Penn State Harrisburg this spring honored three retiring faculty and staff members.

Penn State Harrisburg Intercollegiate Athletics recently honored the athletic, academic, and community achievements of its student-athletes during the 2020 Student-Athlete Award Ceremony video presentation.

"This is a very values-oriented generation—they seek to work with purpose and passion, and without that, they'll leave," an education leader at Microsoft said about Generation Z teachers.

Student-teachers are grappling with uncertainty over housing, graduation requirements, and their ability to meet requirements for the edTPA licensing test.

The Epson WorkForce ES-500WR delivers fast and accurate scans paired with a robust software package that will appeal to data-crunching offices.

The Brother ADS-1250W is a fast and accurate, no-nonsense portable document scanner for the small-business traveler.

When people can’t leave their houses to attend an event, you bring the event to them. With residents across Pennsylvania sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn State Dickinson Law’s Business Law Society is converting two upcoming entrepreneur pop-up clinics to virtual sessions, allowing people to participate from their homes.

Penn State Abington students involved in undergraduate research quickly designed ways to present their findings online. It mirrors a global effort as many academic conferences transitioned to online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At its final meeting of the 2019-20 academic year, the Penn State Faculty Senate passed landmark legislation updating its full-time faculty hiring policy for the first time in more than 20 years, as one step in continued efforts to advance the University’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Penn State President Eric J. Barron will host a virtual Town Hall at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, to answer the University community’s questions regarding how the Penn State continues to manage the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, including the recent announcements on workforce changes, plans for summer and work being done by the task groups to return students to campus and employees to work.

"With unparalleled technology support, digital and curriculum innovation, a flexible structure including our Commonwealth and University Park campuses, effective outreach programming, and a wide array of top-ranked academic programs, Penn State is uniquely prepared for the arrival of the Class of 2024," wrote President Eric J. Barron in a message inviting accepted students to attend a four-part virtual series titled "Welcome to the Penn State Community."

Denver Newsroom, Apr 21, 2020 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- An Argentine archbishop has proposed 13 measures that would aim to allow churches to reopen churches during the coronavirus pandemic while reducing the risk of contagion.

The proposal is an effort to balance safety and the need for Catholics to receive the Eucharist, Archbishop Víctor Fernández of La Plata said this week.

In response to the pandemic, Argentina has been under lockdown since March 20. According to John Hopkins University, there are 3,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 145 deaths in the country.

Fernández said that although the Church is providing material sustenance to those hardest hit by the pandemic “when we think about sustaining the interior life of the faithful and encouraging its growth, we find ourselves in the serious difficulty of seeing them deprived of the Eucharist for a long time, and we can also foresee that this situation could last for several months.”

In a letter dated April 19 and addressed to the conference’s executive committee, the bishop said the Second Vatican Council teaches that “no Christian community is built up if it is not rooted and centered on the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,” and that Saint John Paul II emphasized that the Mass “rather than an obligation, should be felt as a requisite deeply inscribed in Christian existence.”

Fernández said the letter he sent puts together the suggestions of several bishops and that it is understandable “that many of the faithful are calling on us to find some way to make the Eucharist accessible again.”

“We tell them that they can experience other forms of prayer, and they do, but as Saint John Chrysostom has said “’You can also pray in your home, however, you cannot pray the same way you do in church where the brethren are gathered together.’”

Fernández noted that Pope Francis “teaches that God ‘in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter.’ It’s good that our faithful have learned that and so it’s not the same thing for them,” he said, adding that Catholics are eager “the food of the love that is the source of supernatural life.”

“It won’t be easy to prove that this situation is lasting too long, nor can we simply wait till the pandemic is completely over,” the prelate noted.

“We know that exposing yourself to infection is irresponsible especially because it involves exposing others to infection and indirectly could lead to a public health crisis that we don’t want to see in our country,” he said.

Aiming to send “a clear message to our People of God to show that we’re truly concerned and that we intend to take some steps that would allow us to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” without neglecting “the health concerns of the authorities” Fernández proposed a series of obligatory measures to celebrate the Eucharist publicly:
1) Keep a distance of two meters between people to the side, front and back. This will require removing or closing off half the pews in the church.
2) No more than two people per pew.
3) Once the pews are occupied in that manner, no more people are to be allowed to enter the church.
4) In the churches where there is usually a lot of people in attendance, the number of Masses should be increased so the faithful can spread themselves out over Saturday and Sunday at different times. Given the prevalence and closeness of churches this will not involve using transportation.
5) Mass should not be celebrated publicly at the most frequently visited shrines due to the difficulty of establishing appropriate controls.
6) There should be no line for communion, instead the Eucharistic ministers should go to the people positioned at the ends of the pews and place the Eucharist in the hand.
7) Every Eucharistic minister should wash his hands with soap before and after and apply alcohol gel.
8) The sign of peace and any physical contact should be omitted.
9) Mass should last no more than 40 minutes.
10) People should leave the church progressively, not all at once, and avoid greeting each other.
11) No intentions should be taken at Mass time, only those previously received by phone, mail or messages.
12) Those people who because of their age are prevented from attending may receive Communion at home.
13) The dispensation from the Sunday obligation should be temporarily maintained so that people who prefer to exercise extreme caution don’t feel obliged to attend.

The archbishop also pointed out in his letter that “if the economic impact has to be foreseen, it’s also appropriate to place a value on those things that provide consolation and strength to people during hard times.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Denver Newsroom, Apr 28, 2020 / 05:17 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver has announced that he is donating to the University of British Columbia’s research toward a COVID-19 vaccine.

“May the search for COVID-19 solutions also be a moment of solidarity, of collaboration, and of growing together as a visible sign to the world of the healing and reconciliation so needed right now,” Archbishop Miller said April 27 as reported by the B.C. Catholic.

Ryan Thomas, a special advisor to the archdiocese, told CNA that Archbishop Miller wanted to express, through his donation, the Catholic Church’s support for science and medicine that contribute to the common good.

“The Church— as Pope Francis has said from the beginning of his pontificate— is called to go out, we're called to engage, not called to retreat,” Thomas told CNA.

“From a scientific standpoint, that means identifying the research that is worthy of our investment, that meets the high standards that we have to protect life,” he said.

Thomas declined to specify the amount of the donation, but said that it was in the thousands of dollars.

The global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine includes at least 50 other research teams, the university says, many of which in the U.S. and Canada have received government funding and are being conducted by large pharmaceutical companies.

Pro-life leaders have warned in recent months that among the many COVID-19 vaccines currently in development worldwide, in some cases researchers are using old cell lines derived from the cells of aborted babies.

It was important to Archbishop Miller, Thomas said, that the Church be seen to be promoting research into a vaccine that Catholics can support in good conscience.

A group of Evangelical Christians and Catholics in Vancouver began to rally around the idea of supporting a vaccine that corresponded to Christian ethical standards, and eventually presented the idea of supporting UBC’s research to Archbishop Miller.

Thomas said Miller made sure to inquire about whether UBC’s vaccine research makes use of aborted fetal cells, which it does not.

Dr. Wilf Jefferies, the project’s lead researcher, told CNA via email that his research team is currently in the process of validating the potency of vaccine candidates in preclinical trials, in order to assess their potential toxicity before trying them in human subjects.

The UBC lab is using immune-boosting components called adjuvants in its vaccine candidate, with the hopes of reducing the dosage of vaccine required for complete protection against the disease. In addition, Jefferies hopes that UBC’s vaccine will continue to provide protection against COVID-19 even if the virus mutates over time.

“I am heartened by the unity and kindness that is being demonstrated during this pandemic,” Jefferies told CNA.

“I think the response by the archdiocese is an affirmative and practical way to address the critical need in our society to develop a vaccine...I am sincerely humbled by the support we have received from the archdiocese and from other groups and individuals.”

So far, Jefferies’ lab has received grants from the government-funded Michael Smith Health Research Foundation and the Sullivan Urology Foundation affiliated with the University of British Columbia, as well as a number of private donations.

There are at least 1,000 clinical trials currently taking place around the world to test potential COVID-19 vaccines.

A group of pro-life leaders in a letter to the Trump administration earlier this month reiterated that development of a COVID-19 vaccine should avoid unethical links to abortion.

“No American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience,” reads the April 17 letter to Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Fortunately, there is no need to use ethically problematic cell lines to produce a COVID vaccine, or any vaccine, as other cell lines or processes that do not involve cells from abortions are available and are regularly being used to produce other vaccines,” it continued.

The letter’s signers include Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities; the heads of three other bishops’ conference committees; and leaders of many other Catholic and non-Catholic groups.

The Pontifical Academy for Life has noted that Catholics have an obligation to use ethically-sourced vaccines when available, and have an obligation to speak up and request the development of new cell lines that are not derived from aborted fetuses.

The 2008 Vatican document Dignitatis personae strongly criticized aborted fetal tissue research. However, as regards common vaccines, such as those for chicken pox and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), that may be derived from cell lines of aborted babies, the Vatican said they could be used by parents for “grave reasons” such as danger to their children’s health.

In a 2017 document on vaccines, the academy noted a “moral obligation to guarantee the vaccination coverage necessary for the safety of others… especially the safety of more vulnerable subjects such as pregnant women and those affected by immunodeficiency who cannot be vaccinated against these diseases.”

 

CNA Staff, Apr 29, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Venezuela’s prolonged social, political and economic crisis has only been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, charged Tuesday.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, with severe shortages of food and medicine, high unemployment, power outages, and hyperinflation. Some 4.5 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.

In response to the threat of the virus, the government imposed a nationwide stay at home order March 17. According to government statistics, to date there have been 329 cases of COVID-19 with ten deaths. The country is ill prepared to handle the crisis, with chronic shortages of medical supplies, and many doctors have left the country.

“The national reality is terrible,” and the government has no answers, Urosa said in an April 28 statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

While the cardinal acknowledged the lockdown has prevented the spread of the virus, he pointed out that “the quarantine has hurt a great many people because the economic, social and logistical conditions in the country weren’t taken into account,” including “the extremely serious problem of the gasoline shortage for transport, especially for food.”

In some cases, crops are rotting in farmers’ fields due to lack of fuel to transport them to market.

Especially hard hit, the cardinal said, are “informal” workers who are paid off the books,  and who are now  “barely surviving,” and only with “the help of family members, social organizations and the Church.”

On April 25, Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez announced state intervention and oversight of several food supply companies in order to control the prices of 27 products for 180 days.

Urosa criticized the intervention, calling it “an extremely serious mistake, since it will probably result in greater shortages. Price controls are acceptable, but intervening in efficient businesses is not. The government can’t even manage to supply gasoline.” “The state-run petroleum industry has collapsed, and now Venezuelans’ food is in danger!” 

 “The current government doesn’t have any answers for such elementary things such as the extremely serious problem of the gasoline shortage” and runaway inflation. “In the last 40 days, the dollar has doubled in value, which is undoubtedly the fundamental cause of the spike in prices,” the cardinal said.

Urosa decried political persecution, which “has gotten worse since March because amid the quarantine, the government has ramped up the repression. During these weeks the government has jailed, even without due process, many political activists, especially from the inner circle of Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly and leader of the Venezuelan opposition.”

Guaidó declared himself the nation's interim leader Jan. 23 last year following Maduro’s inauguration for a second term. Maduro won a May 2018 presidential election, which was boycotted by the opposition and has been rejected by much of the international community. The United States was swift to recognize Guaidó as interim president, eventually followed by over 60 countries. Both the National Assembly and the Venezuelan bishops' conference declared Maduro's reelection to be invalid.

With the military firmly in support of Maduro, however, opposition protests calling for his resignation have failed to oust the leader.

On March 30, Guaidó charged that the Maduro regime had unleashed a new wave of harassment against his close collaborators. Andrea Bianchi, the wife of close associate Rafael Rico, was kidnapped, beaten and then left naked on a highway. Two others, Rómulo García and Víctor Silio were also picked up and later charged with possession of marijuana and a handgun.

The NGO Venezuelan Program for Education-Action in Human Rights reported that during the state of emergency, 34 people have been arbitrarily arrested and attacks against politicians, journalists and healthcare workers have increased.

“The bishops have always strongly criticized the political repression by the government and once again I call for the release of all political prisoners. They are even in greater physical danger because of the pandemic situation we’re going through,” Urosa stressed.

On March 26, “the Trump administration unsealed sweeping indictments against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle on narcoterrorism charges, a dramatic escalation in the U.S. campaign to force the authoritarian socialist from power,” even offering “a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction,” the Washington Post reported.

In response, the Maduro regime activated a plan against the Venezuelan opposition called “Operation Bolivarian Fury.”

The archbishop emeritus denounced these recent “threats of violence by the government against Venezuelans. Maduro himself has spoken of a supposed ‘Bolivarian fury’ as a threat against members of the Venezuelan opposition in case of international problems. That’s illegal, unconstitutional and unacceptable from every point of view. That threat of violence is intolerable.” 

The cardinal said the government has used the quarantine simply as an opportunity to strengthen its social and political control.

On April 25, the Maduro regime placed shipping containers on the Caracas-La Guaira highway to prevent demonstrators from other cities who have been protesting the shortages of food, water and electricity in other cities from getting to the capital.

“Why restrict the right to free transit?” the cardinal asked.

The Maduro regime also blocked the highway in February 2019 to prevent humanitarian aid from entering the country from Colombia.

Guaidó charged April 24 on Twitter that “a dictatorship of corrupt and incapable people has brought us to a crisis where farmers are losing their crops while families are starving to death in the barrios. They turned the richest country in the region into a hell. They’ll leave here, the sacrifice has been enough already.”

As signs of hope, Urosa pointed to ongoing work of Caritas Venezuela and the creative ways the clergy has reached out to the faithful through social media. “Our message is one of encouragement, trust in God, solidarity and hope in this dark hour,” he said.

 Catholics “have an unshakeable faith in God who is love,” who had died and risen and “has shown us the merciful face of God.” “We’ll come out of this,” the archbishop said, “the suffering we are experiencing has united us closer to God and opens to us the gates of heaven.”

The archbishop encouraged Venezuelans to always stand in solidarity with each other and “to be the face of God to those in need. God is love and is with us. Let us join ourselves to him and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy in this painful hour.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.

Lima, Peru, May 7, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Two priests in a rural area of Peru aimed to fight the coronavirus pandemic by finding a way to supply oxygen tanks, much needed for medical treatment, to their region.

The recent death of two doctors from coronavirus in Iquitos, Peru, underscored the hard-hit region’s shortage of medical equipment and medications. Both doctors died because of the lack of oxygen to treat them.

The Medical Corps of Hospital III of Iquitos and the Medical College of Peru said in a joint statement last month that there is a shortage of medications in the Loreto region, and its capital Iquitos is "one of the cities hardest hit by the infection."

“We don’t have medications” to treat coronavirus patients and “not enough oxygen tanks, pressure gauges and refilled tanks,” they reported.

One doctor was in intensive care at Loreto Regional Hospital and the other at a hospital under the country’s universal health insurance program, both in Iquitos, the Medical College of Peru said on social media.

Fr. Raymond Portelli, a parish pastor in Iquitos, along with the diocesan administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos, Fr. Miguel Fuertes, decided to start a fundraising campaign to acquire an oxygen plant for the city.

Portelli himself is a doctor caring for COVID-19 patients.

To purchase the machinery, they needed to raise about $118,000.

The city does have an oxygen plant, but it only produces between 100 and 160 tanks a day. The dean of the Medical College of Peru, Miguel Palacios, told local media that quantity is not enough and that current production would need to be tripled.

The priests’ campaign was launched the morning of May 3 on social media, and in less than a day, they had raised about $300,000.

Both priests thanked contributors, and said that thanks to the amount collected, a “high capacity” plant could be purchased for Iquitos.

Portelli added that Fuentes is currently in Lima coordinating with a specialist for the acquisition of the plant.

“Pray a lot that this work can be accomplished quickly. May God bless all who have contributed. We hope to continue to cover all the expenses,” he added.

  This story was first published by CNA's Spanish-language news partner, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.



 

Fingerprinters collect information about the device you're accessing the internet on and attempt to build up a profile of the device.

Retail stores, corporate offices, and contact centers in China are closed through February 9 as the coronavirus spreads globally. Apple's online store will remain open, though.

LG is skipping the event, citing the travel restrictions from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. However, the GSMA still plans on holding the annual tech show, saying the outbreak has caused 'minimal impact' so far.

Meaghan Paige, a women’s fashion brand started by a Penn State Brandywine alumna, is supporting the local community by offering free, handmade cloth face masks during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Early College Program at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus offers high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to complete college credits at a fifty percent tuition adjustment and earn scholarships. A virtual information session will be offered on Thursday, April 30 at 6:00 p.m. for interested students and families.

WHEN Tamsin Calidas stepped aboard a ferry bound for the Hebridean island that would become her new home, it was with hope for a fresh beginning, one far from the tumultuous events and near-death experience she had faced in the city streets being left behind.

The spring season at Penn State College of Medicine is packed full of research presentations, awards and ceremonies. Since experts cannot predict when social distancing guidelines will be relaxed, College of Medicine leaders plan on celebrating many of these springtime celebrations virtually — including commencement.

Today there are discounts on the Dell Insprion 15 5000 laptop, 12.9-inch iPad Pro, a few SSD and HDD storage devices, the second-generation AirPods, and more.

Despite J.D. Salinger's distaste for technology, his published work is coming to e-readers later this week. His son, Matt Salinger, is responsible for the push to get his father's work in front of young readers.

The coronavirus death toll continues to rapidly climb in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

The man hopped the airport perimeter fence, an airport spokesperson confirmed.

House Democrats are demanding that companies return federal dollars that they say were intended for smaller businesses

The coronavirus is surfacing deep inside the White House

Snow and record cold are in the forecast for New York City and the Northeast Saturday.

Cecelia Minnick, who will graduate this Saturday with a 3.98 GPA in accounting and minors in information systems management and legal environment of business, has been selected as Smeal’s spring 2020 accounting student marshal.

Bernadette Lear, Penn State University Libraries behavioral sciences and education librarian and coordinator of library instruction at the Penn State Harrisburg Library, has been elected vice chair/chair elect of the Library History Round Table, a membership group of the American Library Association.

Education Week asked three 8th grade teachers to evaluate real student responses to an open-ended question on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in social studies. Here's what they said.

"When the day came to administer the first test I had designed," writes Brandon Lewis, "my heart sank."

D. Brooks Smith, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, will deliver the Penn State Law in University Park 2020 commencement address on May 16 in Eisenhower Auditorium.

To help teachers remotely engage their students during the coronavirus crisis, Penn State’s Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative has released its first set of free learning resources.

The Coronavirus and International Affairs Roundtable, taking place 9:30 a.m. Friday, April 17, via Zoom, will bring together experts in law and international affairs from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and the Caribbean to discuss the broader impact of COVID-19.

The Penn State Law, Policy and Engineering initiative is hosting a virtual speaker series — titled, “Technology, Policy and Law during COVID-19” — that will consist of six sessions throughout the month of May.

Rebecca Mattson, head of faculty and research services for the H. Laddie Montague Jr. Law Library, Penn State University Libraries, and professor of legal research at Penn State Law at University Park, has been elected vice chair/chair elect of the Research Instruction and Patron Services Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries.

Penn State University Libraries is offering an Online De-Stress Fest to help students relax and unwind while completing end-of-term reports and studying for final exams. Visit through Friday, May 8, for a curated list of links, tutorials and homegrown videos that showcase the talents of University Libraries’ faculty and staff.

Choral students at Penn State Behrend typically end the semester with a concert. This year, because of COVID-19, they tried something different: a virtual cabaret.

Penn State Law, Policy and Engineering's "Technology, Policy and Law during COVID-19" virtual speaker series, a Penn State Extension webinar about food system disruptions, and a number of virtual exhibits at the Palmer Museum of Art and HUB-Robeson Galleries are among this weekend's and next week's cultural highlights at Penn State.

To continue supporting Penn State faculty’s remote teaching, Teaching and Learning with Technology is offering virtual office hours each day during the week of March 16. During these sessions, instructors can get help with transitioning their courses from a residential format to remote.

The Penn State New Kensington Office of Admissions and Student Aid is available remotely for appointments, as well as scheduled virtual events for prospective students and families.