#nprnews

[twistofitalian]

Oh, America! You are so quaint!

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/27/1166079167/tallahassee-classical-michelangelo-david-principal-fired?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR33OuFcv5nmsS5JdQPOIZArs3FKBO6wQ6P44wpCT5-gWT9Z4uXwJs_y8kY&mibextid=Zxz2cZ And, the Italian reaction to American prudes:

[aci25]

Solar panels that can generate electricity at night have been developed at Stanford

A team of engineers at Stanford University have developed a solar cell that can generate some electricity at night.

The research comes at a moment when the number of solar jobs and residential installations are rising.

While standard solar panels can provide electricity during the day, this device can serve as a "continuous renewable power source for both day- and nighttime," according to the study published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

The device incorporates a thermoelectric generator, which can pull electricity from the small difference in temperature between the ambient air and the solar cell itself.

"Our approach can provide nighttime standby lighting and power in off-grid and mini-grid applications, where [solar] cell installations are gaining popularity," the study said.

Mini-grid applications refer to independent electricity networks. These can be used when a population is too small or too far away to extend the grid.

It wasn't until recently that solar energy declined in price and became much more affordable. Some companies have bought into the program, and California has even incentivized the shift to solar.

As the war continues in Ukraine, Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of Solar Energy Industries Association, the national trade association for the solar industry, told CNBC that investing in energy alternatives is important.

"In the face of global supply uncertainty, we must ramp up clean energy production and eliminate our reliance on hostile nations for our energy needs," the CEO said.

Source: npr.org

[lostinthesoundofunderoath]

https://youtu.be/cTorXa0nNmw

#npr #

[izatrini]

Patrice Roberts, Travis World and Dan Evens, 'Mind My Business' - Iowa Public Radio

Patrice Roberts, Travis World and Dan Evens, 'Mind My Business'  Iowa Public Radio http://dlvr.it/SJfccJ

[myjetpackisonfire]

Gotta love that journalistic hypocrisy over at NPR.

[tumblerrealestate]

Go Team! This Marketing, Staging, Design all standard when you list with L.A Luxe Group! (This Property Already In Escrow!) #CBSNews #USAToday #LATimes #NewYorkTimes #NYTimes #NBCNews #BBCNews #CNNNews #NPRnews #realtor #RealEstate #Zillow #Realtor.com #Redfin #Trulia #FairfaxMelrose #Fairfax #Melrose #LALuxeGroup #BeverlyHills #KellerWilliams #Kwbeverlyhills #coldwellbanker #theagency #hiltonandhyland #compass #douglasselliman #remax #realty #broker #forsale #newhome #househunting #property #properties #milliondollarlisting (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B940xzwACb4/?igshid=1rzsj1q49211v

[psychvictims]

#BedsAreNotHomes This is heartbreaking and absolutely wrong. Foster youth are routinely either criminalized or pathologized by the state. https://t.co/dpiRgfVcqz #NPR #NPRnews #AntiPsych is so mainstream now, let's see #MH community try to contest this? 🤣 You're all going to jail soon. #BigPharma is dead. (at Royal Oak, Michigan) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8293j0HJ27/?igshid=175uhe2yphz4p

[aci25]

Once a retail giant, Kmart nears extinction with the closure of a New Jersey store

AVENEL, N.J. — The familiar sights and sounds are still there: the scuffed and faded floor tiles, the relentless beige-on-beige color scheme, the toddlers' clothes and refrigerators and pretty much everything in between.

There's even a canned recording that begins, "Attention, Kmart shoppers" — except it's to remind folks about COVID-19 precautions, not to alert them to a flash sale over in ladies' lingerie like days of old.

Many of the shelves are bare, though, at the Kmart in Avenel, New Jersey, picked over by bargain hunters as the store prepares to close its doors for good April 16.

Once it shutters, the number of Kmarts in the U.S. — once well over 2,000 — will be down to three in the continental U.S. and a handful of stores elsewhere, according to multiple reports, in a retail world now dominated by Walmart, Target and Amazon.

The demise of the the store in the middle-class suburb, 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of New York City, is the tale of the death of the discount department store writ small.

"You're always thinking about it because stores are closing all over, but it's still sad," said cashier Michelle Yavorsky, who said she has worked at the Avenel store for 2 ½ years. "I'll miss the place. A lot of people shopped here."

A pop-culture icon

In its heyday, Kmart sold product lines endorsed by celebrities Martha Stewart and Jaclyn Smith, sponsored NASCAR auto races and was mentioned in movies including Rain Man and Beetlejuice. It was name-dropped in songs by artists from Eminem to the Beastie Boys to Hall & Oates; in 2003, Eminem bought a 29-room, suburban Detroit mansion once owned by former Kmart chairman Chuck Conaway.

The chain cemented a place in American culture with its Blue Light Specials, a flashing blue orb affixed to a pole that would beckon shoppers to a flash sale in progress. Part of its success was due to its early adoption of layaway programs, which allowed customers who lacked credit to reserve items and pay for them in installments.

For a time, Kmart had a little bit of everything: You could shop for your kids' back-to-school supplies, get your car tuned up and grab a meal without leaving the premises.

"Kmart was part of America," said Michael Lisicky, a Baltimore-based author who has written several books on U.S. retail history. "Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not. They had everything. You had toys. You had sporting goods. You had candy. You had stationery. It was something for everybody. This was almost as much of a social visit as it was a shopping visit. You could spend hours here. And these just dotted the American landscape over the years."

Kmart's decline has been slow but steady, brought about by years of falling sales, changes in shopping habits and the looming shadow of Walmart, which coincidentally began its life within months of Kmart's founding in 1962.

Struggling to compete with Walmart's low prices and Target's trendier offerings, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2002 — becoming the largest U.S. retailer to take that step — and announced it would close more than 250 stores.

A few years later, hedge fund executive Edward Lampert combined Sears and Kmart and pledged to return them to their former greatness, but the recession and the rising dominance of Amazon contributed in derailing those goals. Sears filed for Chapter 11 in 2018 and currently has a handful of stores left in the U.S. where it once had thousands.

Kmarts continue to operate in Westwood, New Jersey; Bridgehampton, on New York's Long Island, and Miami.

'A study in greed avarice and incompetence'

It didn't have to end this way, according to Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University in New York and former CEO of Sears Canada.

Trying to compete with Walmart on price was a foolish strategy, he said, and Lampert was criticized for not having a retail background and appearing more interested in stripping off the assets of the two chains for their cash value.

"It's a study in greed, avarice and incompetence," Cohen said. "Sears should have never gone away; Kmart was in worse shape, but not fatally so. And now they're both gone.

"Retailers fall by the wayside sometimes because they're selling things people don't want to buy," he continued. "In the case of Kmart, everything they used to sell, people are buying but they're buying it from Walmart and Target."

Transformco, which owns Kmart and Sears, did not respond to an email seeking comment and a phone number listed for the company was not taking messages.

Nationwide, some former Kmarts remain vacant while others have been replaced by other big-box stores, fitness centers, self-storage facilities, even churches. One former site in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is now a popular dine-in movie theater.

Employees at the Kmart in Avenel found out last month that the store would close.

An air of resignation

Unlike 20 years ago, when news of impending Kmart closures around the country prompted an outpouring of support from loyal shoppers and a Detroit radio station even mounted a campaign to try and save a local store, the closing of the Avenel location was met mostly with an air of resignation.

"It's maybe a little nostalgic because I've lived my whole life in this area, but it's just another retail store closing," said Jim Schaber, a resident of nearby Iselin who said his brother worked in the shoe department at Kmart for years. "It's just another sign of people doing online shopping and not going out to the retail stores."

The closing packed a little more of an emotional punch for Mike Jerdonek, a truck driver who recalled shopping at Kmart in Brooklyn and Queens in his younger days.

"It's like history passing right in front of our eyes," he said as he sat in his car outside the Avenel store. "When I was younger I didn't have any money, so it was a good place to shop because the prices were cheap. And to see it gone right now, it's kind of sad."

Source: npr.org

[akagraphic]

NRP logo ideas.

[npr]

The federal government is throwing $2 trillion at the coronavirus problem. Banks and other lenders are doing things to assist people on top of that. Here's your survival kit for how to get the help that's available and be in the best financial shape possible as you weather this storm.

[stopandimagineloveforever]

When Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, announced last month that he and his husband Chasten had become parents, the congratulations were many but the details were few.

At the time, they expressed their excitement but did not share any additional information about their new child, saying only "the process isn't done yet."

Now, the good news has doubled: On Saturday, the Buttigiegs announced they have welcomed not one but two children — a daughter and a son.

"We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family," Buttigieg wrote on his personal Twitter account, alongside a black-and-white photo of the couple apparently in a hospital room, each holding a newborn.

Pete Buttigieg is the country's first openly gay person to hold a Senate-confirmed position in the Cabinet. After his unsuccessful bid for president in 2020, he was sworn in as the secretary of transportation in February with Chasten at his side.

Now, the two are arguably the highest-profile same-sex couple in U.S. politics. Their birth announcements are a moment of visibility for same-sex marriage and parenthood.

September 4, 2021

[profeminist]

“The captain of a controversial ship that saved migrants in the Mediterranean Sea has refused to accept a medal for her work.

Pia Klemp, who is German, gained attention for rescuing thousands of stranded migrants with her crew as part of the nongovernmental organization Sea Watch International. For her efforts, she reportedly faces up to 20 years in prison in Italy, where the hard-line anti-immigrant government accused her of assisting illegal immigration.

In a Facebook message published Tuesday night, Klemp announced that she was rejecting the Grand Vermeil Medal, which the city of Paris awards for bravery. She told Mayor Anne Hidalgo that the city was brimming with hypocrisy.

"Your police [steal] blankets from people that you force to live on the streets, while you raid protests and criminalize people that are standing up for rights of migrants and asylum seekers. ... You want to give me a medal for actions that you fight in your own ramparts," Klemp wrote in the scathing post.

"It is time we call out hypocrite honorings and fill the void with social justice," she said.

She went on to say that people don't need medals. "We do not need authorities deciding about who is a 'hero' and who is 'illegal,' " she said. "In fact they are in no position to make this call, because we are all equal."

Read the full piece here

Tweet source

[pregnantseinfeld]

Yeah, do not buy the cops story for a second. This family is being targeted.

[psychvictims]

#BedsAreNotHomes This is heartbreaking and absolutely wrong. Foster youth are routinely either criminalized or pathologized by the state. https://t.co/dpiRgfVcqz #NPR #NPRnews #AntiPsych is so mainstream now, let's see #MH community try to contest this? 🤣 You're all going to jail soon. #BigPharma is dead. (at Royal Oak, Michigan) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8293j0HJ27/?igshid=4dpm9q59b3i

[spaceasianmillennial]

"The problem is that squalene, used as an ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine, will be seen as something that's unavoidable, and then as it becomes tested, it becomes the normal ingredient, and nothing else will be tested," Shark Allies executive director Stefanie Brendl told NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.

Brendl worries that a dependence on shark squalene in coronavirus vaccine trials is shortsighted and prevents the exploration of sustainable alternatives.

When it comes to a potentially life-saving vaccine, Brendl isn't saying that shark populations are worthier of protection than humans. But conserving the ocean's top predators, she said, can in fact preserve the rest our ecosystem — humans included.

"They keep our fish stock healthy, they keep the food chain intact, they keep diseases out of other animal populations," she said. "Good luck trying to replace that when we lose them."