Encouraging pre-kindergarten children to write affords teachers the opportunity to provide scaffolds to improve spelling development. Teachers, however, tend to provide more support than necessary to guide children's early spelling, which may stifle children's opportunities to engage in important thinking that helps them to grow in their literacy knowledge.

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

Continue reading Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season

Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 25 Nov 2013 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, Canada, United States

Continue reading Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season?

Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season? originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

• Regardless of the area's suitability for growing grapes, plop down a vineyard or winery and travelers will come for a taste and buy a sympathy bottle (pro tip: go for the ice wine as it's harder to mess up)
• Ski resorts looking to attract off-season dollars or stale attractions looking to draw media coverage and visitors hook up a zipline

Continue reading Vineyard and Zipline Trends Collide at the Pinot Express

Vineyard and Zipline Trends Collide at the Pinot Express originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 11 Dec 2013 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: North America, United States

Continue reading Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks

Sorry Indianapolis, You're No Longer the Sole Location Offering TSA PreCheck Enrollment Background Checks originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Europe, North America, France, United Kingdom, United States

Continue reading London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List

London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States

Continue reading Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season

Discover Something New at Home this Holiday Season originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 18 Dec 2013 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Asia, Japan, Airlines, News

Continue reading Another Boeing 787 Dreamliner Has a Battery Problem

Another Boeing 787 Dreamliner Has a Battery Problem originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Panama, Airports, News, Central America

Continue reading $7.2 Million Cash Found in Suitcases at Panama City Airport

$7.2 Million Cash Found in Suitcases at Panama City Airport originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 17 Jan 2014 17:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Business, Talking Travel

Skift Acquires Gadling Travel From AOL originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 09:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Implications of the new US presidency: what awaits Ukraine? 19 November 2024 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 13 November 2024 Online

After 1000 days of Kyiv’s resistance, experts discuss how to secure Ukraine’s and Europe’s future.   

The 19 November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

The 19^th November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

Having been given time to adapt, largely due to the slow release of Western military aid, the Russian army is pressing home its advantage. Along the entire eastern frontline, the Russians are simultaneously bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities. With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it seems to many that the tide has turned definitively in Putin’s favour at the political, as well as the military, level.

Trump’s declared ambition to resolve the war in 24 hours implies a Russian-American deal, cutting Kyiv out of negotiations. Such an ‘agreement’ would endanger the country’s future and expose the rest of Europe.

This webinar will cover:

• Ukraine’s strategy of resistance in the context of Trump’s White House.
• The immediate risks during the transition period.
• How Kyiv sees Europe’s role in the new geopolitical environment. Will Kyiv completely give up on the US?
• The extent to which Germany, Ukraine’s second largest donor, can step in.  

Familiar sounds of encouragement and needling filled a practice field at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on Monday as Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story and the infielders took grounders and Charlie Blackmon and the outfielders gathered their bats and spikes. Only a few faces that always seemed to be around are missing as Spring Training begins.

Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado said Thursday he won't make Opening Day a hard deadline for negotiations on a possible multiyear contract.

A year after looking for ways to move Charlie Blackmon out of the leadoff spot, Rockies manager Bud Black is counting the reasons to keep him up top.

Who do the Rockies have in the pipeline? Get scouting reports, video, stats, projected ETAs and more for Colorado's Top 30 Prospects on MLBPipeline.com's Prospect Watch.

Raimel Tapia has renewed opportunity with the Rockies in 2019, along with a need to deliver.

The Blue Jays spent the past two years clinging to the past. Now, they're embracing the future.

Who do the Blue Jays have in the pipeline? Get scouting reports, video, stats, projected ETAs and more for Toronto's Top 30 Prospects on MLB Pipeline's Prospect Watch.

bmj;387/nov12_10/q2481/FAF1faJulia and Malcolm Donaldsondonaldson20241111.f1Malcolm Donaldson was a distinguished paediatric endocrinologist with a string of research publications to his name—but he was also happy to play second fiddle (almost literally) to his wife Julia, the celebrated author of much loved children’s books, including The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom.Malcolm, a talented musician and performer, accompanied his wife as she toured festivals, schools, and libraries in the UK and around the world. Together they performed the stories, with Malcolm acting characters ranging from an accident prone dragon to a comic cattle thief. His star role, in the words of Julia’s literary agent, was “a particularly suave fox” in The Gruffalo.Malcolm met Julia Shields when they were students at the University of Bristol and they married in 1972. Donaldson went on to work in Brighton, London, and Lyon, France, before moving back to Bristol to be a senior registrar in paediatrics. Six...

The current system for delivering NHS cardiovascular disease (CVD) health checks is not working effectively and must be reviewed to ensure that it reaches people with the highest risk, the National Audit Office has said.1In a review of the commissioning, delivery, and performance of CVD health checks the watchdog found that just over one in 12 people (8.8%) who were eligible attended a health check in 2023-24—which, if maintained, would equate to a five year coverage of 44%.Health checks were first introduced in 2009, with the aim of reducing ill health from CVD by offering everyone aged 40-74 without a pre-existing heart condition a check-up every five years. However, problems have arisen since the responsibility for commissioning these checks was transferred to local authorities in 2013, said the National Audit Office.The move led to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) losing its ability to influence local authority performance,...

Somatosensory coding in rodents has been mostly studied in the whisker system and hairy skin, whereas the function of low-threshold mechanoreceptors (LTMRs) in the rodent glabrous skin has received scant attention, unlike in primates where the glabrous skin has been the focus. The relative activation of different LTMR subtypes carries information about vibrotactile stimuli, as does the rate and temporal patterning of LTMR spikes. Rate coding depends on the probability of a spike occurring on each stimulus cycle (reliability), whereas temporal coding depends on the timing of spikes relative to the stimulus cycle (precision). Using in vivo extracellular recordings in male rats and mice of either sex, we measured the reliability and precision of LTMR responses to tactile stimuli including sustained pressure and vibration. Similar to other species, rodent LTMRs were separated into rapid-adapting (RA) or slow-adapting based on their response to sustained pressure. However, unlike the dichotomous frequency preference characteristic of RA1 and RA2/Pacinian afferents in other species, rodent RAs fell along a continuum. Fitting generalized linear models to experimental data reproduced the reliability and precision of rodent RAs. The resulting model parameters highlight key mechanistic differences across the RA spectrum; specifically, the integration window of different RAs transitions from wide to narrow as tuning preferences across the population move from low to high frequencies. Our results show that rodent RAs can support both rate and temporal coding, but their heterogeneity suggests that coactivation patterns play a greater role in population coding than for dichotomously tuned primate RAs.

Endogenous reprogramming of glia into neurogenic progenitors holds great promise for neuron restoration therapies. Using lessons from regenerative species, we have developed strategies to stimulate mammalian Müller glia to regenerate neurons in vivo in the adult retina. We have demonstrated that the transcription factor Ascl1 can stimulate Müller glia neurogenesis. However, Ascl1 is only able to reprogram a subset of Müller glia into neurons. We have reported that neuroinflammation from microglia inhibits neurogenesis from Müller glia. Here we found that the peripheral immune response is a barrier to CNS regeneration. We show that monocytes from the peripheral immune system infiltrate the injured retina and negatively influence neurogenesis from Müller glia. Using CCR2 knock-out mice of both sexes, we found that preventing monocyte infiltration improves the neurogenic and proliferative capacity of Müller glia stimulated by Ascl1. Using scRNA-seq analysis, we identified a signaling axis wherein Osteopontin, a cytokine highly expressed by infiltrating immune cells is sufficient to suppress mammalian neurogenesis. This work implicates the response of the peripheral immune system as a barrier to regenerative strategies of the retina.

Staff from OM SportsLink and Campus Crusade for Christ cycled from Pretoria to Cape Town to minister to people in rural villages along the way.

If you only owned the ground you stood on, how would you make the most out of it? A creative idea becomes a sustainable reality.

Five OM entities based in South Africa previously working in three separate offices throughout Pretoria have recently united under one roof.

Community leaders in South Africa met with SportsLink to discuss how coaches can impact the fatherless in Randfontein.

God unexpectedly provides just what a family needs.

OM SportsLink ministers to young boys in Mamelodi, the largest township of Pretoria, South Africa, every Friday.

In October, 140 people take the Table Mountain Challenge in Cape Town and Franschhoek, South Africa, as part of the Freedom Climb.

OM AIDS Hope, in collaboration with Stanza Bopape Clinic, arranges an event on World AIDS Day 2014 to bring light to the pandemic.

Jabulani, a youth from South Africa affected by HIV, receives help and care from the OM team ministering in his community.

During the Go Challenge, the team is asked to pray for an elderly woman while doing door to door ministry in Tzaneen.

For the past two years OM South Africa SportsLink has attended a prestigious rugby tournament to spread the good news to players, coaches and staff.

For the OM Africa communications and media team, the latest and greatest thing is a duck.

OM Russia works to bring hope to neighbours affected by HIV and AIDS.

OM Russia and partner organisations work to thwart two killers picking off the younger generation in Russia: drugs and HIV and AIDS.

A young couple who met on the Internet answers God’s call to missions to help others find Christ using their IT and web design skills.

OM Russia partners with local churches to respond to the needs of Ukrainian refugees in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

OM Russia leader Colin Cleaver discusses why he values the involvement of families in OM Russia’s ministry and encourages other families to consider missions.

The church in Russia is facing a new threat-HIV/AIDS. OM Russia works in rehab-centres to show God's love and compassion.

A Dutch team member shares her mission trip experience praying with a man in Siberia.

OM Russia had a great kick-off to the STM summer season by serving in a camp for children with disabilities to hear about Christ.