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xtreme lightning roulette Blue Jays remain in the running to sign 4-time All-Star free agent | Sporting NewsSeven wonders within the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan The world’s biggest collection of Chinese cultural objects spans a wide range of art forms and thousands of years of history, and every exhibit is a wonder. See npm.gov.tw 1 Get lost in the landscapes There’s much to admire in the museum’s painting collection, with many in long-scroll form. Credit: Alamy Ready for a refreshing change from swooning saints and gloomy portraiture? Delicate Chinese landscape paintings favour impressionistic, dreamlike scenery in which clouds, rivers and waterfalls are often merely suggested by unpainted spaces. There’s much to admire in the museum’s painting collection but, in particular, seek out Qian Gu’s Visual Travelogue of a Journey Through the Waterways , a series of 32 elegant paintings depicting delicate orchids, bamboo, mountains, humpbacked bridges and villages with grey-tiled houses. Wonderful. 2 Immerse yourself in minimalism In Chinese art, spontaneous brushstrokes are never reworked since, in the Daoist tradition, striving for artistic perfection only brings frustration. But in Picking Lotuses the brush strokes of Tang Yin (1470-1523) are so masterful that his minimalist, lightest of ink wash could hardly be bettered. Mist shimmers over a lotus pond on which ladies boat. Willow branches trail. Some lotus leaves are lush, others on the edge of decay. Simple, but magnificent. 3 Take time to study the detail The ivory pagoda. Credit: Alamy Head to Gallery 106 to inspect a masterpiece that, like many others, you might otherwise rush past, thus missing out on the incredible mastery revealed by up-close inspection. Look for the moveable, hollow ivory balls nestled one inside the other and each carved with minute reliefs of Chinese figures, landscapes and pavilions. The ornament dates only from the 19th century, but the intricacy of the ivory carving is astounding – indeed, you’d swear impossible, if not for the evidence of your eyes. 4 Be wowed... by a cabbage The treasured jadeite cabbage. Credit: Adobe Stock Get to Gallery 302 on the third floor first thing if you want to avoid the crowds that gather to see a public favourite, considered one of the great treasures of Chinese civilisation: a carving in jadeite of a Chinese cabbage in miniature. The Qing Dynasty carving has a marvellous luminosity, uses the rock’s natural colour changes from white to green to great effect, and features two carved insects (a locust and katydid) amid the leaves. 5 Admire the ancient bronzes A bronze from the 15th century. Credit: Alamy It’s easy to overlook the bronzes in Gallery 305 given their lack of colour and seemingly lumpen appearance. But don’t sail on by: some items date from as far back as the Shang Dynasty in the 12th century BC. One such magnificent example is a cauldron with a mottled green patina, very early script in its interior, and rim and legs patterned with animal and floral motifs. Hard to believe it’s more than 3000 years old. 6 Pick your way through the porcelain Millennia of porcelain on display – some bowls are so delicate as to be translucent. Credit: Adobe Stock Everyone will have their favourites in the porcelain gallery, where millennia of styles are showcased, and many items are imperial quality. Some bowls are so delicate as to be translucent, and some glazes (such as the blue-green glazes on Northern Song porcelain from the 11th century) have superb lustre. Seek out the porcelain pillow in the shape of a sleeping child in Gallery 205, which has an ethereal white glaze and an air of marvellous tranquillity. 7 Get shopping The National Palace Museum – the largest collection of Chinese art. And excellent museum shops. Credit: Adobe Stock The museum has excellent shops, even if you only want to take home a reproduction of a scroll painting on a coaster, fridge magnet, cosmetic bag or mug. Mostly, though, you’ll find quality reproductions of porcelains and paintings (and even the Jadeite Cabbage) rather than kitsch. Some cost thousands of dollars, but you get what you pay for. Particularly lovely – and suitably sized for your suitcase – are the glazed tea bowls, and scrolls that can be rolled up into a cardboard tube.

By MIKE CATALINI CHATHAM, N.J. (AP) — That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It’s unclear if it’s drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward. Related Articles National News | FACT FOCUS: Inspector general’s Jan. 6 report misrepresented as proof of FBI setup National News | OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment National News | Judge rejects an attempt by Trump campaign lawyer to invalidate guilty plea in Georgia election case National News | Texas’ abortion pill lawsuit against New York doctor marks new challenge to interstate telemedicine National News | US military flies American released from Syrian prison to Jordan, officials say Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights. This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what’s behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X. But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies — none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they’re looking into what’s happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else. Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on. In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group. The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it , has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there. One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.) Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she’s glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said. “I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said. She doesn’t buy what the governor said, that the drones aren’t a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.” “How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.” Then there’s the notion that people could misunderstand what they’re seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots. Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they’re looking at. Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories. “It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.” Federal officials echo Austin’s view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy. That’s not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects. For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions. “My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said. “Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added. Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

BOSTON , Dec. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The China Fund, Inc. (NYSE: CHN) (the "Fund") announced today that the Fund's annual stockholder meeting (the "Meeting") will be scheduled for Thursday, March 13, 2025 , via a virtual forum at 11:00 a.m. ET . Stockholders of record as of January 15, 2025 will be entitled to notice of, and to attend and vote at, the Meeting. The notice for the Meeting will be mailed to shareholders on or about February 10, 2025 . The Fund is a closed-end management investment company with the objective of seeking long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in equity securities (i) of companies for which the principal securities trading market is in the People's Republic of China (" China "), or (ii) of companies for which the principal securities trading market is outside of China , or constituting direct equity investments in companies organized outside of China , that in both cases derive at least 50% of their revenues from goods and services sold or produced, or have at least 50% of their assets, in China . While the Fund is permitted to invest in direct equity investments of companies organized in China , it presently holds no such investments. Shares of the Fund are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CHN". The Fund's investment manager is Matthews International Capital Management, LLC. For further information regarding the Fund and the Fund's holdings, please call (888)-CHN-CALL (246-2255) or visit the Fund's website at www.chinafundinc.com . View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-china-fund-inc-announces-date-of-annual-meeting-of-stockholders-302331705.html SOURCE The China Fund, Inc.A t 5.00 a.m., my phone rang. “Amrit, we’ve been shortlisted for HackHarvard 2024,” announced my team-mate. I grabbed my laptop and checked my inbox. Sure enough, the top email read: “We are excited to accept and confirm your attendance. HackHarvard Team.” HackHarvard is an in-person Computer Science conference and hackathon held on Harvard’s campus in Boston, the U.S. Thousands of undergraduate students from across the globe apply by submitting a resume, and an essay about their past projects and their impact. Only a select few are accepted. I had heard about the event on LinkedIn just two months before this. My teammates — Surya Santosh Kumar, Chukka Navneet Krishna, Kottaki Srikar Vamsi — and I applied without much hope. When the news of our selection came in, we had only a month to get our visas sorted. We finally landed in Boston on a bright sunny but cold morning. The campus, with its lush green lawns and vintage buildings over 350 years old, gave off a charming, old-world vibe. The hackathon was to take place at the Student Organization Center (SOCH) at Hilles, with over 500 hackers from prestigious schools like MIT, Stanford, and Harvard, as well as countries like Greece, Egypt, China, Korea, and Japan. Choosing the track The hackathon tracks were announced on the first evening: Smart City (for tech innovations to make cities smarter and more efficient), Health-Care, Open Source Data (involving model training with data from organizations like NASA), and Sustainability. We decided to create something impactful for the environment, so we chose the Sustainability track. Hit by jet lag, we slept long and didn’t wake up until 10.00 a.m. on day two. We believe that building an app is pointless without a solid idea; so, we spent the next 10 hours brainstorming until we came up with Sustain-ify. One feature we envisioned was helping users make sustainable consumer choices. For example, in a supermarket, a user could record a video of a product label, and our app would analyse the ingredients, highlighting parameters like sodium, sugar, and fat content. Based on this and the manufacturing process, health pros and cons would be displayed. If a product was produced in a non-environmentally friendly way, we would highlight potential hazards and suggest alternatives. Challenge overcome At this point, we encountered an issue: the need to personalise health tips. That’s when our mentor, Dr. Premjith B., came to the rescue and suggested allowing users to upload medical reports like blood tests and other diagnostic results, which would allow tailored health insights based on individual data. For instance, if a user was allergic to peanuts and tried to buy a peanut bar, the app would alert them. The second feature was the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) function, where users could take pictures of empty soda cans, bottles, and other waste and upload them on the app, which would then suggest creative ideas to reuse or recycle. For example, if a user uploaded the image of a disposable plastic bottle, the app would suggest creating a bird feeder or a pen stand, with step-by-step instructions. A visualisation would give users a preview of the final product. After countless cups of caffeine and a sleepless night, we finished building the app and presented it to the judges. Boom! We won the First Best Hack Award, given to the best project in the event. That’s when I learnt that hard work, backed by a solid plan, will always lead to success. The writer is a third-year student of B.Tech. Artificial Intelligence Engineering at the School of AI, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. Published - December 28, 2024 03:30 pm IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit The Hindu Education Plus / education / higher education / universities and colleges / students / technology (general)

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket goes vertical on the launch padBEIRUT (AP) — Israel's military launched airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday, unleashing explosions throughout the country and killing at least 31 while Israeli leaders appeared to be closing in on a negotiated ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group. Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre. Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut's southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city's largest public park. The barrage came as officials indicated they were nearing agreement on a ceasefire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's Security Cabinet prepared to discuss an offer on the table. Massive explosions lit up Lebanon's skies with flashes of orange, sending towering plumes of smoke into the air as Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs Monday. The blasts damaged buildings and left shattered glass and debris scattered across nearby streets. No casualties were reported after many residents fled the targeted sites. Some of the strikes landed close to central Beirut and near Christian neighborhoods and other targets where Israel had issued evacuation warnings, including in Tyre and Nabatiyeh province. Israeli airstrikes also hit the northeast Baalbek-Hermel region without warning. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday that 26 people were killed in southern Lebanon, four in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel province and one in Choueifat, a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs that was not subjected to evacuation warnings on Monday. The deaths brought the total toll to 3,768 killed in Lebanon throughout 13 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah and nearly two months since Israel launched its ground invasion. Many of those killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah have been civilians , and health officials said some of the recovered bodies were so severely damaged that DNA testing would be required to confirm their identities. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members. Lebanon's Health Ministry says the war has displaced 1.2 million people. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon in early October, meeting heavy resistance in a narrow strip of land along the border. The military had previously exchanged attacks across the border with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that began firing rockets into Israel the day after the war in Gaza began last year. Lebanese politicians have decried the ongoing airstrikes and said they are impeding U.S.-led ceasefire negotiations. The country's deputy parliament speaker accused Israel of ramping up its bombardment in order to pressure Lebanon to make concessions in indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah. Elias Bousaab, an ally of the militant group, said Monday that the pressure has increased because “we are close to the hour that is decisive regarding reaching a ceasefire.” Israeli officials voiced similar optimism Monday about prospects for a ceasefire. Mike Herzog, the country's ambassador to Washington, earlier in the day told Israeli Army Radio that several points had yet to be finalized. Though any deal would require agreement from the government, Herzog said Israel and Hezbollah were “close to a deal." “It can happen within days,” he said. Israeli officials have said the sides are close to an agreement that would include withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and a pullback of Hezbollah fighters from the Israeli border. But several sticking points remain. Two Israeli officials told The Associated Press that Netanyahu’s security Cabinet had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, but they said it remained unclear whether the Cabinet would vote to approve the deal. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations. Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told reporters Monday that he expected a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah to have stages and to be discussed by leaders Monday or Tuesday. Still, he warned, “it’s not going to happen overnight.” After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted that there could be last-minute hitches that either delay or destroy an agreement. "Nothing is done until everything is done," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday. The proposal under discussion to end the fighting calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River. The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force . Western diplomats and Israeli officials said Israel is demanding the right to strike in Lebanon if it believes Hezbollah is violating the terms. The Lebanese government has said that such an arrangement would authorize violations of the country's sovereignty. A ceasefire could mark a step toward ending the regionwide war that ballooned after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250 . The lack of a ceasefire has emerged as a political liability for Israeli leaders including Netanyahu, particularly while 60,000 Israelis remain away from their homes in the country's north after more than a year of cross-border violence. Hezbollah rockets have reached as far south into Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers died fighting in the ground offensive in Lebanon. The Israeli military said about 250 projectiles were fired Sunday, with some intercepted. A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s armed proxies , is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It’s not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition. A top Hamas official in Lebanon said the Palestinian militant group would support a ceasefire between its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Israel, despite Hezbollah’s previous promises to stop the fighting in Lebanon only if the war in Gaza ends. “Any announcement of a ceasefire is welcome. Hezbollah has stood by our people and made significant sacrifices,” Osama Hamdan of Hamas' political wing told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, which is seen as politically allied with Hezbollah. While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.” If the ceasefire talks fail, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “it will mean more destruction and more and more animosity and more dehumanization and more hatred and more bitterness.” Speaking at a G7 meeting in Fiuggi, Italy, the last summit of its kind before U.S. President Joe Biden leaves office, Safadi said such a failure "will doom the future of the region to more conflict and more killing and more destruction.” Federman reported from Jerusalem and Metz from Rabat, Morocco. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Nicole Winfield in Fiuggi, Italy, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report. Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-warSocial media users are misrepresenting a Vermont Supreme Court ruling , claiming that it gives schools permission to vaccinate children even if their parents do not consent. The ruling addressed a lawsuit filed by Dario and Shujen Politella against Windham Southeast School District and state officials over the mistaken vaccination of their child against COVID-19 in 2021, when he was 6 years old. A lower court had dismissed the original complaint, as well as an amended version. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed on Nov. 19. But the ruling by Vermont's high court is not as far-reaching as some online have claimed. In reality, it concluded that anyone protected under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP, Act is immune to state lawsuits. Here's a closer look at the facts. CLAIM: The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that schools can vaccinate children against their parents' wishes. THE FACTS: The claim stems from a July 26 ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court, which found that anyone protected by the PREP Act is immune to state lawsuits, including the officials named in the Politella's suit. The ruling does not authorize schools to vaccinate children at their discretion. According to the lawsuit, the Politella's son — referred to as L.P. — was given one dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic held at Academy School in Brattleboro even though his father, Dario, told the school's assistant principal a few days before that his son was not to receive a vaccination. In what officials described as a mistake, L.P. was removed from class and had a “handwritten label” put on his shirt with the name and date of birth of another student, L.K., who had already been vaccinated that day. L.P. was then vaccinated. Ultimately, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that officials involved in the case could not be sued. “We conclude that the PREP Act immunizes every defendant in this case and this fact alone is enough to dismiss the case,” the Vermont Supreme Court's ruling reads. “We conclude that when the federal PREP Act immunizes a defendant, the PREP Act bars all state-law claims against that defendant as a matter of law.” The PREP Act , enacted by Congress in 2005, authorizes the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a declaration in the event of a public health emergency providing immunity from liability for activities related to medical countermeasures, such as the administration of a vaccine, except in cases of “willful misconduct" that result in “death or serious physical injury.” A declaration against COVID-19 was issued on March 17, 2020. It is set to expire on Dec. 31. Federals suits claiming willful misconduct are filed in Washington. Social media users described the Vermont Supreme Court's ruling as having consequences beyond what it actually says. “The Vermont Supreme Court has ruled that schools can force-vaccinate children for Covid against the wishes of their parents,” reads one X post that had been liked and shared approximately 16,600 times as of Tuesday. “The high court ruled on a case involving a 6-year-old boy who was forced to take a Covid mRNA injection by his school. However, his family had explicitly stated that they didn't want their child to receive the ‘vaccines.’” Other users alleged that the ruling gives schools permission to give students any vaccine without parental consent, not just ones for COVID-19. Rod Smolla, president of the Vermont Law and Graduate School and an expert on constitutional law, told The Associated Press that the ruling “merely holds that the federal statute at issue, the PREP Act, preempts state lawsuits in cases in which officials mistakenly administer a vaccination without consent.” “Nothing in the Vermont Supreme Court opinion states that school officials can vaccinate a child against the instructions of the parent,” he wrote in an email. Asked whether the claims spreading online have any merit, Ronald Ferrara, an attorney representing the Politellas, told the AP that although the ruling doesn't say schools can vaccinate students regardless of parental consent, officials could interpret it to mean that they could get away with doing so under the PREP Act, at least when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines. He explained that the U.S. Supreme Court appeal seeks to clarify whether the Vermont Supreme Court interpreted the PREP Act beyond what Congress intended. “The Politella’s fundamental liberty interest to decide whether their son should receive elective medical treatment was denied by agents of the State and School,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “The Vermont Court misconstrues the scope of PREP Act immunity (which is conditioned upon informed consent for medical treatments unapproved by FDA), to cover this denial of rights and its underlying battery.” Ferrara added that he was not aware of the claims spreading online, but that he “can understand how lay people may conflate the court's mistaken grant of immunity for misconduct as tantamount to blessing such misconduct.” John Klar, who also represents the Politellas, went a step further, telling the AP that the Vermont Supreme Court ruling means that “as a matter of law” schools can get away with vaccinating students without parental consent and that parents can only sue on the federal level if death or serious bodily injury results. — Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck .

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