4 panloob na pandama
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Limited vocabulary hinders thought
Authorities of Corona Schools have explained that why their pupils’ performance has been so close, over the years, is because of the equity of teaching and learning in all their schools. Adedoyin Adesina, CEO of Corona Schools, who made this observation, noted that it is not a case of one school doing so well while another is struggling. Adesina spoke at the 70th Anniversary edition of their annual Interschool Quiz Competition at their Victoria Island branch which brought together all four primary schools from across Lagos, including Corona School Gbagada, Corona School Ikoyi, Corona School Lekki and Corona School Victoria Island. She disclosed that the school has been able to adapt and upskill because they had initially started the annual competition in pen and paper. But as technology became more relevant in the local and global education space, they expanded their scope such that currently, the quiz is technology-based. According to the chief executive, the pupils use various modern-day applications and software to answer questions and this has greatly improved their speed, accuracy, analytical skills and mental prowess and it also exposes them to modern technologies. “We also introduced music and dance. The pupils are given a piece of music to creatively interpret and perform. We do this knowing that education is not limited to only mathematics and English,” he said. “We have also seen the impact of this, over the years, in how they learn in the classroom, the confidence level in the children with regards to their ability to speak, interpret and their ability to make presentations.” The quiz competition was conducted in two categories. The Academics Category featured a series of engaging rounds of questions that tested the pupils’ knowledge in areas such as mathematics, science, English language, and mixed baskets. The Creativity and Innovation Category featured musical performance and mine-craft. After an exciting contest, Corona School Victoria Island emerged the overall champion, with Corona School Ikoyi coming in second place. Sponsored by the President of the Corona School Board of Trustees, Myma Belo-Osagie, the 70th anniversary edition of the Corona Schools’ Interschool Quiz Competition was a display of resilience, determination and grit among the children, most of who are aged 10 years and below. The 2024/2025 Interschool Quiz Competition marked another milestone and displayed the Trust Council’s commitment to providing world-class education to children and developing the total child. On the 70th anniversary celebration of the Trust Council, Adesina gave a summary of some upcoming activities. “In January 2025, we will begin the celebration with the staff awards and recognitions. For this auspicious occasion, former staff who had given many years of service to the organisation will be invited and recognised. There will be an Educator’s Round Table conference in March, and there are plans also for an alumni gala night. So, there is quite a number of activities lined up,” she said. Renowned for churning out notable figures in society, Corona Schools was founded in 1955 and continues to operate as a major leader in Nigeria’s education industry.
For years, patients in the U.S. health care system have grown frustrated with a bureaucracy they don’t understand. Doctors are included in an insurer’s network one year but not the next. Getting someone on the phone to help can be next to impossible. Coverage of care and prescriptions is often unceremoniously denied. > Philadelphia news 24/7: Watch NBC10 free wherever you are This week’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has unleashed a wave of public feeling — exasperation, anger, resentment, helplessness — from Americans sharing personal stories of interactions with insurance companies, often seen as faceless corporate giants. In particular, the words written on ammunition found at the shooting scene — “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” echoing a phrase used to describe how insurers dodge claim payouts — amplified voices that have long been critical of the industry. “All of a sudden, I am fired up again,” said Tim Anderson, describing how his wife, Mary, had to deal with UnitedHealthcare coverage denials before she died from Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2022. Anderson said they couldn’t get coverage for machines to help his wife breathe or talk — toward the end, she communicated by blinking when he showed her pictures. The family had to rely on donations from a local ALS group, he said. “The business model for insurance is don’t pay,” said Anderson, 67, of Centerville, Ohio. “When Mary could still talk, she said to me to keep fighting this,” he added. “It needs to be exposed.” For Anderson and others, Thompson's death and the message left at the scene have created an opportunity to vent their frustrations. Conversations at dinner tables, office water coolers, social gatherings and on social media have pivoted to the topic, as police efforts to find the gunman keep the case in the news. Hans Maristela said he understands why the chatter is bubbling up. The 54-year-old caregiver in California was moved to comment on Facebook about UnitedHealthcare's reputation of denying coverage. As a Catholic, he said, he grieves Thompson's death and feels for his family, especially with the holidays around the corner. But he sees frustration with insurers even among his clients, most of them wealthy older people who've not been shielded from high out-of-pocket costs. “And then you know the CEO of this company you pay a lot of money to gets $10 million dollars a year, you won’t have a lot of sympathy for the guy," Maristela said, citing Thompson's compensation package that included base pay and stock options. “Health care is a business, I understand, but the obsession with share price, with profit, has to be reevaluated.” University of Pennsylvania researcher Michael Anne Kyle said she's not surprised by the growth of conversation around insurers. “People are often struggling with this by themselves, and when you see someone else talk about it, that may prompt you to join the conversation,” she said. Kyle studies how patients access care and said she's seen frustration with the system build for years. Costs are rising, and insurers are using more controls such as prior authorizations and doctor networks to manage them. Patients are often stuck in the middle of disputes between doctors and insurers. “Patients are already spending a lot of money on health care, and then they’re still facing problems with the service,” she said. Insurers often note that most of the money they bring in goes back out the door to pay claims, and that they try to corral soaring costs and the overuse of some care. In Ohio, Anderson said his initial reaction to the CEO shooting was to question whether it was connected to a coverage denial, like the ones he'd experienced with his wife. “I definitely do not condone killing people,” he said. “But I read it and said, 'I wonder if somebody had a spouse whose coverage was denied.’” It's something Will Flanary, a Portland-based ophthalmologist and comedian with a large social media following, saw online a lot in the shooting's immediate aftermath and found very telling. “It’s zero sympathy,” he said. “And the lesson to take away from that is not, ‘Let’s shame people for celebrating a murder.’ No, it’s: ‘Look at the amount of anger that people have toward this system that’s taken advantage of people and do something to try to fix that.’” Flanary's content, published under the name Dr. Glaucomflecken, started out as niche eye doctor jokes and a way to cope with his own experiences with two cancer diagnoses and a sudden cardiac arrest. But it has evolved, featuring character skits that call attention to and satirize the decisions of large health insurers, including UnitedHealthcare. He said he's never seen conversations around health insurance policy take off the way they did this week — and he hopes these new voices can help bring about change. “I’m always talking about how powerful social media can be with advocacy," he said, "because it really is the only way to put a significant amount of pressure on these corporations who are doing bad things for patients.” ____ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.An archbishop's knock formally restores Notre Dame to life as winds howl and heads of state look onNoneWith Trump on the way, advocates look to states to pick up medical debt fight
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Starbucks workers are walking off the job at hundreds of stores across dozens of cities on Tuesday, their union says, on the last planned day of what it is calling "the strike before Christmas." "Starbucks Baristas at over THREE HUNDRED stores have walked off the job to demand Starbucks bargain a fair contract from coast-to-coast," Starbucks Workers United (SBU) wrote in an Instagram post , touting it as the largest unfair labor practices strike in the coffee chain's history. The union says the strike is in response to Starbucks backtracking on its commitment to negotiate a " foundational framework " — for collective bargaining and resolving outstanding litigation on unfair labor practices charges — by the end of the year. "Our unfair labor practice (ULP) strikes will begin Friday morning and escalate each day through Christmas Eve ... unless Starbucks honors our commitment to work towards a foundational framework," it said last week. The strike began on Friday in three cities: Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago. It has expanded every day since, with the list of participating stores now including Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Seattle and San Jose. Starbucks said Monday that about 60 stores nationwide were closed due to the strike, but stressed that that the "overwhelming majority" of its more than 10,000 U.S. locations remain unaffected. It said some of the stores that closed during the weekend had already reopened. "The public conversation may lack the important context that the vast majority of our stores (97-99%) will continue to operate and serve customers, and we expect a very limited impact to our overall operations," Executive Vice President Sara Kelly said in a statement. The union is urging customers to boycott Starbucks stores during the strike and show up at picket lines to show their support for workers. SWU, which first unionized in 2021, represents some 10,000 employees across 535 U.S. stores. It celebrated a milestone in February when Starbucks said it would work with the union to reach a labor agreement and resolve litigation by the end of the year. But last week, with matters still unsettled ahead of the last scheduled bargaining session of 2024, a whopping 98% of union partners voted to authorize a strike to "to protest hundreds of still-unresolved unfair labor practice charges (ULPs) and win a strong foundational framework for union contracts." The union acknowledged that both sides have engaged in "hundreds of hours of bargaining" and "advanced dozens of tentative agreements" in recent months. But it said hundreds of complaints accusing Starbucks of unfair labor practices — including retaliatory firings — remain unsettled, with more than $100 million in legal liabilities still outstanding. Plus, it said, the company "has yet to bring a comprehensive economic package to the bargaining table." Starbucks' latest proposal included no immediate wage increase for union baristas, and a guarantee of just 1.5% wage increases in future years. The union called that "insulting," especially compared to the salary of its new CEO , who started in September. "This year, Starbucks invested $113 million into CEO Brian Niccol's compensation package at a time when baristas' wages aren't keeping up with the cost of inflation," it said. "Workers regularly struggle to receive the hours we need to qualify for benefits and pay our bills. Starbucks needs to invest in the workers who run their stores." Ruby Walters, who works at a Starbucks location in Columbus, told member station WOSU from the picket line over the weekend that most workers "have a very similar experience of the company not affording them enough resources that they need, not only to take home and improve their lives, but literally on the job." "So as far as I'm concerned, what we're fighting for isn't just for us," Walters added. "It's for all Starbucks workers across the country." Kelly, the Starbucks executive, said the union's proposals amount to an increase in the hourly minimum wage of 64% immediately and 77% over three years, which she dismissed as unrealistic. "These proposals are not sustainable, especially when the investments we continually make to our total benefits package are the hallmarks of what differentiates us as an employer — and, what makes us proud to work at Starbucks," she said. Those benefits include health care, free college tuition, paid family leave and company stock grants, Starbucks says, adding that the combination of average pay and benefits equates to an average of $30 per hour for the vast majority of baristas working at least 20 hours per week. The union is asking for a base wage of at least $20 an hour for all baristas with annual 5% raises and cost of living adjustments, enrollment in a Starbucks-sponsored retirement plan, more consistent schedules, enhanced paid leave protocols and better healthcare, among other initiatives. In the final stretch of the four-day strike, it is calling on Starbucks to present a "serious economic offer at the bargaining table." The company, for its part, says the union "prematurely ended" the most recent bargaining session and is urging it to come back. "The union chose to walk away from bargaining last week," Kelly said. "We are ready to continue negotiations when the union comes back to the bargaining table." Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org .LandBridge's LB short percent of float has risen 58.06% since its last report. The company recently reported that it has 2.22 million shares sold short , which is 12.74% of all regular shares that are available for trading. Based on its trading volume, it would take traders 3.06 days to cover their short positions on average. Why Short Interest Matters Short interest is the number of shares that have been sold short but have not yet been covered or closed out. Short selling is when a trader sells shares of a company they do not own, with the hope that the price will fall. Traders make money from short selling if the price of the stock falls and they lose if it rises. Short interest is important to track because it can act as an indicator of market sentiment towards a particular stock. An increase in short interest can signal that investors have become more bearish, while a decrease in short interest can signal they have become more bullish. See Also: List of the most shorted stocks LandBridge Short Interest Graph (3 Months) As you can see from the chart above the percentage of shares that are sold short for LandBridge has grown since its last report. This does not mean that the stock is going to fall in the near-term but traders should be aware that more shares are being shorted. Comparing LandBridge's Short Interest Against Its Peers Peer comparison is a popular technique amongst analysts and investors for gauging how well a company is performing. A company's peer is another company that has similar characteristics to it, such as industry, size, age, and financial structure. You can find a company's peer group by reading its 10-K, proxy filing, or by doing your own similarity analysis. According to Benzinga Pro , LandBridge's peer group average for short interest as a percentage of float is 2.05%, which means the company has more short interest than most of its peers. Did you know that increasing short interest can actually be bullish for a stock? This post by Benzinga Money explains how you can profit from it. This article was generated by Benzinga's automated content engine and was reviewed by an editor. © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.India News | Amit Shah to Address BSF's 60th Foundation Day Parade in Jodhpur, Unveil Sardar Patel's Statue
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Patrick Gunning of King & Wood Mallesons reports that on November 29, 2024, the Australian Parliament passed more than 30 bills on the final sitting day for the calendar year. Among the flurry of legislative activity were the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 and the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024. Privacy Amendment Act The Privacy Amendment Act represents the initial stage of the Australian government’s response to a long-running reform process, with the government indicating that if it is re-elected in 2025, a second tranche of amendments will be proposed. We highlight some of the 2024 amendments. Broader Enforcement Powers for the Australian Information Commissioner This includes changes to: Clarify when “serious” contraventions (which can result in fines of A$50 million or more) occur. Enable the regulator to bring civil penalty proceedings for contraventions that do not meet the “serious” threshold, but are deserving of court action to deter others (with a maximum fine of up to A$3.3 million). Enable the regulator to issue an “infringement notice” for breaches of certain less serious requirements of Australian privacy law. If a regulated entity chooses to pay the penalty set out in the infringement notice (up to A$330,000 per specified contravention), the regulator cannot commence court proceedings in respect of those contraventions unless the regulator withdraws the infringement notice and returns the fine. Alternatively the regulated entity can choose to not pay the fine, in which case the regulator has the discretion to take a different form of enforcement action (such as commencing civil penalty proceedings in a court, where the maximum fine is ten times greater than available under the infringement notice regime). The current Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind, was appointed in 2024. She has signalled an intention to more actively enforce the law than her predecessors. The new enforcement powers in the 2024 amendments will give her tools to achieve that objective. New Statutory Tort of Invasion of Privacy The Privacy Amendment Act introduces a new statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy involving intrusion upon seclusion and/or misuse of information, where: the plaintiff has a reasonable expectation of privacy; the conduct by the defendant is intentional or reckless; the invasion of privacy is serious; and the public interest in the plaintiff’s privacy outweighs any countervailing public interest. While it remains to be seen how widely the statutory tort of invasion of privacy will be litigated, expectations are that most cases will be brought against media defendants by well-resourced high-profile individuals. While the regulator will have the right to make submissions in such a case, the regulator will not have standing to bring a statutory tort claim on behalf of any individual. Class actions are, however, a possibility if a single event affects multiple individuals. However, a typical cyber incident is not likely to qualify as a serious invasion of privacy, because the conduct of a defendant organization that has been hacked by a malicious third party is rarely intentional or reckless, even if it may involve negligence. Automated Decisionmaking In addition to the changes related to enforcement, the Act also provides greater transparency for individuals when regulated entities use personal information for automated decisionmaking. Regulated entities will now be required to include in their privacy notices details about what information is involved and what types of decisions are made using automated decisionmaking technology. Children’s Online Privacy Code The Act also directs the Commissioner to develop a Children’s Online Privacy Code, as discussed further below. The Act includes minimal parameters for the Code, however, beyond applicability and consultation provisions. Social Media Minimum Age Act The Australian Parliament enacted the Social Media Minimum Age Act only eight days after its introduction. The Act amends the Online Safety Act 2021 by requiring providers of an “age-restricted social media platform” to take reasonable steps to prevent Australian children under the age of 16 from having an account. Providers who fail to do so will be subject to civil penalties of up to A$49.5 million. The eSafety Commissioner will be responsible for administering the new requirements to be imposed on age-restricted social media platforms. The Act defines an ”age-restricted social media platform” is as a platform that: allows users to post material; allows users to interact with other end-users; and enables social interactions between two or more end-users (as the platform’s sole or significant purpose). Some forms of messaging services will be covered by this definition, in addition to platforms that would generally be considered social media platforms. Providers of age-restricted social media platforms will have 12 months to implement age assurance techniques. The Act is not prescriptive about the techniques that may be implemented, but does impose limits on a provider’s right to collect government-issued identifiers and digital IDs for the purpose of enforcing the minimum age requirement. It is possible that by the time that these age-restriction requirements take effect, the Privacy Commissioner will have developed an enforceable Children’s Online Privacy Code, which also will apply to providers of age-restricted social media platforms, as well as to others that deal with children online (such as e-commerce businesses). The age-restriction requirements do not apply to platforms where ”none of the material on the service is accessible to, or delivered to, one or more end-users in Australia”. However, given the global nature of most social media platforms, it seems inevitable that some platform providers will regard this law as a legislative overreach by the Australian Parliament. For example, X Corp recently resisted the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s order to remove video footage of a violent attack in an Australian church from the platform. X Corp argued successfully in the Federal Court of Australia that it had taken all reasonable steps to remove the content from its platform by geo-blocking users with Australian IP addresses. As the initial injunction expired, the Australian eSafety Commissioner dropped the court case to pursue administrative action, having lost her argument that X Corp should have removed the content from its platform entirely because Australians using VPNs could circumvent the geo-blocking measures. Similar enforcement difficulties are likely to arise under the Social Media Minimum Age, as Australian children under the age of 16 may also use VPN services that allow them to circumvent whatever measures are put in place to restrict their ability to have an account on an age-restricted platform. For further detail on these Australian reforms, visit KWM’s insights on data and privacy developments .Stocks closed higher on Wall Street as the market posted its fifth straight gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched another record high. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%. The benchmark index’s 1.7% gain for the week erased most of its loss from last week. The Dow rose 1% as it nudged past its most recent high set last week, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%. Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump's victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record. It's now within about 0.5% of its all-time high set last week. “Overall, market behavior has normalized following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement. Several retailers jumped after giving Wall Street encouraging financial updates. Gap soared 12.8% after handily beating analysts' third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while raising its own revenue forecast for the year. Discount retailer Ross Stores rose 2.2% after raising its earnings forecast for the year. EchoStar fell 2.8% after DirecTV called off its purchase of that company's Dish Network unit. Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.8%. A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 gained ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies. Nvidia fell 3.2%. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $3.6 trillion behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.7%. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.7% following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm. All told, the S&P 500 rose 20.63 points to 5,969.34. The Dow climbed 426.16 points to 44,296.51, and the Nasdaq picked up 42.65 points to close at 2,406.67. European markets closed mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose. Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.41% from 4.42% late Thursday. In the crypto market, bitcoin hovered around $99,000, according to CoinDesk. It has more than doubled this year and first surpassed the $99,000 level on Thursday. Retailers remained a big focus for investors this week amid close scrutiny on consumer spending habits headed into the holiday shopping season. Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, reported a quarter of strong sales and gave investors an encouraging financial forecast. Target, though, reported weaker earnings than analysts' expected and its forecast disappointed Wall Street. Consumer spending has fueled economic growth, despite a persistent squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. Inflation has been easing and the Federal Reserve has started trimming its benchmark interest rates. That is likely to help relieve pressure on consumers, but any major shift in spending could prompt the Fed to reassess its path ahead on interest rates. Also, any big reversals on the rate of inflation could curtail spending. Consumer sentiment remains strong, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index. It revised its latest figure for November to 71.8 from an initial reading of 73 earlier this month, though economists expected a slight increase. It's still up from 70.5 in October. The survey also showed that consumers' inflation expectations for the year ahead fell slightly to 2.6%, which is the lowest reading since December of 2020. Wall Street will get another update on how consumers feel when the business group The Conference Board releases its monthly consumer confidence survey on Tuesday. A key inflation update will come on Wednesday when the U.S. releases its October personal consumption expenditures index. The PCE is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and this will be the last PCE reading prior to the central bank's meeting in December.
Bath Bomb Global Market Report 2024: In-Depth Analysis and Data-Driven Insights on Market Trends