Filed under: North America, United States, Hotels and Accommodations

Top reasons to visit San Diego right now:

• it's warm and you're not
• former mayor Bob Filner is under house arrest, so there's less of a chance you'll get harassed
• you want to ice skate outside but don't like the cold

Continue reading Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate

Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, North America, United States

Joanne and Gary, rival travel agents compete for their industry's top honor, the Globel Prize, while trying to address their clients' impossible demands in an Off-Broadway comedy that debuts this week, "Craving for Travel."

The 85-minute, two-actor, 30-character comedy was commissioned and produced by Jim Strong, president of the Dallas-based Strong Travel Services travel agency.

"Travel agents are always asked to do the impossible, and this play shows how that is done, from finding the impossible rooms to making dreams come true," Strong told the "Dallas Morning News." "I decided to bring it to life on stage as a comedy in New York."

From "Craving for Travel's" press release:

With their reputations on the line, travel agents Joanne and Gary will tackle any request, no matter how impossible, and any client, no matter how unreasonable. Full of overzealous travelers, overbooked flights, and hoteliers who are just over it, Craving for Travel reminds us why we travel-and everything that can happen when we do.

"Craving for Travel" opens Thursday at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, where it'll run through Feb. 9. Tickets are $32.50 and $49. They can be purchased at CravingForTravel.com, 212-279-4200 or the Ticket Central Box Office (416 W. 42nd St., 12-8 p.m. daily). More than half of the shows are already sold out.

Continue reading Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible

Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many companies use the term artificial intelligence, or AI, as a way to generate excitement for their products and to present themselves as on the cutting edge of tech development.

But what exactly is artificial intelligence? What does it involve? And how will it help the development of future generations?

Find out the answers to these questions and more in AI 101, a brand new FREE report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, that describes how AI works and looks at its present and potential future applications.

To get your copy of the FREE slide deck, simply click here.

Join the conversation about this story »

• NASA engineers are continuing to drive the Mars Curiosity Rover while working from home.
• The job is highly technical and delicate, but the team has already managed to complete a successful operation under lockdown.
• Business Insider asked two of the rover team how they manage their work-life balance now the rover has colonised their living space.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Life during lockdown has meant millions of people having to adapt to their home and work lives colliding. But what's that like when your work involves driving a nuclear-powered robot on the surface of Mars?

Business Insider spoke to two of the NASA technicians currently piloting the Mars Curiosity rover from home. It's a delicate operation that takes careful planning between a team of roughly 75 NASA engineers and scientists. Even while working remotely, the team was able to rig up their home workstations well enough that the rover has already completed a successful drilling operation while its human operators are in lockdown.

Despite doing the most otherworldly job imaginable, the Curiosity rovers are having to contend with familiar stresses of lockdown working life. They told Business Insider their personal tips and tricks for staying focused and healthy as they work from home.

Get comfy

Matt Gildner is the planning team lead for the rover, which means he directs a team of about 20 people who build the commands to send the rover to tell it where to go and what to do. Gildner's day involves staying permanently teleconferenced in to conversations using two headsets, one in each ear. A few times a day he also uses red-blue 3D glasses to examine images sent back by the rover.

His first change to his work-from-home set-up: Get a better chair. "The first week I got here I had an old wooden bank chair that while it looked really nice next to my desk, [was] not very comfortable," said Gildner. He quickly swapped this out for a more comfortable ergonomic chair. He and his wife are also making cold-brew coffee every night, ready to go in the morning.

Make sure you're seeing some kind of change

Gildner's also trying to make sure he doesn't stay glued to his ergonomic chair, making it a point to get up and moving around. "It's really about just getting up and stepping away from the desk for a while," Gildner said. This could be to just go to the kitchen to get a snack or, in Gildner's case, tend to some home baking projects.

"I was already baking some bread before this all happened, but I did kind of up my game in that area," he said. Specifically Gildner (a fan of the YouTube cooking channel "Bon Appetit") has started experimenting with overnight dough fermentation.

"It's nice to go and have something new to see every morning that changed overnight, or you get to see something progress," he said. "That's an important part of mental health and this point in time — to make sure you are having something in your life that is life-changing and dynamic despite your being in the same place."

He draws a parallel between this and his work on the rover. "That is one of the big draws of working a spacecraft operation, especially on Mars, is that every day we're driving to a new place and I get to look at images that no human has ever seen before. And Mars is always throwing us something new."

Keep a firm line between work time and downtime

"I also tend to really shut my computer down and put my phone away for work at the end of the day, just because I want to still try to keep some good separation between work life and home life, even though they're happening in the same place right now," Gildner said.

Project lead Alicia Allbaugh, who oversees the entire team of 75, also likes to draw a clear line between home and work life. She also recommends "not blending home tasks during your work time."

"I try not to deviate too much from what I would've done at work. Because then it can get you distracted and you start pulling away," she said.

Allbaugh also had to divvy up parts of the house with her husband, who also works at NASA. The two didn't want to work in adjacent rooms because they might hear each other's teleconferences through the walls, so Allbaugh works upstairs while her husband gets the kitchen, along with the couple's two rescue bunnies Oreo and Grayce.

In her free time Allbaugh has been tinkering with home improvements, and finished a long-standing project of painting and varnishing some linen-closet doors.

Respect other people's rhythms

As manager of a large team, Allbaugh also has to be sensitive to the fact that everyone has different daily rhythms working from home, especially those with children. Sudden mutes in meetings for children talking and clocks chiming have become the norm.

"We're all very empathetic for each other. I mean we find this adorable. We're not frustrated, whereas if someone came in and interrupted your meeting when you were in the conference room, you may have been like, 'What was that about?'" said Allbaugh.

Keep up the social side of the office

Allbaugh's team has also tried to keep social elements of their office going through virtual happy hours, and she has set up open-office tea break meetings so her team can just come in for a chat, which she thinks is important to keep up even as the lockdown drags on. "Because at first it's novel, and then it's okay — now it's a marathon," she said.  

SEE ALSO: NASA engineers explain what it's like to drive a nuclear-powered Mars rover from home during the pandemic

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NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly

Hairdressers have been forced to go underground as lockdown regulations stifle their livelihood and job security. For some, bootlegging has been 'life-saving'.

A bodyguard of Eastern Cape Social Development MEC Siphokazi Mani-Lusithi has been arrested with four others by the Green Scorpions for illegal hunting on a private farm outside East London, as well as for breaking Covid-19 lockdown regulations.

Four minutes and 28 seconds. That is how long it took a News24 reporter to find cigarettes – meant to be banned under Level 4 lockdown regulations – which were available for purchase at one of many places in South Africa.

Some kids took advantage of the opportunity to show their appreciation for their moms on Saturday afternoon at the Love You Mama event.

Several local food trucks held a pop-up drive-thru at the Southgate Mall parking lot on Saturday.

Scottish football descended into fresh acrimony when Hearts owner Ann Budge accused her Premiership counterparts of "appalling disrespect".

Fear is ripe soil for the unscrupulous. With so much uncertainty and concern over our health and the broader world economy, cybercriminals have been playing on that fear to steal a few extra dollars out of the most scared and vulnerable. The U.S. Secret Service warned that phishing attacks were up significantly and scams over fake COVID-19 treatments have led to seizures and arrests.

From companies and organizations to individuals, it’s never been more important for everyone to have their cybersecurity measures on high alert. And whether you’re looking to protect your own assets or you’ve been tasked with safeguarding a company and all its workers, the vital work of white hat hackers is absolutely essential these days.

The training in The Ultimate 2020 White Hat Hacker Certification Bundle can put you in a position to understand all aspects of maintaining cybersecurity for a communication system of virtually any size, a lucrative career that can earn you a six-figure income.

The four-part Complete Cyber Security Course (taught by cybersecurity expert and noted consultant Nathan House) is a 360-degree starting point for any cybersecurity career. Starting at the beginning, each part of this multi-pronged introduction will help guide you through vital knowledge, from network hacking techniques and vulnerability scanning to all the defense methods that assure every laptop, desktop, smartphone and tablet in your network remain secure.

The hacker training continues with the rest of the courses in the collection, including building security analysis tools using Python and learning how to analyze web app security vulnerabilities and solutions using frameworks like Ruby on Rails and PHP. Read the rest

The city says couples can book its Helena Gutteridge Plaza at City Hall for just $85 and bring eight guests to have an outdoor, physically distant wedding ceremony.

A department store that served Vancouver's Gastown and Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods for decades is closing, along with four other Army and Navy locations, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A crowd descended on the Manitoba Legislature Building Saturday afternoon, demanding an end to the COVID-19 quarantine.

Under 35s Forum

Event participants

Research Event

Event participants

Moisés Naím, Senior Associate, International Economics Programme, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Author: The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used To Be

6 February 2014 , Volume 70, Number 1

Republic of Guinea

Population: 10,000,000 (2009 estimate CIA World Factbook), GDP per Capita: $588.00, Official language: French, Capital and largest city: Conakry, Area: 245,857 km2, Independence: From France, 2 October 1958

6 March 2014

With his swift seizure of Crimea, Vladimir Putin looked to be playing a strong hand in the stand-off over Ukraine’s future. But recent events have shown the brittleness of his power in the face of international condemnation and the calm determination of Ukrainians.

Research Event

Event participants

Trine Flockhart, Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Academy
Patrick W Quirk, Fellow, Transatlantic Academy
Chair: Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, SOAS

Members Event

Event participants

Bruce Stokes, Director, Global Economic Attitudes project, Pew Research Center; Associate Fellow, Americas Programme, Chatham House
Roderic Wye, Associate Fellow, Asia Programme, Chatham House
Dr Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Senior Transatlantic Fellow and Director, Paris Office, German Marshall Fund of the United States 
Chair: Dr Robin Niblett, Director, Chatham House 

Research Event

Event participants

Alan Wheatley, Global Economics Correspondent, Reuters News (2011-13); Freelance Economics Writer
Geoffrey Yu, FX Strategist, UBS Limited
Chair: Paola Subacchi, Research Director, International Economics, Chatham House

Research Event

Event participants

Dr Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President of Nigeria 

30 September 2015

The president’s speeches highlight China’s latest strategies for shaping its vision of a new type of global leadership.

Members Event

Event participants

Dr Mukulika Banerjee, Director, South Asia Centre, London School of Economics
Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Chairman, EkStep; Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) (2009-14)
Dr Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow, Asia Programme, Chatham House
Mihir Swarup Sharma, India Columnist, Bloomberg View; Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
Chair: James Crabtree, Contributing Editor, Financial Times; Senior Visiting Fellow, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

14 July 2016

China’s sense of entitlement has collided with international law and, for the time being, lost. The way is open for a new regional understanding.

ridureyu1 posted a photo:

An innocent party noisemaker...

ridureyu1 posted a photo:

NOT ANOTHER CLOWN AUUUUUGH

The White House has halted talks with Congress over any further coronavirus stimulus package as it waits for more information about how U.S. state reopenings affect the economy, White House top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters on Friday. The Senate and House of Representatives have already passed four major bills to address the novel coronavirus outbreak, including three aimed at stabilizing the economy as most Americans have sheltered in place and unemployment has soared.

"Passing along a message from Mother Nature," the National Weather Service in Binghamton, New York, tweeted alongside a photo of a car covered in light snow. "Happy Mother's Day Weekend."

Pakistanis crowded markets on Saturday after a nationwide coronavirus lockdown was eased, despite the country declaring its second highest daily infection toll. Prime Minister Imran Khan has allowed businesses to reopen in phases from the weekend, citing the economic havoc the virus restrictions have wreaked on the improvised nation. In the garrison city of Rawalpindi, thousands of shoppers were preparing for Eid, which follows the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, with many flouting social distancing rules and advice to wear masks.

On Thursday, the Professional Beauty Federation of California published a press release to the “Hot Topics” section of their website. It was titled: “Time to Sue Governor Newsom.” The release came in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that the following morning, California would officially enter “Phase Two” of the “Safer at Home” order. Select businesses, from florists to clothing retailers to toy stores, would be able to resume operations in a limited capacity. But absent from the list of acceptable businesses: beauty salons. Newsom placed businesses like nail salons and barbershops in “Phase Three”—a stage he believes to be “months, not weeks” away. “This whole thing spread in the state of California—the first community spread—was in a nail salon,” Newsom said in a press conference last week, without providing details about the date or location of the case. “Many of the practices that you would otherwise expect of a modification were already in play in many of these salons, with people that had procedure masks on, were using gloves, and were advancing higher levels of sanitation.”The news has thrust nail salons onto the frontline of a growing coronavirus revolt in California, a battle being waged in many more American cities, like Dallas, where hairdresser Shelley Luther became a star of the anti-lockdown movement when she opted to go to jail rather than comply with an order to close her hair salon. Anti-Lockdown Protesters Are Now Facing Down Cops Outside of BarsOn Monday morning, the Professional Beauty Federation of California will file a lawsuit in federal court demanding a regulated reopening process of their salons. “We were 100 percent behind the lockdown, so that we would not overwhelm our hospitals,” the group’s legal counsel Fred Jones said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “However, after two months of the lockdown, in which, by Gov. Newsom’s own admission, we have succeeded—we have checked the mark, we have flattened the curve—we were anticipating that the governor would allow for gradual reopenings of our beauty salons under strict new guidelines.”Their argument, Jones said, hinges on the fact that, without regulated reopening, stylists will be forced underground to meet financial ends, resulting in a potentially more dangerous risk.“A lot of our stylists are on the brink of starvation in order to make their leases and make ends meet,” Jones said. “So you have a volatile combination of desperate clients and desperate stylists. We know that will lead to thousands of our stylists going underground and moving kitchen to kitchen and house to house. That’s reality. Nobody can argue that. So the real question is: how do you stop that from happening if you’re the governor? You can’t.”He suggested a gradual and controlled reopening would be safer than “stylists going house to house and spreading more than beauty.”Unmasked Protesters Storm Huntington Beach After California Governor’s ClosureSome salons statewide have already opened, defying the statewide order, like an Orange County nail spa owner who has vowed to stay open despite being handed a citation by local police, who ordered her to appear in court in July. “I have to do what I have to do. I’m fighting to provide for my children and myself and my family,” another salon owner, Breann Curtis, of The Clip Cage barbershop in Auburn, California, told Fox40 about her decision to reopen. “It’s very hard. I’m pregnant. I have children.”“Just going into debt every single day,” added Tisha Fernhoff, who owns The Beauty Bar Salon in the same Auburn shopping center. “How much longer am I supposed to just go down the rabbit hole before I just throw in the towel and go back to work?”According to Jones, the California State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology—which issues all 623,442 beauty licenses in the state—has already drafted a protocol for how salons could reopen under the current conditions. He claimed Newsom had blocked the plan from distribution, to avoid mixed messaging. (Newsom’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology said their draft protocols “haven't been published because they are not finished.”)“We want him to release the plan so that our professionals can start stocking up,” Jones said. “We know we’ll need masks. Will shields be required for these services? They probably will.”If such a plan was to go into effect, Jones said, salons would use personal protective equipment widely. They would stagger appointments to avoid crowded waiting rooms, spread out work stations and shift schedules, implement a touchless pay system, and remove anything in the waiting rooms that could carry contagion. “So, sorry no more magazines and newspapers for our clientele,” Jones said. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends maintaining a distance of six feet from other people—a practice that would be all but impossible in salon settings. Dr. Birx Says What Trump Would Not About ProtestersThere are 53,694 licensed beauty salons in California, representing 313,734 stylists or cosmetologists, 34,093 barbers, 90,392 estheticians, 1,679 electrologists, and 129,802 manicurists, according to the State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology. All of these workers, Jones said, have to complete between 350 and 1600 hours of formal education before acquiring their license, including training in sanitization. Jones emphasized that the lawsuit stemmed from financial desperation, a sentiment shared across the country. The Labor Department announced Friday that the economy lost over 20.5 million jobs in April alone, putting the national unemployment rate at its highest since the Great Depression: 14.7 percent. But the devastation has hit the beauty sector differently than many industries. Over 80 percent of salon workers are independent contractors, meaning each stylist represents their own business. By extension, many salon owners are basically landlords, “whose income relies on those booth owners,” Jones said. As a result, most salon workers qualify for unemployment benefits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, signed by Trump in March—although the program is riddled with loopholes, has frequently run out of money, and may not cover their entire income, which heavily relies on tips. It is salon owners who stand to gain the most from the lawsuit. “Freelance workers do benefit on unemployment benefits,” Jones said. “But most of those Paycheck Protection Program reimbursements are based on your payments. If you’re a salon owner, you don’t have a payroll. Those stylists are their own proprietors.”On Friday, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced legislation to give a majority of Americans $2,000 a month throughout the pandemic. Asked whether the bill could provide financial relief to salon workers, while allowing them to maintain social distancing, Jones seemed doubtful that it would pass. “It’s the proverbial ‘check is in the mail’ promise,” he said. “When you’re dealing with true economic devastation, let me tell you, most of our licensees will not be banking on a divided Congress and a White House that is also divided. While Washington fiddles, our stylists are burning.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

In a tweet Saturday morning, Tesla's chief executive said it would file a lawsuit against county officials over not being able to run its factory.

Immigration is a prominent part of the United States’ DNA, despite concerns about immigrants’ ability to integrate. An examination of recent immigrant inflows shows newcomers to the United States are integrating well, based on language proficiency, socioeconomic attainment, political participation, residential locale, and social interaction indicators.

While many Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) players are finding it very difficult to stay motivated and maintain their training regime until the league is able to restart, Portmore defender Romaine Breakenridge remains highly motivated and eager...

THE LAST two months have been two of the worst in the life of former national netball star Nichala Gibson. She lives in New York City, the epicentre for the COVID-19 virus in the United States. Gibson and her sister suffered, then recovered from...

Losses within the entertainment industry are already estimated to be in the billions as the sector continues to reel from the impacts of COVID-19. Major events like Reggae Sumfest, which has already been cancelled this year, had an estimated...

At least 10 stores inside the Portmore Mall have fallen casualty to the economic chokehold brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, with several others struggling to stay afloat as St Catherine businesses grapple with revenue losses. And with a 14-day...

Almost five years ago, lawmakers on a bipartisan committee of Parliament agreed unanimously to amend the law to give the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) the power to arrest and prosecute cops. That proposed amendment, which was...

The event discussion, which touched on the intersection of race and immigration, focused on the demographics of Black immigrants (both African and Caribbean) in the United States and their children, their educational success, and the implications of the recently released volume’s findings for research and public policy.

Book release event for MPI's volume on the Children of Black Immigrants, covering topics of education, health, and demographics, with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy Ajay Chaudry; Gerald D. Jaynes, Yale University Departments of Economics and African-American Studies; chapter authors Dylan Patricia Conger and Kevin Thomas; and volume editors MPI's Randy Capps and Michael Fix.

The National Water Commission (NWC) says a loss in power supply forced the shutdown of the Dinthill facility today, leaving some northern St Catherine communities without water.  The affected communities are: Linstead,...

This book explores how developing-country governments have institutionalized ties with emigrants and their descendents. It offers an unprecedented taxonomy of 45 diaspora-engaging institutions found in 30 developing countries, exploring their activities and objectives. It also provides important practitioner insights from Mali, Mexico, and the Philippines.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families (most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean)—a population that has had little academic attention even as it represents an increasing share of the U.S. Black child population.

This edited volume develops a pragmatic approach to the engagement of highly skilled members of the diaspora for the benefit of their countries of origin. The book, edited by a World Bank senior economist, is based on empirical work in middle-income and high-income economies.