the daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. A bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded there on Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. On Tuesday, another bomb in a motorcycle had wounded two people. On Friday, the Islamic State group — a Sunni militant group that often targets Shiites — claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying Thursday’s bombing came “during their annual polytheistic rituals.” The group’s extreme interpretation of Islam holds Shiite Muslims to be apostates. ___ Associated Press writers Anmar Khalil in Karbala, Iraq, and Hassan Ammar in Beirut contributed to this report.	https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_world	2023-07-29T12:40:18	0	https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_world
The coup in Niger, this week, raises questions about the future of democratic leadership in the West African country. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Rama Yade of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center. Copyright 2023 NPR The coup in Niger, this week, raises questions about the future of democratic leadership in the West African country. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Rama Yade of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/the-coup-in-niger-is-a-blow-to-democracy-in-the-west-african-country	2023-07-29T12:40:19	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/the-coup-in-niger-is-a-blow-to-democracy-in-the-west-african-country
NPR's Scott Simon talks with Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports about the American connection to the Philippines women's soccer team competing in the World Cup. Copyright 2023 NPR NPR's Scott Simon talks with Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports about the American connection to the Philippines women's soccer team competing in the World Cup. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/the-upset-scoring-philippines-womens-soccer-team-has-strong-roots-in-the-u-s	2023-07-29T12:40:26	1	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/the-upset-scoring-philippines-womens-soccer-team-has-strong-roots-in-the-u-s
Congress leaves for recess despite a big to-do list. New charges filed against former President Donald Trump. Promising new economic numbers. Copyright 2023 NPR Congress leaves for recess despite a big to-do list. New charges filed against former President Donald Trump. Promising new economic numbers. Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/week-in-politics-congress-on-recess-new-charges-against-trump-economy-looks-up	2023-07-29T12:40:32	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/week-in-politics-congress-on-recess-new-charges-against-trump-economy-looks-up
A group of crafters has come together to finish items for those who can no longer work on them, or for those who have recently died. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on June 20, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR A group of crafters has come together to finish items for those who can no longer work on them, or for those who have recently died. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on June 20, 2023.) Copyright 2023 NPR	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/when-illness-or-death-leave-craft-projects-unfinished-these-strangers-step-in-to-help	2023-07-29T12:40:38	0	https://www.kvpr.org/2023-07-29/when-illness-or-death-leave-craft-projects-unfinished-these-strangers-step-in-to-help
Trader Joe's has recalled its frozen falafel for potentially having rocks in it, after it recalled two of its cookie products for the same reason recently. The company's supplier informed them of the concern, and Trader Joe's said in a statement Friday that "all potentially affected product has been removed from sale and destroyed." Customers who purchased the product should discard it or return it to a Trader Joe's location for a full refund, the company said. The falafel, which is fully cooked and frozen, has the SKU number 93935 and is sold in Washington, D.C., and 34 states. Last Friday, Trader Joe's said rocks could also possibly be found in its Almond Windmill Cookies and Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/trader-joes-recalls-its-frozen-falafel-for-possibly-having-rocks-in-it	2023-07-29T12:40:44	0	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/trader-joes-recalls-its-frozen-falafel-for-possibly-having-rocks-in-it
SAN FRANCISCO — The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant "X" sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons. The X appeared after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand's iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they hadn't taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell. Any replacement letters or symbols would require a permit to ensure "consistency with the historic nature of the building" and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said earlier this week. Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday. "Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign. The city is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation," he said in an email. Musk unveiled a new "X" logo to replace Twitter's famous blue bird as he remakes the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday. Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated with the letter X and had already renamed Twitter's corporate name to X Corp. after he bought it in October. One of his children is called "X." The child's actual name is a collection of letters and symbols. On Friday afternoon, a worker on a lift machine made adjustments to the sign and then left. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate	2023-07-29T12:40:50	1	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/2023-07-28/x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate
Flor Marte knows someone will die. She knows when and how, because it came to her in a dream. That's her gift – all the women in the Marte family have one. But Flor refuses to share who the dream is about. Instead, she insists on throwing herself a living wake, a reason for the entire family to come together and celebrate their lives. That's the starting point for Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel for adults, Family Lore. Acevedo grew up in Harlem, with summer visits to the Dominican Republic, and aspirations of becoming a rapper – until a literature teacher invited her to join an after-school poetry club. She attended reluctantly; but what she found in spoken word performance broke her world and the possibilities of language wide open. "I think for folks who maybe have felt it difficult to occupy their bodies and take up space and demand attention, to have three minutes where that is the requirement is really powerful," she says. Acevedo went on to become a National Poetry Slam champion and earn degrees in performing arts and creative writing. After college, she taught language arts in Prince George's County, Maryland. Teaching, she says, is its own kind of performance – one where the audience doesn't always want to be there. But her students were struggling in other ways. "So many of my young people weren't at grade level, but they'd also not encountered literature that they felt reflected them," she says. "Trying to meet some of those students where they were was really a kickoff for my writing." So Acevedo began writing young adult books. The Poet X, her first novel about a Dominican-American teen finding her voice through poetry, won a National Book Award in 2018. Pivoting to a new audience Now, with Family Lore, Acevedo turns her attention to adult readers. "I think the way this pushes forward her work and the growing body of Dominican-American literature is how deeply she writes into the interiors of her women characters," says author Naima Coster, who read an early draft of the novel. The story is told through memories, out of order, sometimes a memory within a different memory. Acevedo jumps from the Dominican countryside to Santo Domingo to New York, as sisters Matilde, Flor, Pastora and Camila – along with younger generation Ona and Yadi – reflect on their childhoods and teenage romances and the secrets that bind them all together. Though the Marte women grow older together, their relationships do not get easier. "What does it mean if these women have really just had a different experience of their mother?" says Acevedo. "And how that different experience of their mother automatically will create a schism, because now it's like, 'You don't remember her the way I remember her, and because of that, I can't trust you." There are infidelities, miscarriages, childhood love affairs and therapeutic dance classes. Acevedo explains that she needed to tell this story in a non-linear format, in the way memories surface and warp; the way family gossip is passed on from person to person, in a roundabout way. Returning to the body That format, she says, was more suited for adult readers; and writing for adults also allowed her to be candid about bodies: how they move, change, excite, disappoint. "The generation I was raised by felt like their relationship to their body was very othered," Acevedo says. "When I speak to my cousins, when I think about myself, it's been a return to desire, a return to the gut, a return to health in a way that isn't necessarily about size but is about: who am I in this vessel and how do I love it?" That tension is felt especially by the younger Marte women, whose supernatural gifts radiate from within. Ona has a self-described "alpha vagina," Yadi has a special taste for sour limes. Naima Coster says it's easy to feel pressure to write about marginalized communities as clean-cut, exemplary characters. But Family Lore relishes in airing out the Marte family's dirty laundry– in showing Afro-Dominican women as full, complicated protagonists. "It feels major, the way she writes about the ways that these women misunderstand each other, but still love each other," she says. Acevedo says those themes – family, home, Blackness, power – will be in every book she writes, "because those are the questions that haunt me." Family Lore reads like the feeling of getting older and no longer having moms and aunts lower their voices when you enter the room – like finally being privy to what makes a family flawed and perfect. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-family-lore-award-winning-ya-author-elizabeth-acevedo-turns-to-adult-readers	2023-07-29T12:40:57	1	https://www.kvpr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-family-lore-award-winning-ya-author-elizabeth-acevedo-turns-to-adult-readers
Santa Rosa’s plan to curb street takeovers? Sue organizers for pollution California cities have tried arresting drivers and fining spectators in an effort to crack down on illegal street takeovers, and now the city of Santa Rosa is taking a novel approach to curb the problem: Sue organizers for polluting waterways. Organizers of multiple street takeovers caused a public nuisance, broke numerous traffic laws and violated the state’s Fish and Game Code by polluting public waterways with shredded rubber from car tires that eventually made its way into storm drains, city attorneys allege in a recent complaint filed against 13 people. The defendants “organized and promoted the sideshows for the purpose of bringing together dozens of individuals to use motor vehicles unlawfully by engaging in exhibitions of speed and reckless driving, including doughnuts, burnouts, and spinning tires,” according to the suit filed July 7. The lawsuit is the first known instance in California in which public officials have employed the state’s Fish and Game Code to stop street takeovers. Santa Rosa city and police officials declined to comment on the suit, citing ongoing litigation. In a recent statement, however, Police Chief John Cregan said the department had worked with Sonoma County officials and neighboring law enforcement agencies to address the growing problem to stop the takeovers, also known as sideshows, before they got underway. The police department also “studied city ordinances around the state” and have impounded more than 100 vehicles involved in street takeovers, officials said. Now the city has also sued some of the organizers of the events. City officials allege that the 13 men named in the lawsuit are part of a group called “ROSABARZ,” which organized at least four sideshows on July 9 and 10, 2022. The suit names Jorge Luis Calderon Caballero, Daniel Felix Nunez Serna, Roberto Carrillo, Emiliano Bautista Rodriguez, Manuel Andres Garfia, George Michael Patino Flores, Alexys Aguirre-Serrano, Joel Vasquez Cortez, Jersain Lezama Meza, Jesus Calderon Avalos, Neri Alberto Orea-Vasquez, Richard Murillo Robles and Rodrigo Lopez-Tapia. None of the defendants appeared to have retained attorneys, according to court records. Many of the social media accounts tied to some of the defendants and listed in court records appeared to have been deleted or removed by Friday. Those that remained did not respond to a request for comment. The suit filed by the city shows that the street takeovers cited in the records operated much like other events across the state, with social media messages being sent out late at night with the time and location for spectators to show up. The defendants blocked public streets and intersections to keep police from reaching the scene, keeping motorists and other emergency vehicles from reaching the scene. Organizers used social media, among other means, to get the word out on the street takeover, according to the suit. The city also accuses organizers and spectators of violent behavior, including throwing bottles at police officers and cars. The July 2022 sideshows, city officials claim, were organized as a birthday celebration for one of the group’s members. Court documents also show officials obtained texts and social media messages, allegedly showing how organizers of the group reached out to people to show up for the takeover, sending out the time and location of the event. Members also sent out false information to social media accounts they suspected were members of law enforcement trying to stop the events. In the lawsuit, city officials claim that the vehicles that were burning tires and doing doughnuts on the city intersections left behind pieces of tires on the road, which eventually washed down storm drains and into waterways. City officials allege that not only did the street takeovers cause a public nuisance, but violated the vehicle code in illegal exhibitions of speed, reckless driving and willful misconduct, and violated the Fish and Game code by polluting waterways by leaving behind pieces of tires, which were eventually washed off in storm drains and into waterways. Cities across the state have sought different ways to stop the street takeovers. Officials deployed more deputies in Compton during the weekend as street takeovers prompted some to call the city the “mecca of street takeovers.” In Alameda County, officials proposed a new law that would fine spectators $1,000 and raise the possibility of three months in county jail. Santa Rosa is seeking fines of $25,000 per violation from each defendant, as well as punitive damages. The stories shaping California Get up to speed with our Essential California newsletter, sent six days a week. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.	https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-29/santa-rosas-plan-to-curb-street-takeovers-sue-racers-for-pollution	2023-07-29T12:41:13	0	https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-29/santa-rosas-plan-to-curb-street-takeovers-sue-racers-for-pollution