JooYoung Seo, a doctoral candidate in the College of Education’s Learning, Design, and Technology program, has secured a highly competitive internship with RStudio that will allow him to help people just like himself — those with severe visual impairments.

Kyle Scott (UK) joined OM Europe’s Transit Challenge Team at Transform 2010 and spent the next 6 months travelling from Italy through Southern Europe to the Balkans. After returning home for Christmas, he flew to Germany for the GO conference in January 2011, from where he joined the OM team in France. We were curious to know more…

A performing arts outreach team shares Christ with crowds gathered to watch their street performances every evening during the Avignon Festival.

During OM France’s last LinkUp, an interdenominational event for all teens and young adults in the Nantes region, OMers focused on the theme of sexuality.

OM France marks OM’s 60th anniversary, inviting International Director, Lawrence Tong, to grace this special occasion.

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Belkin partnered with audio experts Devialet to create a high-quality audio experience while also offering access to Google Assistant and wireless charging for your phone.

The Roku TV Wireless Speakers are an affordable way to add powerful stereo audio to your home theater setup, as long as it includes a Roku TV (or Roku Smart Soundbar for surround sound).

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Americans overwhelmingly believe civics should be taught in school, and almost 70 percent of them think it should be a requirement to graduate, a new survey finds.

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If Virginia's proposal is approved, it will become part of a trend: states that are taking a stronger role in helping teachers find high-quality curriculum materials.

Making sure the social and mental well-being of students is tended to is essential to getting young people through this period of chaos and uncertainty.

Holders Spain will face Serbia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic in this spring's UEFA European Under-17 Championship elite round after the draw was made in Nyon.

"I know it is the beginning of a long path," said Halil Umut Meler ahead of refereeing the U17 EURO final in England.

The full line-up for May's finals has been decided with holders the Netherlands leading the qualifiers.

Source: www.youtube.com - Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Penn State researchers have developed a comprehensive online tutor to educate the general public about the science behind COVID-19 and appropriate steps anyone can take to help reduce its transmission.

House leaders may hold off on a final vote on a Republican-backed bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, amid pushback from powerful GOP lobbying groups

Relaxed travel begins at home. This also includes the correct packing of your luggage.

As of today, the terminal sections of Schönefeld Airport have new designations: K, L, M Departures, M Arrivals and Q.

(As of 29 April 2020) Information on travel restrictions and advice on quarantine measures.

Holders Spain will face Austria, the Republic of Ireland and Turkey after the elite round draw was made for the seven groups that will decide who joins Switzerland in July's finals.

Grab a pair at Amazon right now for just $199.95. Unlike Apple's second-gen AirPods, which failed to impress us, the Powerbeats Pro earned an excellent rating in PCMag's review.

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Hosts have been picked for the Women's U19 final tournaments of 2021 and 2022 respectively.

CNA Staff, Mar 27, 2020 / 11:19 am (CNA).- Four men working in Iraq for the French humanitarian organization SOS Chrétiens d'Orient who went missing in Baghdad in January have been released by their kidnappers, the French president announced Thursday.

Emmanuel Macron announced March 26 that he “welcomes the release of our three nationals Antoine Brochon, Julien Dittmar, Alexandre Goodarzy and Iraqi Tariq Mattoka.”

The men disappeared Jan. 20 after they made a trip to an appointment by car. SOS Chrétiens d'Orient tried to contact them the following day, unsuccessfully.

The missing employees had gone to Baghdad “to renew their visas and the registration of association with the Iraqi authorities and to monitor the association's operations” in the country.

Macron's office said it had made “every effort” to secure their release, and he expressed “gratitude to the Iraqi authorities for their co-operation.”

SOS Chrétiens d'Orient said last week that they had received no ransom demand, and no group had claimed responsibility for the abduction.

The organization works to support Eastern Christians with humanitarian material aid; it has permanent missions in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Christians in Iraq have suffered persecution in recent years, especially during the invasion of the Islamic State.

Prior to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were about 1.5 million Iraqi Christians. Today, that number is believed to be fewer than 500,000.

CNA Staff, Mar 30, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed last week and has no definite timeline for reopening. This is the first time in nearly 700 years the holy site has closed for an extended period due to disease. 

The church building, which houses the tomb of Christ and the site of the crucifixion, was first closed to pilgrims and other visitors on Wednesday, March 25. Initially, the closure was only expected to last for one week, but religious and Israeli government officials agreed that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the global pilgrimage destination should not reopen. 

"The initial understanding is that this order is valid for one week, although nobody knows how long this crisis will take," Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesperson for the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land, told Reuters. 

Nassar said that if the church is still closed to the public at Easter, some sort of celebration will be arranged in line with the governmental guidelines and restrictions. Easter is celebrated on April 12 for Latin Rite Catholics and April 19 for Eastern Churches using the Julian calendar-- both dates are observed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

If this were to happen, said Nassar, pilgrims would still not be allowed inside, and the denominations that share custody of the church would coordinate to ensure that there are no more than 10 clerics and other leaders gathered inside at any time.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is unique among religious sites as it is partially controlled by several different Christian Churches. The Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church, and Armenian Apostolic Church each share control of the building, and other Orthodox Churches also celebrate divine liturgy at the site. 

The last time the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed for an extended period was 1349, during an outbreak of the Black Death in Jerusalem. 

The church, which was first consecrated in the year 335, has been closed for short periods of time in the subsequent millennia due to war or other disputes. In 2018, to protest a proposed tax increase on churches, the site was closed to the public for about three days before reopening. 

Other religious sites, including the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, have also closed due to the Israeli government’s new restrictions aimed at preventing people from catching COVID-19. 

Authorities in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, closed the Church of the Nativity in early March after four cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in the town. The Church of the Nativity was built over the birthplace of Jesus Christ. All tourists were subsequently banned from entering Bethlehem.

Israel has taken a proactive approach in its attempts to contain the spread of COVID-19. On March 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that anyone entering the country would be forced to quarantine for a 14-day period. That announcement resulted in the cancelation or abrupt end to many pilgrimages, as travelers scrambled to secure flights back to the United States. 

Israel has recorded more than 4,000 cases of COVID-19, with 15 deaths.

CNA Staff, Apr 6, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Unable to lead the traditional Palm Sunday procession through Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, blessed the city with a relic of the True Cross on April 5.

The annual procession, which recalls Christ’s entry into the city and the beginning of Holy Week, was cancelled in line with international efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, with public gatherings and events suspended in Israel. 

“We decided since we cannot have the palm procession, to have anyway a moment of prayer this afternoon,” said Pizzaballa on Sunday. The archbishop led a short, multi-lingual “moment of prayer” at Dominus Flevit, a church located on the Mount of Olives.

The church, which is shaped like a teardrop, overlooks the city, and was built to mark the Gospel account of Jesus weeping as he envisioned the destruction of Jerusalem.

The prayer service ended with Pizzaballa raising a relic of the True Cross over the city in benediction. 

Jerusalem, said Pizzaballa, “is a symbol of the church, the symbol also of humanity. It is the house of prayer for all the people, according to the scriptures.”

“So when we cry [over] Jerusalem, together with Jesus, we cry [over] all our human fraternity, for this difficult moment we are living, for this sad Palm Sunday, this Easter we have to celebrate.”

Pizzaballa said that sadness over being unable to celebrate the liturgical feasts of Holy Week is real, but “maybe, in a way also very true, very essential.” 

“Today we have not celebrated the solemn and beautiful entrance of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem like every year, with faithful from all the parishes of the diocese and with pilgrims from all over the world,” Pizzaballa said during the prayer service.

“We have not raised our palms and olive branches to cry out ‘Hosanna’ to our king, Jesus the Christ.” 

Instead, the archbishop asked Catholics in the Holy Land and around the world to consider what the Lord may be trying to say during these times.

He noted that, while the people of Jerusalem in the Gospel greeted him with cheers on Palm Sunday, Jesus knew that “He came to Jerusalem, not to be on the throne like David, but to be put to death.” 

“The meaning that Jesus attributes to his ‘triumphal entry’ is different from the meaning that the people of Jerusalem saw in it,” he said.

“Perhaps this is the lesson that Jesus wants to teach us today. We turn to God when there is something that harms us. When we are in trouble, suddenly we all want to ask big and difficult questions.”

While people may be praying for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic as we often do for solutions  to other problems, the archbishop said that  “Jesus responds in His own way” to these prayers. 

“Precisely because Jesus says ‘yes’ to our deepest desires, He will have to say ‘no’ to our immediate desires,” he said.

Drawing comparisons between this year's Palm Sunday and the biblical Palm Sunday during Christ's earthly life, Pizzaballa said the story of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem “is a lesson on the discrepancy between our expectations and God’s response.” 

The crowd who greeted Jesus was disappointed that their salvation was not immediate, said Pizzaballa, but “Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is truly the moment when salvation is born.” 

“The ‘Hosannas’ were justified, even if not for the reasons the Jerusalemites had supposed,” he said. 

This remains true today, he explained. Although it may seem as though God is not answering prayers and leaves people “disappointed,” this is in part because “our expectations remain without an apparent response.”

Christianity, he said, “is based on hope and love, not certainty,” and that while God will not answer all problems with certainty, “He won’t leave us alone.” 

“And here, today, despite everything, at the gates of His and our city, we declare that we really want to welcome Him as our King and Messiah, and to follow Him on His way to His throne, the cross,” he said.  

“But we also ask Him to give us the strength necessary to carry it with His own, fruitful love.”

CNA Staff, May 1, 2020 / 12:09 pm (CNA).- The Turkish foreign ministry on Wednesday rejected Turkey's inclusion in a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, charging that the report comes from a “biased mindset”.

“The report contains baseless, unaccredited and vague allegations as in the past years while trying to portray isolated incidents as violations of religious freedoms through far-fetched accusations,” Hami Aksoy, a spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said April 29.

“The importance attached by Turkey to protect religious freedoms, including those of religious minorities, is expressed at the highest level by our Government officials. Our authorities make it clear that any harm to the religious freedoms of our citizens will not be tolerated,” Aksoy added.

In its 2020 report, USCIRF recommended that the State Department add Turkey, as well as 10 other countries, to a “Special Watch List” of countries where abuses of religious minorities are taking place, but not at a level as severe as in those designated as “countries of particular concern.”

The commission wrote that “religious freedom conditions in Turkey remained worrisome” in 2019, “with the perpetuation of restrictive and intrusive governmental policies on religious practice and a marked increase in incidents of vandalism and societal violence against religious minorities.”

It cited the Turkish government's prevention of the election of board members for non-Muslim religious groups and its limitations on the election of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople.

The report added that Alevis, a group related to Shia Islam and the country's largest religious minority, “remained unable to gain official recognition for their gathering houses (cemevleri) as places of worship or to exempt their children from compulsory religious classes, despite European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings finding that these policies violated Alevis’ rights.”

According to the US commission, Turkish religious minorities “expressed concerns that governmental rhetoric and policies contributed to an increasingly hostile environment and implicitly encouraged acts of societal aggression and violence.”

The report also drew attention to the permission given for a museum, that was originally a Greek Orthodox church and later a mosque, to be reconverted into a mosque. It noted also that president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called for the same thing to happen to the Hagia Sophia, which has the same history.

USCIRF also said the Turkish government has “continued to dismiss, detain, and arrest individuals affiliated with, or accused of affiliation with, the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, for alleged complicity in a July 2016 coup attempt or involvement in terrorist activity.”

Gülen has lived in the US since 1999, and is considered a terrorist by the Turkish government.

The Turkish foreign ministry charged that Gülen's mention in the report “amounts to deliberately turning a blind eye” to the coup attempt, and added: “We invite the US authorities to earnestly examine the evidence we have provided” about the Gülen movement “and to engage in effective cooperation in line with the spirit of alliance in order to reveal the true nature of this terrorist organization.”

Aksoy added that the recommendation of adding Turkey to a “special watch list” for religious freedom “is a clear indication of the biased mindset behind it and the circles under whose influence it was drawn up.”

“In the report that is supposed to include global trends that threaten religious freedoms, the Commission does not mention a single word about xenophobia, Islamophobia and discrimination on religious grounds that is on the rise in the West and the US,” Aksoy stated.

“This clearly reveals that the purpose of the report is not to protect religious rights and freedoms. It is clear that the Commission, which has been accused of being anti-Muslim in the past, has drawn up this report based on its unwarranted agenda and priorities under the influence of circles that are hostile to Turkey, rather than objective criteria. We recommend the authors of this report to look in the mirror and engage in self-criticism.”

Earlier this year, Turkish authorities arrested a Syriac Orthodox priest on terrorism charges after he provided bread and water to members of a Kurdish separatist group that has been deemed illegal.

CNA Staff, May 2, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A man claiming to have killed the murdered Nigerian seminarian Michael Nnadi has given an interview in which he says he executed the aspiring priest because he would not stop announcing the Christian faith in captivity.

Mustapha Mohammed, who is currently in jail, gave a telephone interview to the Nigerian newspaper Daily Sun on Friday. He took responsibility for the murder, according to the Daily Sun, because Nnadi, 18 years old, “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha praised Nnadi’s “outstanding bravery,” and that the seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways or perish.”

Nnadi was kidnapped by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna on January 8, along with three other students. The seminary, home to some 270 seminarians, is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”

Mustapha, 26, identified himself as the leader of a 45-member gang that preyed along the highway. He gave the interview from a jail in Abuja, Nigeria, where he is in police custody.

On the evening of the abduction, gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians' living quarters and opened fire. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.

Ten days after the abduction, one of the four seminarians was found on the side of a road, alive but seriously injured. On Jan. 31, an official at Good Shepherd Seminary announced that another two seminarians had been released, but that Nnadi remained missing and was presumed still in captivity.

On Feb. 1, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, announced that Nnadi had been killed.

“With a very heavy heart, I wish to inform you that our dear son, Michael was murdered by the bandits on a date we cannot confirm,” the bishop said, confirming that the rector of the seminary had identified Nnadi’s body.

The newspaper reported that from “the first day Nnadi was kidnapped alongside three of his other colleagues, he did not allow [Mustapha] to have peace,” because he insisted on announcing the gospel to him.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha “did not like the confidence displayed by the young man and decided to send him to an early grave.”

According to the Daily Sun, Mustapha targeted the seminary knowing it was a center for training priests, and that a gang member who lived nearby had helped conduct surveillance ahead of the attack. Mohammed believed that it would be a profitable target for theft and ransom.

Mohammed also said that the gang used Nnadi’s mobile telephone to issue their ransom demands, asking for more than $250,000, later reduced to $25,000, to secure the release of the three surviving students, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; and Stephen Amos, 23.

Nnadi’s murder is one of an series of attacks and killings on Christians in the country in recent months.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in a homily March 1 at a Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said.

In an Ash Wednesday letter to Nigerian Catholics, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City called for Catholics to wear black in solidarity with victims and pray, in response to “repeated” executions of Christians by Boko Haram and “incessant” kidnappings “linked to the same groups.”

Other Christian villages have been attacked, farms set ablaze, vehicles carrying Christians attacked, men and women have been killed and kidnapped, and women have been taken as sex slaves and tortured—a “pattern,” he said, of targeting Christians.

On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.

“There's a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we're afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that's really popped up on my radar screens -- in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”

The good news is that AMD has confirmed a third-generation Threadripper chip is also arriving in November. However, it'll land with 24 cores, not 32, as some might have hoped.

Intel has released some benchmarks for its next-gen Core i9 'Cascade Lake-X' processors, which will be arriving next month with a big price cut. The company is also slightly dropping prices on Core S-series chips that lack GPUs, and preparing to launch the Xeon W-2200 series.

At around $500, neither of these high-performance CPUs comes cheap, and both are exceptionally good as the brains of a gaming or content-creation PC. So which one should you go with?

AMD is on a roll this year, and in the spirit of striking while the iron is still hot, the company will add four more processors to its swelling lineup of killer CPUs.

The new NUC is taking all sorts of forms at CES 2020, but none is as slick or as snazzy as Razer's early stab at this power-packed mini-PC platform.

Wisconsin lawmakers have established a new rural school task force to figure out how to address challenges such as declining enrollment and increasing transportation costs.

"Reshaping rural schools in the Northwest Region: Lessons from federal School Improvement Grant implementation" was written by Caitlin Scott and Nora Ostler at the Regional Education Laboratory At Education Northwest, and prepared for the Institute of Education Sciences.

Victoria Petersen, of the Peninsula Clarion on the Kenai Peninsula, will report on the challenges of rural education, especially in a state as vast as Alaska.

Real Madrid last night edged past Krasnodar in the UEFA Youth League with a 3-0 win on penalties, falling just short of the record for lowest scoring shoot-outs. We look at the spot-kick records.

Manchester City defeated Liverpool on penalties to set up a semi-final with Barcelona, victors at Atlético Madrid, while Porto beat Tottenham Hotspur and face Chelsea, who won at Real Madrid.

Chelsea, Hertha, Montpellier, Midtjylland, PAOK, Sigma, Dinamo Zagreb and Dynamo Kyiv are into the play-offs.

Tottenham, Chelsea, Hertha Berlin, Dinamo Zagreb, Midtjylland, Dynamo Kyiv,, Montpellier and Lyon are through.

The "jewel of La Masia", Ansu Fati scored his first Barcelona goal aged just 16 on Saturday.