Posted March 07, 2020 09:37:44

Social isolation is a growing problem in Australia and is even more difficult to overcome when you do not have spare money for outings or activities.

A group of women in Adelaide's north hope they have found a solution, after noticing many women sitting alone in shopping malls and having nowhere to get together.

Raelene Wlochowicz retired from the youth justice system last year and wanted to learn new skills and make new friends, but realised the only option in the area was a men's shed.

Men's sheds are community-based, non-profit, non-commercial organisations that provide a safe and friendly space for men to work on projects.

The Australian Men's Shed Association said a major objective of the sheds is to advance the well-being and health of their members.

However, despite Adelaide's northern suburbs having some of South Australia's highest rates of older women living alone along with high rates of unemployment and many newly-arrived migrants there is no men's shed equivalent for women.

Ms Wlochowicz said many people in the area do not have the cash to spend at cafes, movies or even buying a book and that social isolation was a "massive" problem.

"A lot of women often stay in domestic violence relationships because they are isolated, they don't have a support network, [or] people they can go to for advice and help," she said.

"When you're retired money is minimal, you don't have a lot to spend and if you're a young mum, you don't have a lot to spend either."

Using donations and a $1,000 grant, Ms Wlochowicz and a volunteer committee have turned a donated, disused school building in Davoren Park into the Playford Women's Shed.

It is a social hub for women of all ages, backgrounds and cultures.

It has taken five months to clean the building, which has been vacant for six years and to remove knee-high weeds from the courtyard.

"From the moment I spoke women's shed, it's taken on a life of its own, it's grown exponentially," Ms Wlochowicz said.

"It just seems that whatever we've needed it's come to us because I think the essence of a women's shed is just so necessary, the community's gone 'yep, we want to be there'.

"We are the first women's shed in South Australia. We hope that this will become a place that's renowned."

The shed has been created as a casual drop-in space that will also offer craft workshops, cooking classes and opportunities for migrants to speak English.

An op shop has also been set up on the site and it will provide packs for vulnerable women in need of clothing and supplies.

For Cynthia Bubner, it has given her "a new lease on life".

"I was pretty much reclusive up until a few weeks ago when we started all this up. I'd moved house and I'd hit a bit of a plateau of just feeling a bit bland," she said.

"I just feel all yippee inside all the time now.

"It's a ripper of a thing you know, fair dinkum it's just bloody totally, totally rapt in the whole thing.

"It's very serendipitous because we kind of bumped into this person and that person, so it's all come together like a melting pot of dreams."

Topics:community-organisations,charities-and-community-organisations,community-and-society,community-and-multicultural-festivals,volunteers,adelaide-5000,sa,australia

Read more here:
Women's shed to open in Adelaide's north to combat social isolation - ABC News

Did you know TNW Conference has a track fully dedicated to exploring new design trends this year? Check out the full Sprint program here.

The largest explosion ever seen in the history of the Universe ripped through a plasma cloud hundreds of millions of years ago, creating the most powerful explosion seen by astronomers since the Big Bang, a new study reveals.

The eruption, centered on a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster (roughly 390 million light-years from Earth) produced energetic jets, ripping a mammoth hole, 15 times larger than the Milky Way Galaxy, in the cloud of plasma surrounding the galactic cluster.

Weve seen outbursts in the centers of galaxies before but this one is really, really massive. And we dont know why its so big. But it happened very slowly like an explosion in slow motion that took place over hundreds of millions of years,Melanie Johnston-Hollittof the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) stated.

Read: [Why this 2019 Nobel physics winner says we should stop calling it a Big Bang]

Every major galaxy houses asupermassive black holenear its center, and powerful eruptions have been seen before around these enigmatic objects, but not like the one recently found in this new study.

This was the largest explosion known in the Universe, five times as powerful as a similar event in the galaxy cluster MS 0735+74, the previous record-holder. This smaller event would have required theSMBHthere to consume 300 solar masses of material over the course of 100 million years, Chandra X-Ray observatory officials calculate. However, even those incredible figures are dwarfed by the eruption at the center of this new study.

We found that the X-ray structure is, in fact, a giant cavity in the X-ray gas filled with diffuse radio emission with an extraordinarily steep radio spectrum. It thus appears to be a very aged fossil of the most powerful AGN outburst seen in any galaxy cluster, researchers describe in an article published inThe Astrophysical Journal.

Black holes are best-known for drawing matter in toward their centers through their massive gravitational field. However, these bizarre objects can also redirect matter falling toward them into powerful jets that race away from the region surrounding the black hole, deep into space.

What is special about this example is that its one of the cases where we are looking at a host galaxy embedded in a galaxy cluster and the jets have carved out an enormous cavity in the hot X-ray plasma that fills the cluster. There are about 50 of these cavities known, which might seem like a lot, but given the enormous number of AGN in the Universe, thats actually not many, and the example in Ophiuchus is the most energetic, professor Johnston-Hollitt toldThe Cosmic Companion.

Astronomers utilizing X-ray telescopes had seen this gaseous crater before but rejected the idea that the feature could be the result of an explosion due to the behemoth size of the crater.

Using NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory, the XMM-Newton from the European Space Agency, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India, and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia to examine the artifact inradio waves, astronomers realized that what they were looking at was, indeed, the product of an explosion of unfathomable proportions.

The radio data fit inside the X-rays like a hand in a glove. This is the clincher that tells us an eruption of unprecedented size occurred here, saidMaxim Markevitchof NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center.

Major eruptions ingalaxiescan release vast amounts of energy, but a majority of solar systems in the vicinity of such an event would escape direct impact from such an event, unless they were in the path of one of the powerful jets produced during an explosion.

If you happen to be in the way of one of these radio jets, youd be blasted with highly energetic particles and strong magnetic fields. However, when the emission starts deep within the galaxy its actually very narrow and so it wouldnt hit too many things. The jets broaden as the move away from the black hole and outside of the host galaxy, Johnston-Hollitt explained.

Energy from this eruption has now subsided as the gas feeding the SMBH at the center of the explosions has (likely) moved away from its homegalaxy. The gas may have been lost from the force of the explosion, like wine spilling from a glass when it is shaken, astronomers speculate. No signs of further activity are seen by radio astronomers, suggesting the eruption has now ceased.

Several mysteries still remain about how the event changed thiscluster of galaxies. For instance, why does this object only show one area of radio emission, while other (smaller) events of this type show two such locales? One possibility is that gas one the other pole of the eruption may have been thinner than its partner, dissipating more rapidly than the remnant we see today, but the answer calls for further research.

As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world. Boris Pasternak

Future instruments may show us new, even more powerful, events like the one seen in Ophiuchus.

This is the most energetic event like this yet detected. It happens to be in a cluster that is relatively close and so is in some sense easier to detect with current telescopes as we get more powerful low-frequency radio telescopes we may indeed see larger and more energetic events, Johnston-Hollitt describes.

As telescopes and instrument scour the skies in the coming years, we just may find evidence for even more powerful eruptions in the distant past. But, at least for now, this is the most powerful explosion we know of in the history of theUniverse.

This article was originally published onThe Cosmic Companionby James Maynard, an astronomy journalist, fan of coffee, sci-fi, movies, and creativity. Maynard has been writing about space since he was 10, but hes still not Carl Sagan. The Cosmic Companionsmailing list/podcast. You can read this original piecehere.

Read next: Satoshi Nakaboto: Bitcoin hash rate hits all-time high

Read the original here:
New research sheds light on the big bang that was bigger than the Big Bang - The Next Web

The breadth and intensity of this weeks coronavirus-fueled selloff in U.S. stocks has some analysts scratching their heads.

Thomas Lee, founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, may be one of the few to acknowledge that something isnt right with a market that was just enjoying a record close days ago.

This is not normal, and the market is clearly indicating to us a change, Lee said in a research report on Friday.

Read:S&P 500 tumbles from record finish to correction in just 6 trading days as stock-market rout accelerates

Lee said the oddities playing out in the market, including two and potentially three days of 1,000-point drops in the same week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +4.52% , signifies four things (though his tongue may be planted firmly in his cheek on the last item):

At last check, Dow Jones Industrial Averagewas closed down more than 360 points Friday, and the S&P 500 index SPX, +4.22% was off less than 0.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +3.84% finished the session virtually unchanged. Still, the three major benchmarks notched their worst weekly declines since the 2008 financial crisis.

Investors are worried that the outbreak of COVID-19, the infectious disease that originated in Wuhan, China, late last year, will hurt global economies and supply chains if the illness isnt contained.

Check out: Coronavirus update: 83,861 cases, 2,867 deaths, global events in question

Lee said fear surrounding the uncertain impact of the virus is a credible issue but added that he believes investors may be overreacting. Because of the idiosyncratic nature of a potential pandemic, it is really difficult to know when it is priced in," he said.

He made the case that markets are bottoming this week even heading into a weekend where uncertainties could deliver a fresh wallop to confidence. He is forecasting a so-called V-shaped, or sharp, recovery for the market.

He also noted that his optimistic forecast could be impeded by further negative reports of the viral outbreak but said that he wouldnt be surprised if the government kicks in surprise plans to help stanch the bleeding in markets. Those might include:

A health-care action plan

An announcement of financial support by the Treasury Department

Other fiscal stimulus packages

An emergency interest-rate cut by the Fed

He also speculated that the Federal Reserve could announce a special facility to support stocks Yes, I realize they dont have legal authority at the moment, but has anyone heard of Presidential Executive Order ? he asked.

So far, Fed officials on Friday didnt seem ready to reduce already-low benchmark interest rates from a current 1.50%-to-1.75% range or enact a fresh batch of stimulus, though they seemed to leave the door open. The 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.998% rate was at 1.12% on Friday, trading at a fresh record low for the benchmark debt.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said Friday he will be ready to make a judgment about the need for a rate cut when the Feds interest-rate committee meets again on March 17-18. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said interest-rate cuts are a possibility if a global pandemic actually develops.

However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a rare, unplanned statement on Friday in support of the economy amid the outbreak.

Read:5 reasons stocks are seeing their worst decline since 2008, and only one is the coronavirus

Also read:Stock market slammed by fears coronavirus will deliver a supply shock that central bankers cant fix

Read more here:
Stock-market expert says what many are thinking after Dow sheds 3,600 points in a week: This market is not normal - MarketWatch

Bernie Sanders was declared the winner in California just moments after polls closed but his final haul of delegates could remain uncertain for days, or even weeks, as election officials tally the millions of provisional votes and mail-in ballots.

And while triumph in the Golden State will help Sanders remain competitive in what has become essentially a two-person race between him and Joe Biden, the eventual delegate math could indicate a decidedly shakier path to the nomination than the Vermont senator expected last week.

Voting on Super Tuesday in Los Angeles county, the states most populous, was marked by chaos after a $300m new voting system resulted in hours-long lines that kept people waiting even as midnight approached. Meanwhile, nearly half the states ballots still remain uncounted, estimates Paul Mitchell, with the campaign research firm Political Data Inc, which tracks ballots as they are returned.

Its like theres this black box of how many ballots are at the post office right now, said Mitchell. So far, about 5.3m ballots have been counted, according to Mitchell, just over 50% of the 10m he expects have been cast in this election. The x-factor really is: do we see some big surging coming with the uncounted ballot results? he said. Its just a huge unknown.

Many voters dropped off or posted ballots at the last minute, and election officials are required to count mail-ins that arrive as late as Friday, as long as they are postmarked by 3 March.

After all the volatility, withdrawals and endorsements leading up Super Tuesday, many California voters said they felt torn as they headed to the polls and even after theyd voted.

Stephenie Smith, 31, told the Guardian she had made a last-minute decision to vote for Warren. After a lot of conversations, I was kind of leaning toward Bernie, she said. I had such mixed feelings. But on election night, she was worried shed made the wrong choice. I like Warren slightly better, but I didnt want to have split the progressive vote, she said.

Voters who had their hearts set on Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, or other candidates who dropped out before the election were left scrambling as well. Andrew Byrnes, 47, said he settled on Joe Biden, because I think hes the most likely to defeat Trump, he said. I was torn between him and Warren, but it doesnt seem like she has a chance of winning.

Traditionally, the demographics of late voters tend to resemble the types who would favor Sanders, Mitchell said. In California, the Sanders campaigns early outreach to a dedicated coalition of young, liberal and Latino voters appeared to dull the impact of Bidens momentum. Exit polls across the country, however, suggested that late deciders tended to side with Biden.

As more votes are counted, support for Mike Bloomberg who is currently in third place is likely to wane, Mitchell said.

Whatever the final numbers, Sanders, who has long dominated in state polls, is sure to retain his strong lead in a state where his progressive politics resonate with a Democratic electorate that skews left, said Erick Schickler, the co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Progressive voters have also helped boost down-ballot candidates, including Shahid Buttar the San Francisco activist and attorney challenging the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for her congressional seat. He earned just over 12% support compared with her 73%, but it was enough to put him in second place, with a shot at challenging the 33-year incumbent in November.

At an election night watch party in San Franciscos Mission district, Sanders supporters cheered and clapped as bar TVs blared news of the lefty candidates resounding victory.

Kyle Schmolze, 30, said he felt better about progressive politics than Ive ever felt in my life. Sanders sweep in California was heartening. It feels like we can actually win, he said.

But his candidates losses in the east and south worried Schmolze. I would feel safer if Bernie had dominated which is what I had expected, he said. Im feeling all the emotions.

Read this article:
Millions of uncounted California ballots to shed light on Sanders' future - The Guardian

Over the past few years, Bendt has made a name for itself performing around the Capital Region. You might have seen the four-piece rock outfit last summer at Schenectady County SummerNight opening for Smashmouth or at The Linda, Little Pecks or Desperate Annies.

This week, fans will finally have access to the songs theyve been hearing with the release of the Albany-based bands first full album, Brightness in the Barrens.

Consisting of members Carl Blackwood, Matt Plummer, John Longo and Cody Bingham, Bendt arose from a few different bands about five years ago.

Carl and John have known each other for a long time, said Plummer, who is the groups lead singer/guitarist. Cody and Carl knew each other, too. We [had] all been playing music with people we know, who we are good friends with. [Its] a very tightknit community.

Back in 2017, the band released a self-titled EP with five tracks. It was also the year they won the Schenectady County Battle of the Bands.

While they wrote and performed many new songs after they released the EP, they held off on recording them.

Fans and family members were always asking why they couldnt listen to the new tracks on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes, etc.Now its finally coming to fruition, where a lot of these tunes that people have been hearing live for the last couple years are now going to be able to be heard in a studio format. Its cool for a lot of people whove been listening to us for a while now, Plummer said.

Bendt recorded Brightness in the Barrens last year during what felt like a sprint-turned-marathon two and a half days at Sonelab in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

[It was] blisteringly fast, Bingham said.

Under the direction of sound engineer Justin Pizzoferrato who has worked with the likes of Pixies and Dinosaur Junior, etc. the band captured the 90s sound they were aiming for with Brightness in the Barrens.

We recorded very old-school, like they recorded in the 90s. Its still digital, but we tracked all in one room. We all played together versus doing everything separately. The reason why the album feels like us is because we did it live, Blackwood said.

They also produced for vinyl, which helped capture the sound they were hoping for, a sound informed by a mix of bands like Soundgarden, Primus, Nirvana and Pink Floyd.

While many bands have one or two main songwriters, Bendt tends to divide songwriting fairly evenly. Each side of the album features songs by every member, some written in the past two years and others written well before the band even formed.

One of the songs is called Thirteenth, and its 13 years old. It just ended up fitting this band so well. Theres parts from songs [on this record] that have been all over the history of my musical career, which is exciting for me to finally have a final form on some of these things, Blackwood said.

Many of the songs band members have written over the years seemed to fit perfectly together. One can hear certain melodies and themes echoed in different tracks on the album.

The musical themes and motifs are moving in and out of one another. You might hear something from a song before, a little bit of a melody from something else. Those songs really worked out well together, said Blackwood.

The first side of the album is aggressive and upbeat, while the second takes on a more ambient sound.

[Its] nine songs not only [on] vinyl, but were doing the complete digital package. Everything from Spotify to iTunes, all that. For me, at least, this is not only the first time Ive released a full album with these guys, but with any project. Its pretty damn exciting, Plummer said.

Theyve already released one single, Symptoms, with a performance video filmed by Chromoscope Pictures at SkyLoft.

[Its] heartwarming to see how well-received the music video for the single has been. I think just having something tangible and visible like that has really helped out a lot. Overall Ive been very happy with how its getting received, and like any band whos underground and independent, were trying to get as many ears to hear it as possible, Plummer said.

To celebrate the albums release, Bendt is performing Saturday at Lost & Found in Albany with a few other friends.

We have our friends Bad Mothers opening up for us. Theyre also a four-piece rock outfit that has played some really big shows here in the area. Then our friend Michael Gregg, whos the banjo player in Zan and the Winter Folk. Hes the humor and the comedic factor to it. We wholeheartedly want this to be not just really a show, but a celebration, Plummer said.

After that, the band is heading outside the Capital Region, playing shows in Oneonta, Burlington, Ithaca and New York City.

Saturdays show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $30 for admission plus the album (on vinyl), $10 for admission beforehand and $12 at the door. For more information, visit Bendt on Facebook or visit bendtmusic.com.

Saturdays show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 for admission plus the album, $10 for admission beforehand and $12 at the door. For more information, visit Bendt on Facebook or visit bendtmusic.com.

Read more here:
'Brightness' sheds new light on local Albany-based band Bendt - The Daily Gazette

It has finally come to this: our two major parties politicizing a potential health epidemic in America. Of all the things an average person would think would not be politicized and would be off limits, even the coronavirus epidemic has succumbed to the rabid partisanship that continues to worsen in Washington.

Alan Calandro

The Democrats say that President Trump is pathetic and incompetent, has botched planning for the epidemic, and is more interested in the performance of the stock market than peoples lives. The Republicans say that that the Democrats are trying to panic everyone, including the markets, so that the economic advantage that Trump happens to enjoy will disappear, setting the stage to capitalize on any bad news resulting from the virus.

Trump has tried to downplay it by saying on Feb. 25, among other optimistic messages, that it is very well under control. Trump later appointed Vice President Mike Pence to coordinate the virus response which mirrors what President Obama did with the Ebola outbreak in 2014.

It is certainly understandable that strategically these positions make political sense. But that has nothing to do with what is right. Quite the opposite. It is noise intended to shift the fortune of the parties, not your fortune, or that of America. These parties main concern is not you and your welfare. Their main concern is the party.

Individually, these people are not bad people. Most of them are genuinely good and likable people. But that is a sideshow to the real purpose of a partisan professional existence: advance the party so it will pay back with professional aggrandizement: power, jobs, influence, fame, money, and get some policy goals accomplished within the party structure. For many pols, but certainly not all, the last goal is the reason they entered politics to make a difference. But the party holds the power to their future and they soon are forced to learn subservience.

You see it every day in the news, The party comes first, almost every time, regardless of what an individual pol may believe. The party line votes that are routinely taken both here and in Washington serve the party not the best policy solution to a particular problem. Party line votes now make up about 90% of votes in Washington and are routine in Connecticut. Those who buck the party line, will lose favor with the party, and risk losing their seat because the money and party machinery (another form of currency) needed to get elected will be turned off. Maybe it wouldnt be so bad if we didnt have to see the puppet cable news guests every night supporting their party at any cost of honesty. This is no secret, most of us know this. But again, this has nothing to do with you and your welfare. That is secondary nothing personal.

The political system is essentially rigged. Who can get elected without the support of one of the two parties? Almost no one. The entire current Connecticut General Assembly of 187 members has only Democrats and Republicans. The U.S. Congress, made up of 535 members, has a total of two independents (not including Bernie Sanders who is a declared independent but must affiliate with a party machine when running for President to have any hope of success). And by the way, the party machine includes all of the various non-office holding special interest constituencies that benefit from the largess of the party they support with money and time.

But what REALLY makes the system dominate politics the way it does? Well, I hate to say it, but its the majority of us: those that advance the parties with donated time, money and affiliation whether they be from concerned citizens or the individuals behind a Super PAC.

According to Gallup people are wising up to this nefarious domination. In 2004 (the beginning of the polling data), independents sometimes outnumbered either of the two parties and sometimes did not. But since about 2010, the number of people identifying as independent was consistently larger than those identifying as Republican or Democrat, often by fairly wide margins. In the two polls taken in 2020 so far, the average for those identifying as independents was 43.5%, which beat Republican identification by 15 points and Democrat by 16 points.

So do America a favor and shed your party affiliation. (You can still vote for whoever you want to). Its easy and its free. It will actually save you money if you currently donate. Although it might make policy positions less clear since there wont be as automatic one-stop shopping for opinion formation. Or keep your affiliation and watch the parties descend even further into the abyss dragging all of us with them.

Alan Calandro lives in Burlington.

CTViewpoints welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines andsubmit your commentary here.

Excerpt from:
Finally time to shed your party membership? - The CT Mirror

At first, capital controls cut off funding. Now the coronavirus gets in the way of the money-losing sale it could finally line up.ByWolf RichterforWOLF STREET.

The twisted saga of Chinese money in US commercial real estate takes on another twist; this time the coronavirus is blamed.

Back in October, after months of rumors about funding problems, property developer Oceanwide, a division of Chinese conglomerate Oceanwide Holdings Co. Ltd., admitted that it had halted construction indefinitely on a 54-story 605-foot tower in San Franciscos Transbay district. This is the shorter of two towers in the same project. Two years behind schedule and way over budget, it may no longer be commercially viable.

At the time, the company said that construction of the other tower, at 910-feet the second tallest in San Francisco, would continue. The project the largest currently under construction in the City, with 1 million square feet in office space, a 169-room Waldorf Astoria, and 265 condos was already two years behind schedule. At the time, Oceanwide said it was looking for an investor.

Then on January 23 this year, Oceanwide disclosed in a regulatory filing with the Shenzhen stock exchange, reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, that it had made a deal to sell the unfinished project to SPF Capital International, an affiliate of Beijing-based SPF Group, for $1 billion. But the sale came at a price: Oceanwide disclosed in the filing, according to The Real Deal, that it would take a loss of $276 million on the $1 billion sale.

San Franciscos Oceanwide Center was the second mega-project by Oceanwide in California where, after Oceanwide ran out of money, construction was halted.

The first one was Oceanwide Plaza in Los Angeles, an even larger three-tower project of with over 500 condos, a 184-room luxury Park Hyatt, and another desperately needed 166,000 square-foot, you guessed it, brick-and-mortar mall. In January last year, Oceanwide abruptly halted construction. The unfinished and way-behind-schedule project, which is mired in scandals and tangled up in an FBI corruption investigation, is now apparently for sale.

Oceanwide also has a project in lower Manhattan, at 80 South Street, a planned condo tower as high as 1,436 feet. Work hasnt even started yet. Oceanwide acquired the site from the Howard Hughes Corp. in 2016 during the heyday of Chinese money in US commercial real estate, for $390 million. Last June, Oceanwide put it up for sale, with pricing talk at around $300 million. If it can get this price, it would mean another big loss. But no sale has been announced yet.

And Oceanwides current major project in China is in the Central Business District of Wuhan.

Alas, the $1 billion sale of Oceanwides San Francisco project, on which Oceanwide would lose $276 million, has now run into trouble and this time, the coronavirus got blamed.

Oceanwide disclosed in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, reported by The Real Deal, that it and the buyer, SPF Capital, have agreed to delay the deal by about a month due to issues related to the coronavirus lockdowns in China. The deadline for due diligence would be pushed from February 19 to March 25, and the delivery deadline would be pushed from March 5 to March 31.

Oceanwide just cant catch a break. At first, Chinas capital controls and crackdown on fund-flows to foreign real estate projects made funding of its US projects impossible. And these projects ran out of money. But selling these unfinished far-behind-schedule and over-budget projects San Franciscos Oceanwide Center may require another $1 billion is tough. And now the coronavirus is not only getting in the way of its Wuhan project, but also tangling up the sale of its San Francisco project.

The real fear in San Francisco and in Los Angeles has been for a while now that these mega-money-pits will remain unfinished lifeless construction eyesores in prime spots in the center for years to come.

The charts are brutal. Read Chinas Non-Manufacturing & Manufacturing PMIs Show to What Unfathomable Extent the Economy Has Collapsed

Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? Using ad blockers I totally get why but want to support the site? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the beer and iced-tea mug to find out how:

Would you like to be notified via email when WOLF STREET publishes a new article? Sign up here.

Go here to see the original:
Out-of-Funds Chinese Property Developer Oceanwide Tries to Shed its Mega-Money-Pits in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Manhattan at a Loss, But it's...

Major Connecticut commercial landlord Griffin Industrial Realty Inc. said Wednesday it plans to convert to a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and shed two of its suburban office buildings in Windsor and Bloomfield as part of a larger strategy to focus on managing and leasing industrial/warehouse space.

The New York-based landlord-developer said it plans to convert to a REIT for federal tax purposes to maximize shareholder value and generate growth opportunities as it continues to expand its industrial/warehouse property portfolio in select markets.

It also intends to sell its two, three-story office buildings at the 600-acre Griffin Center office park. The buildings at 5 and 7 Waterside Crossing total about 161,000 square feet.

The sprawling suburban office campus is comprised of several multi-story office buildings straddling the Windsor and Bloomfield town line.

Griffins two buildings on-site have similar designs, each spanning over about 80,500 square feet, according to Tim Lescalleet, Griffins senior vice president.

Photo | Griffin Industrial Realty Inc.

The Griffin Center office park on Waterside Crossing features green spaces and ponds.

The two buildings owned by Griffin, both built in the mid-1980s, house tenants including The Hanover Insurance Group Inc., Lincoln Waste Solutions, Vertafore and Great American Insurance Co., among others.

After selling the Class A office buildings, Griffin said its remaining office portfolio would include 10, single-story properties in Greater Hartford totaling 272,000 square feet. Griffin may seek to sell those properties over time, it said.

In total, Griffin said it owns 41 buildings totaling 4.6 million square feet, including 4.1 million square feet of industrial/warehouse space, in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida. It also owns more than 3,400 acres of undeveloped land.

Joe Cooperis HBJs web editor and real estate writer. He pens The Real Deal column about commercial real estate.

The rest is here:
Landlord Griffin to convert to REIT, shed two Greater Hartford office buildings - Hartford Business

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) wants to remind shed hunters and everyone who enjoys the outdoors that collection and possession of shed antlers or horns on all public lands west of I-25 is prohibited between January 1 and April 30 of each year.

The annual closure has been in place since 2018 and is intended to protect animals that are on their winter range from unnecessary human disturbances. It's at this time of year that ungulates (hoofed mammals, deer, elk, etc.) are in their worst condition.

The closure has been very successful in protecting wildlife during the late winter, however, there are still some who have ignored the closures, said wildlife officer Garrett Smith. The driving force for shed collection is money, and when you put a price tag on something, you will have people who will go to great lengths to exploit that.

The restriction is for public land only. Antler and horn collection is still permitted on private lands. Permission to be on private lands is of course required, regardless of the time of year.

According to CPW, a recently approved increase in wildlife-related fines means the possession of a single antler or horn will cost you $137 and five license suspension points. If you accumulate 20 or more points, your hunting and fishing privileges in Colorado and 48 other states could be suspended.

CPW encourages anyone with information about illegal shed collection to call their local office or the Operation Game Thief hotline at 1-877-265-6648.

Original post:
Covering Colorado CPW issues reminder of shed hunting restrictions on public lands west of I-25 - KOAA.com Colorado Springs and Pueblo News

Much research has helped paint a picture of the relationship between sugar and our brain's reward system, though there remains many blanks to be filled. Scientists in Denmark have now offered further insights into how the sweet stuff reshapes our brain chemistry, by performing experiments on pigs and taking note of how the reward circuitry lights up after consumption.

The research was carried out by scientists at Denmark's Aarhus University, who say the use of pigs rather than more conventional animal models was key to advancing their understanding of sugar and the brain. It was also useful in avoiding a range of other factors that can activate the brain's reward systems and cause wild fluctuations in data, such as playing video games, sex, romance or other things we eat.

"The pig is a good alternative because its brain is more complex than a rodent and gyrated like human and large enough for imaging deep brain structures using human brain scanners," says study author Michael Winterdahl. "The current study in mini-pigs introduced a well-controlled set-up with the only variable being the absence or presence of sugar in the diet."

Experiments were carried out on seven pigs, which were fed two liters (0.5 gal) of sugar water a day over a 12-day period. The scientists imaged their brains beforehand, after the first day, and then after the 12th day to observe any changes.

"After just 12 days of sugar intake, we could see major changes in the brain's dopamine and opioid systems," says Winterdahl. "In fact, the opioid system, which is that part of the brain's chemistry that is associated with well-being and pleasure, was already activated after the very first intake,"

This echoes findings from previous studies on sugar intake and neurotransmitters like dopamine, which the brain releases in response to rewarding experiences or consumption of addictive drugs like cocaine. The influence sugar appears to have on this kind of brain circuitry has long been likened to the effects of addictive drugs, and the scientists new analysis on pig brains has led them to a similar conclusion.

"If sugar can change the brain's reward system after only 12 days, as we saw in the case of the pigs, you can imagine that natural stimuli such as learning or social interaction are pushed into the background and replaced by sugar and/or other 'artificial' stimuli," says Winterdahl. "We're all looking for the rush from dopamine, and if something gives us a better or bigger kick, then that's what we choose."

The team's research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Source: Aarhus University via EurekAlert

The rest is here:
Pig study sheds new light on sugar's addictive impacts on the brain - New Atlas