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A Second Life for North Carolina’s Shuttered Factories
2021-06-15, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/business/north-carolina-factories-redevelo...

Less than a decade ago, the economic malaise in Rocky Mount, N.C., was tangible. Rocky Mount Mills, a big cotton mill that had given the town its identity, had shut down in 1996, costing the area hundreds of jobs. Downtown was deserted. Nobody was hiring. Now, the mill is a bustling complex with restaurants and breweries. It has a small hotel composed of tiny houses on wheels, a wide lawn where concerts regularly take place and a Wiffle ball field. Since 2013, Rocky Mount Mills’ current owner, Capitol Broadcasting Company, has redeveloped the site, giving it a dynamic atmosphere with stores and residences. Its leaders are aiming to create a sense of community that will entice out-of-town businesses and workers to settle there, raising the town’s economic prospects and spurring more growth. Rocky Mount isn’t the only mill town in North Carolina trying to revitalize its economy. In High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, a region known as the Piedmont Triad, other large factories that once served as economic engines providing many blue-collar jobs are being turned into vibrant mixed-use complexes for work and play. The projects have been designed to connect struggling regions to a new economy based on technology, information and innovation. Christopher Chung, the chief executive of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, is optimistic. “A lot of these communities have the best chance they’ve had in a while,” he said.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The woman who forced the US government to take UFOs seriously
2021-06-14, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/leslie-kean-ufo-reporter-us-gov...

If it wasn’t for the French dossier, UFOs might not have dominated Leslie Kean’s life for the past two decades. In 1999, the independent journalist was handed ... a 90-page report of UFO sightings by military and commercial pilots. Today, the hypothetical situation Kean extrapolated from the French report – of US military and government leaders speaking openly about sightings of inexplicable flying objects – has arrived. By 25 June, the Department of Defense’s director of national intelligence is expected to release an unclassified report to Congress, detailing the accounts of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings by military pilots, making it the government’s most transparent and substantive release of such information ever. Kean’s biggest breakthrough came in 2017, when she was invited ... to meet with Luis “Lue” Elizondo on the day he resigned as the director of a clandestine Pentagon program that collected information about UFOs, the shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Kean teamed up with Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper to write up her scoop for the New York Times, Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program. The story revealed the existence of AATIP from 2007 to 2012. Kean said she remained agnostic on what the findings are. “If there’s any agenda that I have, it’s to get the truth out,” she said. “There is a phenomenon that cannot be explained. And there is plenty of data to show that.”

Note: To learn why this may be part of a controlled rollout of UFO information, see our two-page summary of testimony by top government officials of their personal involvement in a UFO cover-up over many decades. See also concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our UFO Information Center.


CDC plans "emergency meeting" on rare heart inflammation following COVID-19 vaccines
2021-06-14, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-cdc-meeting-myocarditis-heart-i...

The CDC announced Thursday that it will convene a meeting of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. So far, the CDC has identified 226 reports that might meet the agency's "working case definition" of myocarditis and pericarditis following the shots, the agency disclosed Thursday. The CDC first described the panel's session as an "emergency meeting," but later changed it to merely a "COVID-19 meeting." Previous times the advisors convened to discuss the pandemic — like their May 12th gathering to mull recommendations for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents — were also described as "emergency meetings." The new details about myocarditis and pericarditis emerged first in presentations to a panel of independent advisers for the Food and Drug Administration, who are meeting Thursday to discuss how the regulator should approach emergency use authorization for using COVID-19 vaccines in younger children. The CDC previously disclosed that reports of heart inflammation were detected mostly in younger men and teenage boys following their second dose, and that there was a "higher number of observed than expected" cases in 16- to 24-year-olds. "Risk-benefit considerations … will need to account for this information,” [said] Dr. Marion Gruber, director of the FDA's vaccine office.”

Note: What this article fails to mention is that for every case reported there are very likely many that go unreported. Explore a much more in-depth article on this. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


New Device Taps Brain Signals To Help Stroke Patients Regain Hand Function
2021-06-13, NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/13/1005556094/new-device-ta...

People recovering from a stroke will soon have access to a device that can help restore a disabled hand. The Food And Drug Administration has authorized a device called IpsiHand, which uses signals from the uninjured side of a patient's brain to help rewire circuits controlling the hand, wrist and arm. NeuroLutions ... was founded by Dr. Eric Leuthardt. Leuthardt had been puzzled by something he often heard from patients who'd lost the use of hand after a stroke. "If you talk to a stroke patient, they can imagine moving their hand," he says. "They can try to move their hand. But they just can't actually move it." So Leuthardt had been looking for the source of those thoughts. Usually ... the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. But ... control signals [are] also present on the ipsilateral side – the same side of the brain as the limb being controlled. Leuthardt's team built a system that could detect and decode those ipsilateral signals. Then they connected it to a device that would open and close a patient's disabled hand for them when they imagined the action. But a mechanical hand wasn't Leuthardt's ultimate goal. He wanted to help his patients regain the ability to move their hand without assistance. And that meant answering a question: "Can we use this device that controls their affected limb to essentially encourage the brain to rewire?" Early experiments suggested the approach worked. NeuroLutions tested the device on 40 patients for 12 weeks. All of them got better.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Fat Cats on a Hot Tin Roof
2021-06-12, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/opinion/billionaires-taxes.html

ProPublica cracked open the vault on America’s biggest tax grifters, revealing how the Midas men dip, dodge and duck, paying pennies on the dollar, if that, while we suckers have to pony up. How rich. “In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes,” ProPublica reported. “He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. “Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.” “Taken together,” ProPublica concluded, “it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The I.R.S. records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.” ProPublica shed light on the fact that “the superrich earn virtually all their wealth from the constantly rising value of their assets, particularly in the stock market, and that the sales of those assets are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income from a paycheck.” And while the value of those assets grows by the billion, untaxed, these rich folks can borrow against them.

Note: Read more in this revealing alternet.com article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.


Magawa, the Explosives-Sniffing Rat Who Uncovered 71 Land Mines, Retires
2021-06-11, Popular Mechanics
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a36687356/magawa-explosives...

Magawa the rat is retiring. And while most rats step away from their active careers with little to no fanfare, this rodent is a bit different: he's directly responsible for saving the lives of untold numbers of men, women, and children. Magawa - who spent five years (2016-2021) sniffing out hazardous, unexploded weapons of war dotting the Cambodian countryside - is credited with leading his handlers to more than 100 buried explosive devices. This hero is a Gambian pouched rat. Like many rodents, Gambian rats have poor eyesight, but make up for it with an exceptional sense of smell. Magawa's trainers at the Belgian nonprofit APOPO taught him to sniff out military-grade explosives. The rat is essentially a living sensor, capable of detecting land mines, bombs, and other explosives. Minefields have proven especially deadly in postwar Cambodia. Experts believe that military forces left behind somewhere between 4 and 6 million idle land mines at the close of the Cambodian Civil War. Between 1979 and 2020, abandoned mines and other explosive devices killed 19,789 Cambodians and injured or maimed 45,102 others. Magawa completed his training in Africa, and then traveled to Cambodia, where he spent five years searching for whiffs of explosives. In his half-decade career, the big rat "helped clear over 225,000 square metres of land," according to APOPO. All in all, he led his handlers to 71 land mines and 38 other items of unexploded ordinance.

Note: Along with sniffing out land mines, rats have also been trained to detect tuberculosis. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The secret society 'tomb' hiding in plain sight in Berkeley
2021-06-11, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/berkeley-skull-and-keys-secret-societies...

Walking up Prospect toward Memorial Stadium, your eyes will likely flit past it. But that unassuming gray building was once the “Tomb” of Berkeley’s most hated secret society, and it was so putrid the city eventually stepped in to shut it down. Skull and Keys was founded in the 1890s by a group of UC Berkeley fraternity members, most prominent among them writer Frank Norris. It was modeled after the famed Skull and Bones secret society at Yale, and like them, invited select members from other fraternities to join. Their primary activities were drinking and causing trouble. Each year during initiation, crowds gathered to watch the Skull and Keys lads parade through town in costumes. In 1920, Skull and Keys members impersonated specific female students, shaming them by name in what the Daily Californian memorably called “a smut carnival.” The university would ban Skull and Keys for a few years, relent and let them back, and then ban them again after another transgression. The death knell tolled for Skull and Keys in the late 1970s. On the night of April 20, 1977 — Adolph Hitler’s birthday — several members walked over to the campus’ Jewish community center and chanted “Hitler was right” and “kill the Jews” outside. In February 1979, tensions reached a boiling point. Neighbors could no longer tolerate the Tomb, site of weekly drinking-and-vomiting soirees. The property did not belong to the university. The campus had no control over the matter. So residents went to the city, which finally agreed to shut the place down.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on secret societies from reliable major media sources.


Saudi women allowed to live alone without permission from male guardian
2021-06-11, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-women-live-alone-m...

Saudi Arabia will allow women to live alone without permission from a male "guardian", bringing an end to a rule that attracted condemnation from human rights campaigners internationally. According to The Gulf News, single, divorced or widowed women are now able to live independently without permission from a male guardian. The development comes after the Kingdom introduced a legal amendment to grant women the right to live in separate accommodation, the newspaper reported. Judicial authorities have replaced a legal statute stipulating that a male guardian has authority over a woman's living circumstances with a new text stating: "An adult woman has the right to choose where to live. A woman's guardian can report her only if he has evidence proving she committed a crime." The development follows a 2019 decree allowing women to travel abroad without approval from a guardian, following a series of attempts by women in the Kingdom to escape their guardians. Under the kingdom's guardianship system, women are considered to be legal minors, giving their male guardians authority over their decisions. Often a woman's male guardian is her father or husband and in some cases a woman's own son. Under the 2019 reforms, a Saudi passport should be issued to any citizen who applies for it and that any person above the age of 21 does not need permission to travel. The amendments also granted women the right to register child birth, marriage or divorce.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


IRS records show wealthiest Americans, including Bezos and Musk, paid little in income taxes as share of wealth, report says
2021-06-08, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/08/wealthy-irs-taxes/

The wealthiest Americans — including Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — paid little in federal income taxes at times in recent years despite soaring fortunes, according to Internal Revenue Service data obtained by ProPublica. The information published Tuesday shows how billionaires are able to legally reduce their tax burden, highlighting how the American tax system can hit ordinary wage earners harder than the richest people in the country. That’s often because the richest Americans tend to have their wealth tied up in stocks and real estate, allowing them to avoid taxes on unrealized profits. The U.S. tax system focuses on income, not what is known as unrealized gains from unsold stocks, real estate or other assets. The records ... purport to show Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway, as having paid $23.7 million in federal income taxes on total income of $125 million from 2014 to 2018, which would indicate a personal income tax rate of 19 percent. ProPublica estimated that Buffett saw his wealth soar by $24.3 billion during that period and so his “true tax rate” was 0.10 percent. Musk, chief executive of Tesla, paid $455 million on $1.52 billion in income during the same period, when his wealth grew by $13.9 billion, accounting for a “true tax rate” of 3.27 percent. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post, paid $973 million in taxes on $4.22 billion in income, as his wealth soared by $99 billion, resulting in a 0.98 percent “true tax rate.”

Note: Learn about important facts this article leaves out in this excellent piece. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.


Richest 25 Americans reportedly paid ‘true tax rate’ of 3.4% as wealth rocketed
2021-06-08, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/08/richest-25-americans-jeff-be...

The 25 richest Americans, including Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018, according to an investigation by ProPublica, despite their collective net worth rising by more than $400bn in the same period. The report by the non-profit news organization exposes the US tax system as income and wealth inequality continues to widen. ProPublica used Internal Revenue Service data to dive into the tax returns of some of America’s wealthiest and most prominent people. It found that in 2007 Bezos, the founder of Amazon and already a billionaire, paid no federal taxes. In 2011, when he had a net worth of $18bn, he was again able to pay no federal taxes – and even received a $4,000 tax credit for his children. ProPublica created what it called a “true tax rate” for the wealthiest 25 Americans by comparing federal income tax paid between 2014 and 2018 to how their net worth increased on Forbes’ well-regarded rich list over the same period. “The results are stark,” ProPublica wrote. “According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401bn from 2014 to 2018. “They paid a total of $13.6bn in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.” By contrast, the median American household paid 14% in federal taxes. The top income tax rate is 37% on incomes over $523,600 for single filers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.


Alameda County revises COVID-19 death count by 25%
2021-06-07, ABC News (San Francisco affiliate)
https://abc7news.com/covid-death-count-alameda-county-deaths-19-cases/10755419/

Alameda County has revised its COVID-19 death count, saying it over-counted more than 400 cases. As of Friday, the Alameda County Health department had reported 1,634 COVID-19 deaths, but later that day it was revised down to 1,223. According to the Health Department, the 25% decrease was made to comply with the state's definition of a COVID-19 death, which requires COVID-19 to be a direct or contributing factor or a situation in which it can't be ruled out. In a press release, Neetu Balram with the Alameda County Health Department wrote, "Alameda County previously included any person who died while infected with the virus in the total COVID-19 deaths for the county." As an example, Balram explained "a resident who had COVID-19 but died due to another cause, like a car accident ... would be included in the total number of reported COVID-19 deaths for Alameda County."

Note: Alameda County made the correction, yet how many other counties throughout the US have exaggerated their death figures in this way and not made the correction? And why would they have done that in the first place other than to inflate to figures to incite more fear? Read a revealing essay titled, "COVID Math Simply Doesn't Add Up." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Fauci's emails don't prove a Wuhan conspiracy, but raise further questions
2021-06-04, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fauci-s-emails-don-t-prove-wuhan-conspir...

It was Jan. 31, 2020, and a leading infectious disease expert, Kristian Andersen, had been examining the genetic characteristics of the newly emerging SARS-CoV virus. “Some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, noting that he and other scientists “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Just four days later, Andersen gave feedback in advance of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine letter that was referenced in the prestigious Lancet medical journal to argue against the idea that the virus had been engineered and brand it a conspiracy theory. In his email, Andersen called the ideas that the virus was engineered “crackpot theories,” writing, “engineering can mean many things and could be done for basic research or nefarious reasons, but the data conclusively show that neither was done.” That initial email ... was released to The Washington Post and BuzzFeed this week under the Freedom of Information Act. The U.S. government has since accused China of withholding significant information. And U.S. intelligence officials ... say the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan is one they have not ruled out, and continue to investigate. A fact sheet put out by the State Department at the end of the Trump administration in January — which was vetted by intelligence agencies and has not been disavowed by the Biden administration — says there is circumstantial evidence for a lab leak.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Covid: White House defends Dr Fauci over lab leak emails
2021-06-04, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57352992

Dr Fauci has been the face of the nation's Covid-19 response. But emails have raised questions on whether he backed Chinese denials of the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a lab. A trove of Dr Fauci's emails covering the onset of the coronavirus outbreak were released this week to media under a freedom of information request. Chinese authorities linked early Covid-19 cases to a seafood market in Wuhan. But recent US media reports have suggested growing evidence the virus could instead have emerged from a lab in Wuhan, perhaps through an accidental leak. The NIH, which is a US public health agency, gave $600,000 (425,000) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 2014-19 via a grant to the New York-based non-profit group EcoHealth Alliance, for the purpose of researching bat coronaviruses. Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, emailed Dr Fauci in April 2020, praising him as "brave" for seeking to debunk the lab leak theory. Department of State officials ... were told not to explore claims about gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab to avoid attracting unwelcome attention to US government funding of such research. Gain-of-function studies involve altering pathogens to make them more transmissible in order to learn more about how they might mutate. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill and were admitted to hospital in November 2019, just before the first reported Covid-19 cases.

Note: Read lots more important information on this not covered in the BBC article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Tom Hanks: You Should Learn the Truth About the Tulsa Race Massacre
2021-06-04, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/tom-hanks-tulsa-race-massacre-hist...

I consider myself a lay historian. But for all my study, I never read a page of any school history book about how, in 1921, a mob of white people burned down a place called Black Wall Street, killed as many as 300 of its Black citizens and displaced thousands of Black Americans who lived in Tulsa, Okla. My experience was common: History was mostly written by white people about white people like me, while the history of Black people — including the horrors of Tulsa — was too often left out. Until relatively recently, the entertainment industry, which helps shape what is history and what is forgotten, did the same. That includes projects of mine. I knew about the attack on Fort Sumter, Custer’s last stand and Pearl Harbor but did not know of the Tulsa massacre until last year, thanks to an article in The New York Times. The truth about Tulsa, and the repeated violence by some white Americans against Black Americans, was systematically ignored. Our predominantly white schools didn’t teach it, our mass appeal works of historical fiction didn’t enlighten us, and my chosen industry didn’t take on the subject in films and shows until recently. It seems white educators and school administrators (if they even knew of the Tulsa massacre, for some surely did not) omitted the volatile subject for the sake of the status quo, placing white feelings over Black experience — literally Black lives in this case. Should our schools now teach the truth about Tulsa? Yes, and they should also stop the battle to whitewash curriculums.

Note: The above was written by renowned actor Tom Hanks. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on civil liberties from reliable major media sources.


Canada pressured to find all unmarked Indigenous graves after children's remains are found
2021-06-03, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/canada-pressured-find-all-unmarked-indigen...

Canada has been dealt a somber reminder of one of the darkest chapters of its history over the past week. The remains of 215 children were found last month buried in unmarked graves at a former residential school, one of more than 150 institutions in a defunct system that for well over a century forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into Canadian society. The school where the remains were found is in Kamloops. The institution, the biggest residential school in Canada, operated under the auspices of the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969. The Canadian government then took over and oversaw the school until it closed in 1978. Enrollment peaked in the early 1950s at 500. There are official records of at least 51 children who died at the school from 1900 to 1971. The graves, which were discovered with ground-penetrating radar last month, are believed to be undocumented. Some of the children are believed to have been as young as 3. While the sheer number of children's remains found in Kamloops is shocking, it is just the tip of the iceberg, and the discovery is by no means an isolated incident. An estimated 150,000 First Nations and Inuit children were required to attend the state-funded residential schools from 1831 to 1996. Many never went home. In 2015, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared that the residential schools played a central role in Canada's "cultural genocide" of Indigenous people.

Note: The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report led to a $5 billion settlement between the government and surviving First Nation students. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Tasmanian devils born on Australian mainland for first time in 3,000 years
2021-06-03, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/australia/tasmanian-devil-baby-intl-scli-scn/i...

Tasmanian devils have been born in the wild in mainland Australia, more than 3,000 years after they died out in the country. Seven baby Tasmanian devils - known as joeys - were born at the 988-acre Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary in New South Wales, Australian NGO Aussie Ark said. Tasmanian devils died out on the mainland after the arrival of dingoes - a species of wild dog - and were restricted to the island of Tasmania. However, their numbers suffered another blow from a contagious form of cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), which has killed around 90% of the population since it was discovered in 1996. Last September, Aussie Ark introduced 11 of the creatures back into the wild in mainland Australia, following an earlier trial involving 15 of the marsupials, bringing the total of Tasmanian devils on the mainland to 26. And now, just months after their release, the creatures have successfully reproduced - and conservationists have identified the tiny marsupials, which they say are the size of shelled peanuts, inside the pouches of the mothers. Female Tasmanian devils give birth to between 20 and 40 joeys at once, according to Tourism Australia. The joeys race to the mother's pouch, which only has four teats. Those that make it to the pouch carry on living there for around three months. Tasmanian devils are the world's largest carnivorous marsupials. Their reintroduction will help control populations of feral cats and foxes that hunt other endangered species.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The dancer aged 106 who bans the word 'old'
2021-06-01, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57250509

At 106, Eileen Kramer seems more productive than ever. She writes a story a day from her Sydney aged-care facility, publishes books and has entered Australia's most prestigious painting competition. After decades living abroad, Ms Kramer returned to her home city of Sydney aged 99. Since then, she's collaborated with artists to create several videos that showcase her primary talent and lifelong passion: dancing. Ms Kramer still dances - graceful, dramatic movements mostly using the top half of her body. She has also choreographed. "Since returning to Sydney I've ... performed three big dance pieces at NIDA [the National Institute for Dramatic Art] and independent theatres. "I've participated in two big dance festivals ... I've been in a film, given many smaller performances, written three books, and today I'm having a free day!" she says. Something she often gets asked is where all her energy comes from - and whether there's a secret to dancing into old age. Her response is that she banishes the words "old" and "age" from her vocabulary. "I say: I'm not old, I've just been here a long time. I don't feel how people say you should feel when you're old. My attitude to creating things is identical to when I was a child." Ms Kramer trained as a dancer then toured Australia with the Bodenwieser Ballet for a decade. She travelled to India, and later settled in Paris and then New York - where she lived until she was 99. Her dance career spans four continents and one century, and it has always been her first love.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


16 years ago a judge gave a young trafficker a second chance. Today he returned to court to become a lawyer
2021-06-01, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/16-years-ago-a-judge-gave-a-young-tra...

When Edward Martell went to court in 2005 to plead guilty to selling and manufacturing crack, he thought his life was over. However, Bruce Morrow, a Michigan judge decided to give him a second chance. Martell, then 27, had had several run-ins with the law until he was arrested in a counternarcotics operation. When he pleaded guilty to selling and manufacturing crack, he knew he could face 20 years in jail. Judge Morrow saw young Martell and understood the circumstances that had led the young man to life in crime. So he gave him a three-year probation sentence and a challenge: to return to that same court with an achievement. Last week ... Edward returned to the same courthouse as Bruce Morrow, but this time to fulfill his promise: to be sworn in as a lawyer in the same courtroom where he pleaded guilty. "It was kind of a joke, but [Edward] understood that I believed he could be whatever he wanted," Judge Morrow [said]. After his first meeting with the magistrate, Edward earned a high school degree and then a scholarship to study law. He always kept in touch with the judge who had inspired him. Martell underwent a strict background check in order to join the Michigan Bar Association, but the board determined that his past should not determine his future. That's how Martell, now 43, returned to court to become a lawyer. That is the power of mentoring.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Johnson & Johnson must pay $2.1 billion talc baby powder award as Supreme Court rejects appeal
2021-06-01, Chicago Tribune
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-johnson-talc-supreme-court-202...

Johnson & Johnson must pay a $2.1 billion award to women who claimed its baby powder was contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos, after the U.S. Supreme Court left intact the largest verdict in the almost decadelong litigation over the iconic product. The top U.S. court without comment on Tuesday refused to consider J&J’s objections to a St. Louis jury’s 2018 finding that its talc-based powder helped cause ovarian cancer in 20 women. J&J prepared for the appeal’s denial by announcing in February it was setting aside almost $4 billion to cover the St. Louis verdict. The company still faces more than 25,000 lawsuits blaming baby powder for causing cancers. J&J pulled the product off U.S. and Canadian shelves last year. Jurors in the St. Louis case awarded each woman $25 million in compensatory damages. The panel then added more than $4 billion in punitive damages, making the award the sixth-largest in U.S. legal history. The original verdict sparked a significant drop in J&J’s shares. J&J has lost other cases at trial, with juries across the U.S. ordering it to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. Judges slashed some of those awards while others have been thrown out or are on appeal. J&J has won cases as well. Asbestos, which is often found where talc is mined, is a recognized carcinogen. The women also contended that J&J showed years of deceit about its product and disregard for the health of its customers and argued that warranted the punitive damage award.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


Oklahoma imam left 'emotional' over Jewish teen's act of kindness
2021-06-01, Today.com
https://www.today.com/news/oklahoma-imam-left-emotional-over-jewish-teen-s-ac...

An Oklahoma City imam highlighted interfaith unity in his community after a teenage girl, who identified as Jewish, asked him at his mosque to donate her babysitting money to help Palestinians. The imam, Imad Enchassi, said he was working outside his mosque last week when a car dropped off a teenager in search of the imam. She arrived Wednesday between prayers before sunset, and the only person there was Enchassi, who was wearing gym clothes and a cap while he did yard work. He said the teenager was carrying an envelope with $80 and told him that she wanted it to help a family in Gaza. "I want you to tell them this is from a young Jewish girl that worked all week babysitting. And that we love them and feel their pain," Enchassi said she told him. The gesture, which caught Enchassi off guard, inspired him to write about it in a Facebook post that has been shared 4,400 times and has received hundreds of comments. "Humanity is marvelous indeed," he wrote. "Your post made me cry," a Facebook user wrote in response. "Crying with you," Enchassi responded. "Kindness, humility and love has no boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity or nationality," another wrote. Enchassi, who is Palestinian American, said one of his congregants lost several relatives in Gaza during violence between Israel and Hamas. So when Enchassi was given the gift, it left him "emotional," he said. The imam said the teenager didn't give her name when he asked, which he interpreted to mean she wanted to remain anonymous.

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