The battle for the Silver State will take center stage on Sunday as UNLV makes the trip to Reno to face a Nevada team that is forcing things to the outside.
Nevada’s opponents are taking 44.4 percent of their field-goal attempts from 3-point range, which is the 23rd-highest percentage in America, which should not bother a UNLV team that is taking 47.2 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, which is 16th among Division I teams.
The Rebels have failed to draw many fouls due to taking so many outside shots, attempting the eighth-fewest free throws on a per possession basis on the country and two of their top four scorers convert fewer than 63 percent of their free throws.
Nevada is expected to have starting forward Zane Meeks back in the lineup after missing three games due to injury, which is made more significant by the fact he leads the team in 3-point shooting percentage at 38.5 as the team shot 22 percent from distance in 68 attempts in this absence.
With UNLV generating the fifth-highest percentage of their points of any D-I school from 3-pointers, but also rating 237th in the country in points per possession allowed and 307th in defensive 3-point shooting percentage, there figures to be no shortage of offense on Sunday.
Is change ever an easy thing? Sometimes it can be exciting, but standing before a cliffside of unknowns tends to be intimidating.
Decisions and choices, the path forward, all of it makes me feel like I’m Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade movie where he has to have faith that there is a path before him as he endeavors to walk across a great divide.
I don’t really know if I’m as brave as Indiana Jones, or maybe it’s not a lack of bravery, but a lack of faith that were I to step off of solid ground, that my feet would not fall through empty air.
As I go into my last semester at Tech, everything feels like some great big decision I must make and it’s all too easy to stand in one place like a deer in headlights rather than possibly make a decision.
I’m worried about making the best decision, the right decision, the decision that will make me happy.
That too, makes things more confusing, wanting to be happy. I want to be happy wherever this next chapter finds me but I’m not sure what will make me happy. Do you know what will make you happy? I’m still trying to figure that out.
What I do know is that I wouldn’t be where I am without the people in my life, without the friends and family who picked me up when I messed up, when I put too much pressure on myself, when I tried to do too much.
I wouldn’t be where I am without the advice and kindness of the people who love me, who are willing to sit with me in my indecision, worry and anxiety.
I think these looming life choices are intimidating because so much of our lives we have been told that this is what we live for: to get a good job, to have security, to have certainty.
Except, those things aren’t absolute. What is a stable job worth if the company isn’t focused on equity and inclusion? What is certainty worth if it takes the joy of adventure with it?
All of these changes and decisions that I find myself facing now and for the next year, they don’t have to be so overwhelming. These things should be exciting, not terrifying.
I think I’ve given this time of decision a bit too much power over me and the rest of my life but the worst thing that can come from it all is that I am still loved.
Still worthy of being known. Still free to find joy and happiness, free to take longer than the person next to me, to make less money than someone else, to do whatever it is I will do because it’s my life.
The worst that could happen is that I move at my own pace, that I forge my own path, that I live my own life.
That’s not too bad if you ask me, I want to live my life, not the person next to me.
There are no comparisons to be made here because you are you and I am me and that is a beautiful and exciting thing.
So, as you face the road ahead, wherever you go, whatever you choose, it will be beautiful because it will be you.
The Trump administration oversaw the separation of more than 5,500 families — and the parents of more than 600 children still have not been located. Immigrant advocates want relief for those families, but they also want accountability for Trump officials.
“If the administration is not successful at taking steps to reunite these families and make up for the damage that was done, it is something they will hear about from the public in six months, in 12 months, in 18 months,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
“This is something that has to get resolved,” Jawetz said.
People close to the White House say Biden and top administration officials know the task force is just a start. Biden officials both privately and publicly said they will commit political capital, energy and resources to find the parents of the children still separated, offer legal status and assistance to all the impacted families and push for changes to U.S. immigration law to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Biden is also expected to announce executive action focused on refugee resettlement and asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. His efforts to undo Trump-era policies will take time as the former president took more than 400 immigration-related executive actions without congressional input.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, will oversee the task force, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed on Friday. Putting Mayorkas — a DHS veteran and architect of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — in charge is a clear sign reunification will be a priority for the Biden administration.
Rollout of the task force originally was set for Friday but was delayed as Senate Republicans dragged out Mayorkas’ confirmation process, contending “there are a number of problems” with his nomination. A confirmation vote is now scheduled for Monday afternoon, clearing the way for Biden to announce the task force and a series of other immigration-related executive actions on Tuesday, Psaki said.
Republicans have been quick to criticize Biden’s immigration agenda, with some arguing it incentivizes more illegal migration and amounts to “open borders.” However, one big piece of Biden’s immigration reform bill is focused on “smart” border surveillance. Some conservatives and anti-immigration advocates said family separation was wrong, but argue the parents broke U.S. law and put their children at risk.
The task force will include officials from the DHS, Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department, according to those familiar with the discussions.
The plight of the migrant children is of special interest to first lady Jill Biden and her chief of staff, Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, who will “follow closely” the federal reunification process, Psaki said on MSNBC’s "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Thursday night. Biden and Reynoso visited a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, in December 2019, Psaki added.
Reunifying the 600 children with their missing parents is just one piece of a very complicated puzzle, immigrant advocates and attorneys said.
“We will be very disappointed if the [task force]... does not address the thousands of other families that have been separated and need help,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s national Immigrants’ Rights Project.
However, Gelernt and other advocates say, so far, they are optimistic Biden’s task force will have a broader mandate than that.
“I expect the Biden administration to want to do everything it can to help these families and do as much as possible to remove the moral stain this has put on our country,” said Gelernt, who has represented separated families in the ACLU’s case.
Part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday could include plans to allow the families that were separated and then deported to return to the United States. Biden will also offer government resources for organizations that are already working on locating the missing parents.
“I am confident that we will ultimately find the families,” Gelernt said, “But only the government can reunite the families and provide them with legal status in the United States.”
The ACLU wants the Biden administration to allow families separated under the Trump administration to settle in the U.S. and give them some type of legal status. That’s a move Gelernt believes would be relatively easy to accomplish because the Biden administration has the power to “parole” the families into the U.S. The ACLU also wants the government to create a fund to help the families with basic needs, such as psychological counseling and medical care. Family separation causes irreparable harm to the short-term and long-term health of children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Biden administration, in a largely symbolic step, last week rescinded the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which referred adults who entered the U.S. illegally with children to be prosecuted by the Justice Department. The policy, first announced in April 2018, resulted in the separation of thousands of families, including those with small children. In June 2018, Trump signed an executive order to end that practice after widespread outrage. However, he never officially rescinded the policy.
The task force is not expected to handle potential investigations and criminal cases against officials who were involved with implementing the policy. However, some attorneys said they want to see Biden encourage the Justice Department to investigate and assess whether to take legal action.
Earlier this month, a report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General found that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and top Justice Department officials moved forward with a “zero tolerance” policy aware that it would forcibly split up families and were unprepared for the impact. DHS and HHS have also issued similar reports outlining the rollout and negative impact of the policy.
Meanwhile, progressives and immigrant advocates are urging the Biden administration to push for a more permanent legislative solution by repealing Section 1325 of Title 8 of the United States Code, which makes illegal entry into the U.S. a federal crime. That piece of U.S. immigration law — which received much attention on the campaign trail thanks to Julián Castro — allowed for a policy like “zero tolerance” to be implemented. If repealed, illegal entry would still be a civil offense, which could require paying a fine, but is less punitive.
Almost 40 Democrats, including Reps. Chuy García, Ayanna Pressley and Pramila Jayapal, last week re-introduced legislation that would repeal Section 1325 and implement other measures to decriminalize illegal migration. But advocates and lawmakers who have spoken to Biden officials say the former vice president’s team has never endorsed repealing it.
“As America begins a new presidential administration,” Jayapal said in a statement supporting the bill, “we need to finally leave our country’s long history of criminalizing immigration and separating families behind.”
What are we going to do when the robots take over? When artificial intelligence gets good enough that your refrigerator knows when you’re running out of milk, and it silently orders more, and it gets delivered by drone? How will we spend our time?
Some think we’ll write poetry, watch the sunset and play the zither. Others think we’ll get strung out on drugs and sit stupefied in front of screens or end up enslaved by our oligarch overlords. They’re all guessing.
The truth is we will spend our time updating our passwords. I have evidence.
Events in my life have conspired to provide a natural experiment. I need to get vaccinated. I had to rent a car. And my wife got a new cellphone that had to be activated. Three modern concerns. And through the miracle of the internet I should have been able to take care of all of them easily online, right?
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Fat chance.
I am a member of the Michigan Bar Assn. It has a deal with a prominent rental car company. I have rented cars before. I have a Wizard Number.
Ah, but if you don’t use your Wizard Number for some undisclosed period of time, it stops working, and you have to apply to get a new one. But before you can get a new Wizard Number, you have to get an access code. And before you can get an access code, you have to register.
Tried to register. Entered email address. Entered password. Password didn’t work. Tried again. Still no dice. Hit “Forgot Password.”
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“We can retrieve your password and email it to you. Just enter your Wizard Number.”
This hustle has been around forever. What’s new is that we’ve all become stuck in it. Remember the Tootsie Frootsie ice cream bit from the Marx Brothers 1937 movie “A Day at the Races”? Chico sells Groucho a tip on a horse, but to read the tip he needs to buy a codebook. And to read the codebook, he needs to buy the master codebook. And to read the master codebook he needs the breeders guide. That hustle.
My experience with the cellphone company was eerily similar. “Enter your phone number. Enter your account number. Click here and we’ll send an access code to the email address associated with the account. When you get the access code, enter it in the box.”
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Easy enough, right? Wrong. “The information you have entered does not match our records.”
Started over. Several times. Gave up and called the customer service number and waited on hold.
Allegedly, all this is necessary because there are bad guys lurking everywhere trying to break into our cellphone accounts and our rental car accounts, hoping to steal our passwords, our access codes and our Wizard Numbers. There are enemies everywhere. It’s like we’re in a spy movie.
The vaccine story is the same but worse. Trying to get vaccinated is like trying to buy a bag of weed 50 years ago. You’d hear a rumor that Frankie P. was selling lids. You could meet him behind the Burger King. But when you got there, nobody’d seen Frankie. Somebody said it wasn’t Frankie, it was Sammy. And it wasn’t Burger King, it was the parking lot near the ball field in the park.
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I got a call at 5:30 the other morning from a friend who was waiting in a hospital parking lot. She had heard through reliable sources that this hospital was giving vaccines to people over 65 who showed up early. She was calling to tell me that information was no longer operative.
Instead, she gave me a phone number. I called the number and waited on hold for over two hours. Then a voice, not a person, asked some questions. When I gave the right answers, “she” gave me, no, not an appointment, an access code.
On the hospital’s website there were more questions, more boxes. When I finally entered the access code into one of the boxes and pressed “Submit” I got, no, not an appointment; I got my name on a list.
In theory, there is some relationship between having your name on that list and one day being offered an opportunity to apply for an appointment to get a shot. In theory. But things are changing all the time. So be sure to check back regularly.
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I am on several such lists. And that’s what I do: check back regularly. I answer the questions. I enter the secret numbers. I submit.
More and more our lives are conducted online. More and more of our online lives are “protected” by layers of verification. More of our interactions are not with people but with algorithms and AI robot voices. And more and more we seem to be stuck in this endless cycle of waiting on hold for the privilege of entering numbers into boxes and then waiting some more.
Barry Goldman is an arbitrator and mediator in Michigan. He is the author of “The Science of Settlement.”
DANVILLE, Va. (WFXR) -- After Danville crews spent two days preparing for snow, sleet, and freezing rain to hit the city, officials announced Sunday morning that the River City was spared the worst of the forecasted winter storm.
According to an update released by the City of Danville at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 31, the Public Works Department reports that main thoroughfares are wet, with slush spotted in some areas. Meanwhile, officials say the residential streets have a buildup of ice because of the sleet and freezing rain that fell overnight.
Ingredients: Frozen Raw Shrimp + Handmade Flour Tortillas + Fire Roasted Bell Peppers and Onions
How to make it: Thaw the shrimp under cool water. On a sheet pan, arrange the tortillas (flour or corn), the fire roasted vegetables, and the defrosted shrimp. If you have on hand, sprinkle with some pantry spices (salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, chili, etc...) Serve the veggies and shrimp fajita-style in the tortillas.
TJ's tip: Keep a few packets of Trader Joe's taco seasoning on hand for easy and delicious tacos, fajitas, burrito bowls, and more. The organic spicy taco sauce and jalapeño sauce also make A+ additions to any homemade Mexican-inspired meal.
The 26-year-old Ivorian scored her maiden goal in Spain for Jose Moncayo's side in Wednesday's victory over Rayo Vallecano
Rebecca Elloh admitted "it was not easy" after scoring her first goal for Logrono in their 2-1 Spanish Iberdrola win over Rayo Vallecano.
The Cote d'Ivoire international arrived at the club on a two-year deal from Cypriot club Pyrgos Limassol FC in July 2020, and made her debut in her Spanish side's 2-1 defeat to Levante last October.
Having since established herself at Logrono, the Ivorian star gave the lead to Jose Moncayo's team in the 2-1 win over Vallecano during the midweek, her first goal for the side.
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Elloh earned her 11th start of the season in 15 league appearances for Logrono and she eventually found the back of the net.
After struggling to adapt to life at Las Gaunas Stadium, she shed some light on her rough start in Spanish top-flight football.
"In the beginning, it was not easy with the change of environment and the fact that here the level of competition is very high," Elloh told Goal.
"But with the training and the hard work now it is going very well even though I am not doing very well enough yet."
Elloh started her football journey with Onze Soeurs de Gagnoa in Cote d'Ivoire, where she won three domestic titles before heading out to Gintra-Universitetas in Lithuania in 2015.
At the Lithuanian giants, she made her maiden Uefa Women’s Champions League outing before a brief stint with Chenois Geneve in Switzerland and later Cyprus' Pyrgos Limassol.
In Cyprus, she won two domestic trophies with Pyrgos Limassol during her two-year stint and then left for Logrono in the summer of 2020.
Seven months into her contract, the 26-year-old revealed her incredible move to Spanish football was a dream come true and is excited about finally getting to break her duck for Logrono.
"I had dreamed of playing in major women's championships like France, Spain and England," Elloh continued.
"So when I have this opportunity thanks to God I quickly accepted. I think everything is going well now thanks to God.
"I am just happy here and delighted to score my first goal for the team. I hope to keep doing my best to help the team to win more games this season."
After scoring her first goal in Spanish football, she will hope to help their side maintain their winning form at Espanyol on January 31.
January 31, 2021 at 07:30AM
https://www.wwltv.com/video/life/food/an-easy-recipe-for-overnight-oatmeal-from-the-southern-food-and-beverage-museum/289-dfa0e61f-5f0b-4783-8b2d-b4a6d4240e43
An easy recipe for overnight oatmeal from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum - WWLTV.com
RIGHT NOW I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF: Writing a book called "Diva," exploring gay history, my favorite singers, and how music can be a site of refuge and community. By writing a book I mean I have like five sporadic essays. But that’s still the middle!
I AM COPING WITH LIFE IN THE AGE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY: Video chatting with friends as often as I can. Writing in my journal. Drawing. Hikes. Music.
MY PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: This summer I answered reference questions by mail for incarcerated people in prisons across the country. Incarcerated people have severely restricted access to information, especially during the pandemic. Most of the letters I answered were from people due to be released soon looking for help finding jobs, housing, and other social services. Go to sentencingproject.org for more info about mass incarceration in the United States and its racial disparities. The organization OpenDoors in Providence does a lot of work to support formerly incarcerated people in Rhode Island.
TOP ON MY BUCKET LIST: Publishing a book ... and traveling ... and learning Spanish.
I ALWAYS CARRY: A black pen. Either a G2 Pilot or a 0.7 Sharpie S-Gel if you want to get specific.
WHAT I WANTED TO BE WHEN I GREW UP: A lot of science-related things, actually. Astronomer, marine biologist, meteorologist, veterinarian, geneticist.
MY HEROES ARE: Hometown heroes? Anne Barnhart, who somehow manages to show up for everything her students do and leaves a trail of goodwill everywhere she goes; Melanie Desantis, who is always blooming the change she wants to see in the world in chaotic good fashion; and Kayla Kennedy, who has spoken out about what’s important to her with more conviction and strength than anyone I know.
FAVORITE AUTHORS: (A-Z): James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Kiese Laymon, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Mary Oliver, Morgan Parker, Tommy Pico, Claudia Rankine, Adrienne Rich ... among many others.
BOOKS ON MY NIGHT STAND: "Thick and Other Essays," by Tressie McMillan Cottom, and "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel," by Alexander Chee.
TOP THREE SONGS ON MY PLAYLIST: That depends on the playlist!
LAST THREE SONGS I SELECTED ON SPOTIFY: "Sable on Blonde" by Stevie Nicks, "You Sent Me Flying" by Amy Winehouse, and "telepatia" by Kali Uchis.
FAVORITE THREE MOVIES OF ALL TIME: "Pan’s Labyrinth," "Kill Bill," and "Black Swan."
FAVORITE TV SHOWS: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The L Word," and "Veronica Mars."
FAVORITE RADIO STATION/SHOWS: I don’t really listen to the radio.
TOP COMFORT FOOD: A big bowl of noodles and veggies.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES I USE MOSTLY: Instagram.
TRAITS I MOST ADMIRE: Honesty, bravery, initiative, and a little bit of attitude.
PET PEEVES: Just wear the mask. It’s a piece of fabric and a lot more comfortable than a respirator.
FAVORITE QUOTATION: “Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.” –Adrienne Rich
MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT OUR LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD: Staring out across the ocean, especially on a clear night. It’s a beautiful place to live. I worry about how climate change will impact this place.
CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: A hot shower in the morning. I could if I had to, but it’s one of the privileges I’m most consciously grateful for.
LITTLE KNOWN FACT ABOUT ME: I used to have a black belt in karate.
BEST ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED: “Think idealistically but plan logistically.”
ADVICE I BEST LIKE TO GIVE: “You should write about that.”
IF I RULED THE WORLD I WOULD: I don’t know about world ruler — sounds suspicious. But I would like to wave a magic wand that made people think deeply about why they believe what they believe and what kinds of agendas those beliefs serve.
IF I WON THE LOTTERY, THE FIRST THING I WOULD DO IS: Pay off my student loan debt and the student loan and/or medical debt of all my friends and many other talented and driven young people who will never be free to offer all they have to offer to this world because they’re indebted from seeking an education or medical care.
I DRIVE A: Black 2013 Hyundai Accent with a semi-operational trunk library of books you can view on beyondthestacks.libib.com
I WISH I DROVE A: Broomstick.
ALWAYS IN MY FRIDGE: Iced coffee.
IF I COULD INVITE ONE SPECIAL PERSON TO JOIN ME FOR DINNER AND CONVERSATION, I WOULD INVITE: Right this second? Probably Nina Turner, who is running for Congress in Ohio. I hope she runs for president one day.
— Interview arranged and edited by Nancy Burns-Fusaro
January 31, 2021 at 08:40AM
https://www.thewesterlysun.com/lifestyle/in-the-easy-chair/in-the-easy-chair-with-erik-caswell/article_bb487fda-4ea7-11eb-99d4-1bcaf668960c.html
In the Easy Chair with Erik Caswell - The Westerly Sun
Google announced VM Manager, a suite of tools that can be used to manage operating systems for large virtual machine (VM) fleets running Windows and Linux on Google Compute Engine.
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For customers running hundreds of virtual machines in the cloud, managing the fleet becomes a challenge. Administrators need to get an insight into the inventory of the VMs to understand which OS they run, the version, the instance type, the list of installed packages, and more. They should be able to schedule patching the OS with minimal disruption. Finally, administrators should be able to maintain consistent configuration across the fleet and automatically remediate issues that make VMs non-compliant.
VM Manager is designed to address these common challenges often faced by administrators managing a large fleet of virtual machines in Google Compute Engine (GCE).
New and existing GCE instances can take advantage of VM Manager when the metadata flag is turned on. Customers can use the Cloud Console, command-line tool, or the API to switch on the setting. This step will force the virtual machine to download, install, and start the VM Manager agent.
Once the agent is installed in the VM, customers can perform the below actions on the fleet of Linux or Windows VMs running in their project.
Inventory Management
This component of VM Manager lets administrators collect OS and package information. Based on the details, they can identify which VMs are running a specific version of an OS system, view packages installed on a VM, generate a list of package updates available for each VM, and identify missing packages, updates, or patches for a VM.
Configuration Management
This service allows customers to deploy, query, and maintain consistent configurations of Linux and Windows VMs. It performs automated remediation features at scale to ensure that the fleet is compliant. Guest policies running on the VMs will keep the software configuration consistent.
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Patch Management
This service is meant to keep the machines up-to-date against vulnerabilities by allowing administrators to apply OS patches automatically, receive patch compliance data from OS, and automate OS patches’ installation across VMs from a centralized location. The service is responsible for both reporting the compliance and deploying the patches.
Google took a long time to add fleet management features to its Infrastructure as a Service offering, Compute Engine. Amazon and Microsoft offer robust management tools that support cloud-based VMs, physical servers and virtual machines running in on-premises environments.
Announced in 2017, the AWS Systems Manager (ASM) service enables customers to centralize operational data from multiple AWS services and automate tasks across various cloud resources. It is optimized to manage both Windows and Linux machines running in EC2 or an on-prem data center from a single unified experience. The Session Manager component of ASM is a popular tool used by customers to access remote servers without opening additional ports or running a bastion host.
Azure customers rely on Azure Policy to manage the compliance and desired state of the configuration in Azure VMs. With Azure Arc, Microsoft has extended this functionality to Linux and Windows servers running on-prem environments and other public clouds.
Google may extend VM Manager to support some of the capabilities available in AWS Systems Manager and Azure Policy.
When President Joe Bidentook office this month, ramping up the available supply of COVID-19vaccines became one of his administration's top priorities.
The Biden administration's mission: to find a way to produce even more vaccine doses at a faster pace, exceeding the quantity and timescale promised by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna as part of their contracts with the U.S. government.
But experts say it will not be so easy. A vaccine is not a steel part, it is a complex biomedical product.
"We're actually dealing with living organisms here," said Cody Powers, a principal at ZS Associates, a professional services firm that works with companies to help develop and deliver medical products. It's "different from making simple consumer goods that maybe you can put together a manufacturing line faster."
Both Pfizer and Moderna use new vaccine technology: messenger RNA, or mRNA. RNA is particularly fragile, making it essential for the drugmakers to handle the process scrupulously and meticulously to maintain their quality control and ensure safety.
"To actually produce what's in the vaccine, whether it's a reagent, whether it's an antigen, or in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna, the mRNA, you have to produce that part of it, and then you have to harvest it, and then you have to produce the encapsulation," said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, Executive Director of Public Health Informatics, Computational, and Operations Research, and professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York.
Each of these steps requires specific equipment, as well as the right personnel to do it, he said, adding, "You can't necessarily always take one person from doing one aspect of a product line switching them over."
There are also elaborate procedures to be followed to ensure that all the manufacturing requirements and safety protocols have been met, and factories are subject to regular audits from the Food and Drug Administration. And the consequence of sending a spoiled batch out to be injected into people's arms would be catastrophic, experts cautioned.
"Much time, energy, attention and resources are required to make sure that the process meets all the requirements to be able to produce in a responsible fashion," noted Powers, saying public trust in vaccines is fragile.
Meanwhile, there's also a learning curve, experts said. It's the first time this type of vaccine has been manufactured on such a massive commercial scale. Thus, "we don't know everything there is to know yet," about these new vaccines and technologies, added Powers.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday that the company would be able to supply the U.S. with 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of May, two months sooner than previously expected.
Moderna's Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel also said last month during a Nasdaq Investor Conference that he felt "very comfortable" that the company would be able to produce 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.
Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to apply for an emergency use authorization in the coming weeks, said Tuesday that it is on track to deliver 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses to the U.S. by the end of June.
But even if factories owned by Pfizer and Moderna -- the only two vaccines currently authorized in the U.S. -- are running at maximum capacity, there might be other ways to boost supply, experts said. A third company could volunteer, offering up a factory with the right equipment to handle the task.
One example of such collaboration is that of French drugmaker Sanofi's deal with its rivals, Pfizer and BioNTech, to produce over 100 million doses of their mRNA vaccine for the European Union at Sanofi's site in Frankfurt, Germany.
This uncommon pact could encourage other pharmaceutical firms to cooperate with companies developing effective vaccines, Lee said.
But factories with this level of technical capacity are in short supply, and they would need to stop manufacturing other lifesaving medicines to prioritize mRNA vaccines.
Vaccine makers rarely dedicate everything to one product, Lee explained. "They are also producing products that generate revenues for them," Lee said.
Still, experts said there might be other, smaller ways the Biden administration can help boost manufacturing supply. The administration should evaluate the entire vaccine supply chain as quickly as possible, to see where the vaccines are actually getting hung up, Lee said.
"You don't just run out to the football field without planning and really seeing what's the situation first. If you're trying to adjust on the fly, you may not know the deeper issue," he said.
Within its first week, the administration quickly zeroed-in on one key issue: syringes. The FDA has authorized medical workers to extract extra doses from Pfizer vials, but to utilize all the available supply from those vials, more precise, specialized syringes are needed.
More people can be vaccinated if we make better use of the supply that is already being manufactured, Powers said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki discussed at her first briefing using the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that gives the government certain control over private industry, to manufacture these syringes, but the Biden administration has not been specific on any companies that might be actually doing this.
Meanwhile, the administration could help companies secure much-needed raw materials and chemical ingredients -- an ongoing challenge, particularly given that the pandemic is a global crisis, with many nations competing for the same supplies.
"It's a global economy and we don't have the capability to provide everything we need on our shores," said Erin Fox, senior director of Drug Information and Support Services at University of Utah Health. Securing more raw ingredients could become a key diplomatic goal for the Biden administration.
But ultimately, only the companies themselves can say exactly what would be helpful to boost supply. And the pharmaceutical industry is famously guarded, said Fox.
"We actually don't know if we just have to trust the companies to tell us what they might need because they have no obligation to be transparent," Fox said.
As of Friday, 49.2 million vaccine doses had been distributed by the federal government to states and other jurisdictions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of that amount, 27.8 million doses -- approximately 56.7% -- have been administered.
Moderna and Pfizer have agreed to supply the federal government with 200 million doses, by the summer, enough for 100 million Americans. Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to apply for an emergency use authorization in the coming weeks, said Tuesday that it is on track to deliver 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses to the U.S. by the end of June.
The FanDuel mobile app is one of the options available for Virginia bettors.
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Wanna bet on sports?
First, make sure you know what you’re doing — and the odds against you.
With Virginia now offering sports betting, here are some of the basics — as well as some of the more esoteric aspects — of betting on sports.
Say you want to bet $25 on a football game. In the app, you'll deposit $25 and receive a confirmation of the bet. In most cases, if you win, you will get back your original $25 stake plus your winnings, which won’t amount exactly to another $25 because of ...
This is the vigorish, also known commonly as the “vig” or the “juice” — the bookmaker’s cut of the action. Oddsmakers try to set betting lines as precisely as possible to attract an equal amount wagered on each team involved in a particular game. They use money from losing bets to pay off people who make winning bets, while keeping a percentage for themselves. That percentage varies but usually is around 10 percent.
The payoff is given with a plus (+) or minus (-) sign, depending on whether a bet will win more or less than the initial amount wagered.
A plus bet is based on wagering $100, meaning a line of +110 would pay $110 in profit on a $100 bet, for a total payout of $210.
The minus bet is based on how much must be wagered to win $100. A line of -200 means $200 must be wagered to win $100 in profit, for a total payout of $300.
How to bet
One of the most popular ways to bet on sports is through the point spread. If the Seattle Seahawks are favored by 4 points against the Minnesota Vikings, Seattle must win by 5 for a Seahawks bettor to win his or her wager. Minnesota backers would win if the Vikings win, or even if they lose as long as it’s by 3 points or fewer. A final margin of exactly 4 points for Seattle is considered a push, meaning the bets are refunded.
You can also do a money line bet, and simply choose the team you think will win.
For a heavily favored team, say the Boston Red Sox putting their best pitcher against a weak opponent with a poor pitcher, that could involve putting up $350 of your own money to win just $100, a wager that would be listed in sports books as -350.
Big underdogs pay off well, but only if that team wins the game. A bet on a team with a money line of +410 would give you a $410 profit on a $100 bet.
Another popular option is the over/under, also known as the total. Oddsmakers set a number for the total number of points scored by both teams combined, say 52½ points between the Chiefs and Raiders. Gamblers bet whether the combined final score will exceed that number (over) or fall short (under).
Don’t like the number offered by the point spread or the over/under? Change it. Bookmakers offer the opportunity to increase or lessen the odds, called “teasing” it, by a particular number.
It must be applied to combined wagers on two or more games. For instance, if the New York Giants are favored by 3 points over Washington, and the Los Angeles Chargers are favored over the Baltimore Ravens by 2 points, a gambler using a 6-point teaser can lower the line on the Giants game to have the Giants as a 3-point underdog instead of a 3-point favorite (getting 3 points instead of giving 3), and the Ravens as an 8-point underdog instead of a 2-point underdog (getting 8 points instead of 2).
The catch here is that ALL bets in a teaser must win; if even one does not, the entire betting ticket is a loser. That’s why they call it a “teaser,” because it can seem so simple to manipulate the odds to where you want them, and yet there is a decent chance of losing the whole thing.
This is one of the places gamblers can get crazy. To boost the payoff on a bet, gamblers can string together a series of bets on multiple games, or multiple bets within the same game. This is called a parlay. It is a way to potentially win a lot of money for a small bet. But these bets are frequently losers. They are among the highest earning bets for sportsbooks, because, as is the case with teasers, every one of the bets in a parlay has to win, or else the whole ticket is a loser.
Hang around gamblers long enough and you’ll inevitably hear a story about how someone missed a big parlay payout thanks to a tiny margin on a single game.
There are also tons of other things to bet on, including so-called proposition or “prop” bets on things that might happen during games. You could bet on whether Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes or Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady will have more passing yards or touchdowns. You can bet on whether a particular team will be leading after the first quarter or at halftime, whether there will be a safety or whether any field goals will be missed.
There are also futures bets, which are wagers on things that won’t happen for a while. You can bet on the winner of a particular sport’s championship before the season starts or at any point during the season and predict whether a team will win more or less than a predetermined number of games. Similarly, you can also gamble on who will be voted most valuable player in the NFL or Major League Baseball.
Bottom line
Sound easy? It isn’t. Sports books rarely lose money.
Big favorites inexplicably lose. Underdogs with seemingly no shot rise up unexpectedly. Games that appear set for high-scoring shootouts end as low-scoring affairs. A star quarterback or running back gets injured early in a game and never returns.
What starts out as fun can easily become a problem for some people. Help is available for those with a gambling problem, or who fear they might be in danger of developing one, by calling 1-800-GAMBLER.
January 31, 2021 at 01:00AM
https://richmond.com/sports/local/a-guide-to-sports-betting-and-a-warning-winning-isnt-easy/article_2a6333a8-b5db-5b22-91df-0c1a38801579.html
A guide to sports betting, and a warning: Winning isn't easy. - Richmond.com
NEW YORK – A small startup called SimplSeq thinks its technology is going to revolutionize sequencing sample prep and ultimately usurp the behemoths in the field.
A spinout of a new tech incubator called Murrieta Genomics, the firm is now beta testing a technology that it claims is faster and simpler than standard methods, and can enable better use of precious liquid biopsy sample material.
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While spending more time working, studying and playing at home, you may be more conscious than ever of your living environment. You’re probably more aware than ever of the importance of cleanliness in your home, to keep your family healthy and comfortable.
So to make sure your home provides the best environment for your family to thrive, here are some ways to ensure that your surroundings support your family’s health and well-being.
Especially if anyone in your household suffers from allergies, you’re probably aware of the importance of air quality. But if you haven’t spent much time thinking about it, consider how much your family depends on the air in your home, day in and day out.
Fortunately, there are simple things you can do to improve the air you breathe.
Change HVAC filters often — and even more frequently than recommended. This helps keep the air being recirculated in your home freer from allergens and impurities.
Schedule regular tune-ups and cleaning for your HVAC system, to be sure your entire system is in good, safe working order.
Consider standalone air purifiers — especially if you have pets, and/or if family members have allergies. An air purifier in a frequently used room like a bedroom can help lessen allergy symptoms.
Open up when possible — weather permitting. Allowing fresh air to circulate within your home periodically is a great idea, as long as pollen counts aren’t too high for those in your family with allergies to plants or trees.
You may not think of water filtration unless you experience an unpleasant taste or odor in your water, but making sure your family is drinking high-quality water is another crucial way to maintain a comfortable home environment. Your family not only drinks water, but uses water in cooking, washing dishes and more — so it’s a vital element of your daily life.
Because hydration is so significant for maintaining good health and the taste of water affects everything you cook with it, knowing your home’s water is crisp and fresh-tasting can give you enormous peace of mind.
For an easy way to achieve great-tasting water, the Pentair FreshPoint Easy Flow Filtration System is a cinch to install and, unlike many other water filtration systems, doesn’t require a separate faucet. You’ll have better-tasting, filtered water straight from the existing tap — for up to a year with a single filter. There’s no need to drill into cabinets or countertops, so the system is ideal for homeowners and renters looking for better water, without complicated installation. This filtration system is certified to reduce 99% of lead, and to reduce other impurities.
With the Pentair FreshPoint Easy Flow Filtration System, you’ll have:
Great-tasting water from your existing faucet
Easy installation, even for the mechanically challenged
Everything you need for installation included in the box
A compact design that fits snugly under your sink
An indicator light that tells you when it’s time to change the filter
You can install it in your kitchen, bathroom, bar area, or anywhere you want better water. The filter replacement for the system is equally simple: The used filter releases easily with the push of a button, and the new one snaps into place with one simple movement. This is an easier way to get fresher, cleaner water every day, without relying on bottled water or cumbersome water pitchers. Visit Pentair.com/EasyFlow to learn more.
Establish regular cleaning routines
Involve your household in creating a manageable cleaning schedule, highlighting well-used areas like the kitchen and bathrooms. Regular cleaning of frequently touched surfaces, objects, handles, doorknobs and switches is especially important for keeping everyone healthy, so make sure to include those as part of a daily rotation of chores.
Walk through your home as a family to list items and areas that are most often handled to focus everyone’s cleaning efforts. Have trouble delegating chores? A chore wheel or chart can help everyone stay on top of their duties. Make sure assigned jobs are age-appropriate and be sure to supervise before they become part of your family’s routine!
WAYLAND — The Wayland School Committee announced Friday that it has entered into negotiations with Omar Easy to be the school district's next superintendent.
Easy, 43, will replace outgoing Superintendent Arthur Unobskey, who announced in May that he will leave his post this June. He has led the district for three years.
Most recently, Easy was executive director of The Academies at Everett High School for the 2019-20 school year. The Academies includes five schools within the school that link more than 500 students with peers, teachers and community and business partners to a wraparound environment that fosters academic success, relationships, career preparation, and college readiness.
According to Easy's resume, that position was eliminated at the end of the school year, as part of a 5% district-wide budget cut.
Easy is also a former NFL fullback, playing three seasons (2002-04) with the Kansas City Chiefs and one season (2005) with the then-Oakland Raiders. The Penn State product scored one touchdown, on a pass reception, during his rookie season.
According to a statement from the School Committee, Easy "is extremely excited to join the Wayland community."
In May, Unobskey and the School Committee announced they would part ways in a joint letter to the community. The two parties held long-term planning discussions regarding the district's central office administration, with Unobskey concluding that he "would prefer to move to a more urban district, which would be more in line with his long-term interests and experience prior to coming to Wayland."
The other candidates for the job included Jennifer Parson, assistant superintendent at Hopkinton Public Schools and a Milford School Committee member; and Arcelius Brickhouse, an educational consultant and former executive director of secondary education for Plainfield Public Schools in New Jersey.
January 30, 2021 at 01:32AM
https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/education/2021/01/29/how-omar-easy-went-blocking-nfl-linebackers-tackling-wayland-public-schools/4309499001/
Former NFL player Omar Easy to lead Wayland Public Schools as superintendent - MetroWest Daily News
He then moved to Pittsburgh — though not because he was looking for Grape-Nuts — “and couldn’t find them anywhere,” he said. “It was then that I found that others were having the problem nationwide.”
He said he enjoys eating the cereal with milk and adds raisins “for a little sweetness. But I appreciate their nutty, authentic taste.”
On Reddit, the tone could be less wistful. One post was titled, “WHERE ARE ALL THE GRAPE NUTS???”
“I have been to every Safeway, Fred Meyer, and Target around, and i cannot find them anywhere,” one user said last month in a Reddit group for residents of Portland, Ore. “Am I the only person in Portland eating Grape-Nuts?”
Some hungry customers, foiled in grocery stores, tried the internet to search for the product, only to find that prices could be far above normal. Grape-Nuts said the manufacturer-suggested retail price for a 29-ounce box is $4.99.
On Amazon, one pack of four boxes, each 29 ounces, was listed for $59.99 Friday afternoon. On eBay, a similar pack of two boxes was available for $55. And on Walmart.com, a 64 ounce box was listed for $110.
Other consumers were less troubled by the shortage. Some expressed their hatred for Grape-Nuts even if they could sympathize with the loss of a comfort food. Others described their distaste in visceral terms like comparing the experience of Grape-Nuts to “eating pebbles.”
Last March former President Donald Trump said “anybody that wants a test can get a test” for Covid-19. That wasn’t true then, and in some parts of the country, finding a test appointment is about as easy to get as Super Bowl tickets.
Regular and affordable testing, if done right, could not only diagnose people who feel sick, it could stop the spread of the pandemic by letting people know if they are contagious and need to stay home, even if they don’t feel sick.
Scientists have been pushing for this kind of testing — accessible, affordable and ideally, at home — since the start of the pandemic, but it hasn’t happened yet.
There are at-home collection kits to make it easy for people to provide a sample, but the sample must still be sent to a lab, and results can take days. One over-the-counter, quick, at-home test has been authorized for use in the United States, but it’s not available yet.
“Almost all the infections happen from people who don’t know that they’re positive, and so what you need is a widespread testing program that helps people identify when they are infectious so they can stop infecting other people,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, a professor and dean at the School of Public Health at Brown University who wants more widespread testing. “We never really quite built that out.”
Imagine being able to test yourself regularly before going to school or work, or before going to visit your elderly mom.
Jha said it works for his students and colleagues at Brown University. People there get tested twice a week. While there have been large outbreaks in Providence, where Brown is located, there have been almost no outbreaks on campus, even with a third of students living off campus.
“It was a great reminder that if you take a population of people, and do regular testing twice a week, that you can actually keep outbreaks under control,” Jha said.
“If we could get some of these tests a bit more scaled up, we could use testing alone as a way to control the pandemic,” Jha said.
So why hasn’t it taken off?
Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the country hasn’t scaled up the tests yet for a few reasons. One, the Trump administration “didn’t want to see positive test results.” While that’s no longer a problem, he thinks, the “regulated environment” in the US would also need to change.
“We have the FDA that is kind of all controlling in some ways of what tests are available,” Mina said. “The FDA, unfortunately, only has a single lens through which to look at a coronavirus test. Their only mandate, when it comes to testing, is to evaluate medical diagnostic tests.”
He explains it this way: To be authorized by the FDA, a test needs to meet a certain sensitivity level. When a company submits its test for authorization, the test needs to be compared to another. In this case, the FDA requires that the comparison be what’s known as a PCR test — the most sensitive, gold-standard test for the novel coronavirus.
He thinks that standard is too strict and “that’s what’s slowing all of this down.”
If you test a thousand people and you find a hundred are infected or PCR positive, Mina explains, it could be that 50 to 80% of them are no longer infectious, despite their positive results. An antigen, or rapid test is sensitive, but not necessarily sensitive enough to catch those people who were no longer infectious.
For surveillance testing, Mina says, your test only has to be sensitive enough to know if someone is infectious.
“We don’t have the legal framework or the regulatory framework to think of a test in the United States as a public health tool, only as a medical diagnostic tool,” Mina said.
The market is edging closer.
The FDA has already authorized more than 25 home tests, and that has sped up the process, but those tests don’t provide rapid results. The swabs have to be sent off to a lab for evaluation. The tests also aren’t cheap. They can cost $100 or more.
In December, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized the first antigen test you can use at home without a prescription that gives results in 15 minutes, the Ellume Covid-19 Home Test. It costs about $30. It’s not available yet, but should be soon, the company said.
The country would need multiple rapid tests like that to help slow the pandemic and Mina thinks the tests should be subsidized by the government so they could test regularly.
“For less than .1% of what this virus is costing America, every American could have a whole slew of these tests in their homes,” Mina said.
Rapid, inexpensive tests then could be another important tool used along with masks and vaccines to end the pandemic.
“If we actually got these tests into the average American’s home and we asked every American to use a test twice a week, it takes 30 seconds to use — as you brush your teeth, you use a Covid test — that would be enough to empower people to know their status,” Mina said. “And if they are positive, they would be able to essentially know that they’re positive and make the appropriate changes.”
It’s easy to miss the point and to overlook what should matter most, which probably is why we do it so often.
On Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players in NBA history, died in a helicopter crash in California.
For the rest of that week, there was a constant flow of stories about Bryant in print, on television and online.
Bryant retired after a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, with 33,643 points, fourth in NBA history, was the league MVP in 2006-07, had two MVP awards for the NBA finals, and helped the Lakers win five league championships.
The tragedy of the helicopter crash that took Bryant’s life was compounded by deaths of eight others on the flight: Gianna Bryant, Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter; Alyssa Altobelli, 14, and her parents John and Keri; Christina Mauser; Payton Chester, 13, and her mother Sarah; and pilot Ara Zobayan.
They were on their way to a girls’ basketball tournament at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy. Mauser was a Mamba Academy coach, Gianna Bryant, Altobelli and Chester were Mamba players.
Several days earlier and a continent away, another death occurred. It generated much less notice.
The obituary of Leila Janah was posted on the New York Times web site on Jan. 30, and in print, on page B-14, on Jan. 31. Janah died on Jan. 24 in Manhattan.
She was 37 and a victim of epithelioid sarcoma, a rare cancer of soft tissue. She was a Harvard graduate, the daughter of immigrants from India and a social entrepreneur.
In her too-short life, Janah created two companies that employ more than 11,000 workers in Africa and India, workers who had been living in poverty before Janah’s companies hired them and continues to pay them a living wage.
On her way to the office where she was working as a management consultant, Janah had witnessed India’s abject poverty. When she reached the office, she was struck that the workers were middle class and none of the people she had passed on the way were employees. She set out to change that.
Janah started two companies, Samasource and LXMI. Samasource does digital work for some of the largest companies in the world. LXMI is a high-end cosmetics company that hires women to gather ingredients in the Nile River Valley and India.
When the workers’ families are included, the Times estimated, the lives of 50,000 people have been affected by Janah’s ability to bring her vision to life.
This is not to criticize Bryant, not to say his life was basketball and nothing more.
Bryant was more aware of the world outside of basketball than many of his contemporaries. He spoke Italian. He was a doting father and wanted his daughters to realize there was more to life than a game. He won an Academy Award for his contributions to the animated short film “Dear Basketball” based on a poem he wrote about his final season in the NBA.
His potential to make a difference as a coach, a creative artist or businessman was vast. His death left a void that is not easily filled.
But this is to ask why Bryant received such acclaim for playing basketball so well, which was a benefit to himself, his teammates, the owners of the Lakers and the NBA while Janah’s death was noted comparatively briefly a week after her death.
Bryant hardly is the first to be memorialized nationally and internationally while others who made significant contributions pass in relative obscurity.
We offer expansive coverage of athletes, celebrities and people famous for being famous. We push the stories of people who make a huge difference in the lives in huge numbers of people to the fringes of the news.
Bryant’s life and career have been remembered this week. There have been heartfelt and sincere memories in print, online and on national television.
You also could find stories about Janah this week. All you had to do was enter her name in an online search engine . . . to read the stories published a year ago.
It’s easy to find glowing words about the rich, the famous and the glamorous. It’s more difficult to find reminders of those who do the hard work of making lives, and the world, a better place.
If we want the world to become a better place, that perspective needs to change.
January 30, 2021 at 01:29AM
https://richmond.com/sports/professional/woody-its-easy-to-overlook-what-matters-the-most/article_f3ccb17d-03c2-5213-8970-7e7af6bd4dd4.html
Woody: It's easy to overlook what matters the most - Richmond.com
Our hair, like our patience during the pandemic, has been forced to grow. And even though many salons are open now, those of us staying home out of an abundance of caution are living with much longer hair than we’re used to. And you may have absolutely no idea what to do with it, aside from tossing it back into a ponytail.
Pinterest and Instagram are flush with intricate, detailed hair tutorials for waterfall braids and French twists that look awesome but feel completely out of reach. That’s not what we’ve got for you here. We’ve gathered the best simple tips and tricks to upgrade your updo ― styles you’ll actually want to wear every day.
Below, try out these 11 long hair hacks that will give you something to do and help you look cute on Zoom.
Let’s be honest, no one is perfect when it comes to dealing with stress. It’s way easier to eat your weight in Goldfish crackers and drink 4 cups of coffee than to sit down and address how to properly conquer your stressors, but it’s worth it.
While the stress of life can easily pile up, it doesn’t have to overwhelm you. Especially now, for students balancing school, bills, work and COVID-19, stress can take its toll. Miriam Saucedo, a Linfield mental health counselor has a few suggestions for students.
“Now more than ever, there’s a different weight that can be felt,” said Saucedo.“If we aren’t aware of how we are managing and coping with our stress, it can actually increase our stress.”
Saucedo is part of the Linfield counseling staff specializing in individual and group therapy. She received her masters in clinical mental health counseling from George Fox University and has since worked with young adults in both residential mental health as well as on the Linfield campus.
The key to managing your stress may lie in these five easy tips:
1. Make a routine
Setting a routine may seem like common sense, but planning out your day allows you complete all required tasks without the worry you forgot something. It also helps reduce anxiety over new and unexpected obstacles that may arise throughout the day and demand your attention. In having a routine, you know what you must do that day, allowing for free time, time for those unexpected obstacles, or simply a little relaxation.
2. Time management
It’s true, procrastination is truly an art form but a highly stressful one at that. Managing your time wisely instead of saving assignments or tasks for the last minute will take a load of your shoulders. Effective time management can often be difficult, but is achievable, often with a planner or calendar that helps physically show you what needs to be accomplished. In doing so, you’ll be able to have time set aside for the tasks you must do, as well as time for things you’d like to do.
3. Being aware of your body and thoughts
It’s fairly common to ignore signs from your body when stressed. Eating and sleeping when you can instead of maintaining a regular balanced schedule may seem easier, but in the long run, ignoring the physical sensations your body gives off can be damaging. Becoming sick is often a result. Being aware of your thoughts is important too. If you find yourself actively and continually stressing over something, it might be time to take a step back, grab a snack and take a break.
“Headaches are a common side effect we see when dealing with stress,” Saucedo admitted. “If it’s chronic, meaning it doesn’t ebb and flow but stays constant, it can lead us to fail to take care of ourselves. That’s when we start to see the ripple effects of fatigue-headaches, body aches, and other physical ailments.”
4. Practicing self-compassion
No one is perfect, yet most students hold themselves to a very high standard in order to achieve the academic standing they desire. Recognizing that oftentimes this behavior will cause excess amounts of stress is essential. Be kind to yourself. Self-compassion doesn’t necessarily mean self-indulgence, it may just mean approaching how you treat yourself as you would a friend, instead of as an enemy.
5. Healthy relationships
Healthy relationships are incredibly important, and not necessarily just romantic ones. Friends are often pillars of strength and guidance when it comes to navigating life, so recognizing which ones are harmful and distancing yourself from them may help ease some of your stress. Identify your support groups, be open to letting go of toxic relationships and you’re one step closer to conquering your stress.
There’s no shame in admitting you’re stressed and unsure how to deal with it. These are only a few helpful practices offered by Saucedo. For more, a stress-workshop is being offered every Wednesday over Zoom at 4pm for Linfield students.
“You can get feedback and other skills that might be helpful for coping with some stuff that’s going on,” said Saucedo. “This is a place for people to listen and know that they’re not alone.”
