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NEW YORK (AP) — Having waited 63 years for an Ivy League football title, Columbia had to stand by for another 40 minutes. The Lions had beaten Cornell 17-9 but needed a Harvard loss against Yale to secure a share of first place on the season’s final day. So Columbia players retreated to their locker room on a hill a few hundred feet from Wien Stadium to watch the game in Boston on TV as a few hundred fans remained and gazed at the gold-and-orange foliage of Inwood Hill Park glowing in Saturday’s afternoon sun. When Yale recovered onside kick with seconds left to ensure a 34-29 Harvard defeat, players let out a scream and streamed back onto the field to celebrate, smoke cigars, lift a trophy and sing “Roar, Lion, Roar” with family and friends. Who would have thunk it? “You had the realization of, oh, I’m a champion, which is something that hasn’t been said here in a while,” co-captain CJ Brown said. Harvard dropped into a tie with Columbia and Dartmouth at 5-2, the first time three teams shared the title since 1982 — the conference doesn’t use tiebreakers. “It was nerve-wracking, for sure, but definitely exciting because that’s something that not a lot of people have experienced, especially here,” running back Joey Giorgi said. There have been several top players at Columbia — Sid Luckman, Marty Domres, Marcellus Wiley among them — but the school is perhaps better known for owners such as the New England Patriots’ Robert Kraft and former Cleveland Browns head Al Lerner. Columbia’s only previous championship in 1961 also was shared with Harvard. That Lions team was coached by Buff Donelli, a former Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Rams coach who scored for the Americans in soccer’s 1934 World Cup. Columbia set a then Division I-AA record with 44 consecutive losses from 1983-88, a mark broken by Prairie View’s 80 in a row from 1989-98. Since 1971, the Lions’ only seasons with winning records until now were 1994, 1996, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022. Al Bagnoli, who won nine Ivy titles in 23 years at Penn, couldn’t manage one at Columbia from 2015-22. He quit six weeks before the 2023 opener, citing health, and was replaced on an interim basis by Mark Fabish, his offensive coordinator. Jon Poppe, now 39, was hired last December after working as a Bagnoli assistant at Columbia from 2015-17 between stints at Harvard from 2011-14 and 2017-22, plus one season as a head coach at Division III Union College. He led the Lions to a 7-3 record overall, their most wins in a coach’s first season since George F. Sanford’s team went 9-3 in 1899. Poppe had wife Anna and 7-year-old daughter with him in the locker room watching the countdown to the title. “Sixty-three years of whatever into now,” he said. “Just seeing a lot of that history myself, personally. This is a hugely — a feeling of elation, seeing my dad on the field, a lot of emotional things with that.” Before a crowd of 4,224, quarterback Caleb Sanchez’s 1-yard touchdown run put Columbia ahead in the second quarter. Giorgi’s 1-yard TD run opened a 14-3 lead in the third and Hugo Merry added a 25-yard field goal in the fourth, overcoming three field goals by Alan Zhao. Giorgi rushed for 165 yards and finished his career with 2,112, second in school history. He and Brown missed what would have been their freshman season in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Given Columbia’s athletic history — the most successful sport is fencing — it is not an obvious football destination. “I saw the dedication, whether it resulted in wins or losses,” Brown said. “I saw their dedication to the product that they put out on the field and also the athletic department, the facilities that we had here, the busses on schedule and stuff, I was like, OK, they care about their athletes. People here want to win and it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, it matters what we’re going to do now.” Poppe cited a mindset. “You get 10 opportunities, unlike other sports, it is a grind to play this sport and prepare the way we do just for 10,” he said. As the final whistle sounded in Boston, Brown noted an unusual initial reaction in the locker room. “It was like kind of awe when they recovered the kick,” he said. “It was a lot quieter than you would think it would be, but you could feel the joy and the elation.” They accomplished what more than six decades of their predecessors had failed to. As the players headed out, Poppe had a final word. “Day off tomorrow,” he said. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college football: andHollywood star reveals curious reason she wants to talk to Trump about his mother
Thor Explorations boss says more to come after jam-packed twelve months - ICYMIPercentages: FG .409, FT .333. 3-Point Goals: 8-20, .400 (Hutt 3-5, Livingston 3-5, Evely 2-3, Ishibashi 0-1, Paulino 0-1, Ra.Samuels 0-2, Rodriguez 0-3). Team Rebounds: 3. Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: 6 (Hutt 3, Hartley 2, Rodriguez). Turnovers: 22 (Evely 4, Paulino 4, Livingston 3, Harrigan 2, Hutt 2, Rodriguez 2, Campbell, Hartley, Ishibashi, Matteson, Ra.Samuels). Steals: 2 (Paulino, Rodriguez). Technical Fouls: None. Percentages: FG .493, FT .583. 3-Point Goals: 6-16, .375 (Kelton 3-4, Sanchez 2-5, Williams 1-3, Fitch 0-1, Howell-South 0-1, Ezquerra 0-2). Team Rebounds: 3. Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: 2 (Fitch, Lewis). Turnovers: 10 (Fitch 3, Greene 3, Ezquerra 2, Howell-South, Sanchez). Steals: 18 (Howell-South 6, Williams 5, Ezquerra 2, Lewis 2, Sanchez 2, Kelton). Technical Fouls: None. A_105 (2,100).
November 25, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked trusted source written by researcher(s) proofread by John Gowlett, The Conversation In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an exciting find hits the headlines, paleoanthropology and its related fields have gained far less scientific support and funding—particularly for scientists and institutions based in the African countries where so many landmark discoveries have occurred. One of the first was made a century ago in Taung, South Africa, by mineworkers who came across the cranium of a 2.8 million-year-old child with human-like teeth . Its fossilized anatomy offered evidence of early human upright walking—and 50 years later, in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia that would become a hotspot for ancient human discovery, this understanding took another leap backwards in time with the discovery of Lucy . The part-skeleton of this small-bodied, relatively small-brained female captured the public's imagination . Lucy the "paleo-rock star" took our major fossil evidence for bipedal walking, human-like creatures (collectively known as hominins) beyond 3 million years for the first time. The race to explain how humans became what we are now was well and truly on. Since then, the picture has changed repeatedly and dramatically , shaped by waves of new fossil discovery, technology and scientific techniques—often accompanied by arguments about the veracity of claims made for each new piece of the puzzle. Even the term "human" is arguable. Many scholars reserve it for modern humans like us, even though we have Neanderthal genes and they shared at least 90% of our hominin history from its beginnings around 8 million years ago . The essence of hominin evolution ever since has been gradual change, with occasional rapid phases. The record of evolution in our own genus , Homo , is already full enough to show we cannot separate ourselves with hard lines. Nonetheless, there is enough consensus to thread the story of human evolution all the way from early apes to modern humanity. Most of this story centers on Africa, of course, where countries such as Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia are rightly proud of their heritage as "cradles of humankind" —providing many of their schoolchildren with a much fuller answer then those in the west to this deceptively simple question: how did we get here? Early apes to 'hominization' (around 35m to 8m years ago) The story of human evolution usually starts at the point our distant ancestors began to separate from the apes, whose own ancestors are traceable from at least 35 million years ago and are well attested as fossils . Around 10 million years ago, the Miocene world was warm, moist and forested. Apes lived far and wide from Europe to China, though we have found them especially in Africa, where sediments of ancient volcanoes preserve their remains. This world was soon to be disrupted by cooling temperatures and, in places, great aridity—best seen around the Mediterranean , where continental movements closed off the Straits of Gibraltar and the whole sea evaporated several times, leaving immense salt deposits under the floor of the modern sea. Widespread drying was reported from around 7 to 6 million years ago, leading to a stronger expression of seasons in much of the world, and changes in plant and animal communities. The divergence from the apes of a lineage—the hominins—that eventually led to us had probably already begun 8 million years ago. But our knowledge of this date depends on molecular comparisons with other animals, rather than fossils. DNA shows we are most closely related to chimpanzees and their sister species, the bonobo. Branching points can be estimated by comparisons with other well-dated events, such as the separation of South American monkeys from other primates about 35 million years ago. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter— daily or weekly . A surprise from genetic science is that gorillas, the other African great apes, are less closely related to chimpanzees than chimps are to us. A chimpanzee, if it could speak, might tell us: "These gorillas may look like my big brothers, but actually I'm more closely related to you." They seem so similar because they are both tropical forest apes with similar adaptations, which underlines just how much—and how rapidly—the earliest hominins had to evolve to survive in their drier environments. Yet, there is still some debate about whether the chimpanzee is our best model for the starting point: the "last common ancestor" . Better to call it the "best living model" because the chimp has shown many adaptations of its own, especially in its limb proportions and locomotion, but also in its large shearing front teeth. But its social behavior, communication and tool-making have all provided invaluable insights into the processes that we can call "hominization." Earliest hominins (about 7m up to 4m years ago) The earliest hominin fossil yet known is about 7 million years old and comes from the middle of Africa, near Lake Chad. This rare find from 2001 is Sahelanthropus tchadensis , represented by a cranium (nicknamed "Toumaï" by its finders), a femur and teeth—all probably from the same species. Although these finds were limited, they were enough to show a bipedal creature probably still comfortable living in trees, who had teeth with hominin features. Many accompanying fossils of other species show this hominin lived in both woodland and grassland habitats. Then, for over a million years, our record vanishes—other than for some fragmentary remains of Orrorin tugenensis , a different genus of hominin found in the Tugen Hills of Kenya and dating to about 6 million years ago. Hominins appear again in plain sight with a new species dating back around 5.5 million years, Ardipithecus kadabba . The discovery of its partial jawbone and teeth in the Middle Awash region of northern Ethiopia in 1997 shed more light on what may have been the "stem ancestor" leading to all later hominins. Exceptionally thorough investigations have since revealed these creatures in full anatomical detail and in remarkable environmental context, showing Ardipithecus combined characters of both apes and later hominins. A. kadabba's finders emphasized that it was not chimpanzee-like in limb proportions, nor did it have their exaggerated shovel-like front teeth. It also overturned the old theory of hominins coming down from the trees into savannas, and thus being forced to become bipedal. Rather, Ardipithecus lived in thick woodland and supports the idea that bipedalism first arose as an adaptation to walking along tree boughs, perhaps while clasping the branches above. The stem hominin idea may well be correct, but more recent finds suggest there were soon multiple hominin species . While Ardipithecus is known from only one modern country, Ethiopia, there are huge areas of Africa that could have supported similar sibling species but which, for geological reasons, have not given up these secrets as generously as sections of the Great Rift Valley. It is also striking that Ardipithecus' feet remained apelike, with a divergent big toe—a sign that climbing trees was still important. The other, later species of Ardipithecus ( Ar. Ramidus ) lived only half a million years before the famous footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania in 1976—trails of footprints that displayed fully human characteristics. Evolution would need to have been rapid indeed for those two creatures to be directly related. Even so, Ardipithecus had features that are enormously valuable for showing the general state of hominins at this time. Its pelvis, the oldest known, was short and basin-like as in later hominins, although ape-like in its lower part. And its teeth had enamel that was thicker than in African apes but thinner than in modern humans, suggesting an omnivorous diet. Australopithecines (about 4.3m to 1.4m years ago) More than 4 million years ago, another group of hominins begins to appear on the scene: the genus Australopithecus , named after the "Taung child" whose skull was discovered 100 years ago by workmen in the South African limestone quarry. While the name means "southern ape," the australopithecines were certainly hominins. Fully bipedal, their teeth were arranged in a modern human pattern with their canines reduced—sometimes to an extraordinary degree—and they existed in great diversity. As finds accumulate, at least ten species of this group are now known, indicating "adaptive radiation" —meaning that hominins had become highly successful and were by now adjusting to many different habitats and climates. While the australopithecines were confined to Africa, they extended widely from the south to the east and even towards the west near Lake Chad—close to the find of the older Sahelanthropus . This distribution underlines the argument for hominins having originated in Africa, as had been long suspected from the shared heritage with African apes. The oldest Australopithecus is A. anamensis , found in northern Kenya and dating to more than 4 million years ago, closely followed by A. afarensis in Ethiopia— Lucy's species —and A. prometheus in South Africa. Then, in addition to species such as A. africanus and A. garhi , there is a further group who combined enormous chewing teeth and ape-sized brains—their massive jaws and skulls led to them being dubbed the "robusts." Often officially termed Paranthropus rather than Australopithecus , they occurred as three separate species in southern and eastern Africa , appearing at least 3 million years ago and surviving until about 1.4 million years ago. While microwear studies of their teeth suggest a mixed diet, the huge size of those teeth implies it was of low quality, with grasses and sedges providing the bulk. Indeed, the dominance of these creatures' massive molars meant their front teeth shrank to the extent that their incisors and canines were consistently smaller than ours today. Although the African Rift Valley running down the east side of the continent is often celebrated as the focus of hominin origins, the distribution of australopithecines is just wide enough to show the rift is not necessarily the cradle of humankind—although it is the region where most fossils have been found. South Africa's dolomite caves are strong competitors in importance, while the discovery of A. bahrelghazali in Chad is far west of the rift. Beginnings of Homo (from about 2.8m years ago) It is certain that our own genus, Homo , emerged at some point from within the australopithecines. But exactly how and when is still difficult to ascertain, because cranial remains—skulls—are very scarce in the period between 3 and 2 million years ago. This is a matter of chance; before and after, we have plenty of them. Large numbers of teeth prove that hominins were in eastern and southern Africa during this period, and rare finds of crania such as P. aethiopicus and A. garhi make the point that others could be found at any moment. In later times, Homo is distinguished by its very large brain—about three times the size of a chimpanzee's brain—but this was not so in the beginning. At the start, Homo would have been almost indistinguishable from australopithecines, with just some small anatomical details picking it out, especially the shape of its molar and premolar teeth. Fragmentary jaws and teeth from Ledi Geraru and Hadar in Ethiopia, then from Chemeron in Kenya, trace the early story of our direct ancestors from 2.8 to 2.4 million years ago. As we approach 2 million years, Homo appears much more clearly in famous skull and other fossil discoveries from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) and East Turkana (Kenya), and latterly South Africa . As well as at least three species in Africa— Homo habilis , Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus — Homo of similar age is suddenly found outside Africa, especially at Dmanisi in modern-day Georgia, where the finds are as old as those from Olduvai. Together with first archaeological finds of stone tools and cutmarks on animal bones indicating butchery, these fossils combine to show us that Homo had become highly successful within a million years of its origins, and had spread out far across Asia as far as China. These first arrivals must have been a species of early Homo , but it is only at Dmanisi and Lantien in China that we have early fossil remains. Technology was almost certainly part of the adaptation that allowed this great expansion. Tool-making is the most obvious part of early cultural behavior, and it is preserved as hard evidence by the presence of stone tools. First dates for stone tool-making have moved back in an exciting way. The 2 million-year barrier was broken around 1970, then the 3 million-year barrier just recently with discoveries of stone tools at Lomekwi and Nyayanga in Kenya. We do not know who made these tools, but it means stone artifacts emerged around the same time that early Homo appeared alongside the australopithecines. As "stone age visiting cards"—as the archaeologist Glynn Isaac labeled them—they are hugely useful for telling us where hominins went, and what they were doing. Talking point: Who made the first tools? A generation ago, it would have been axiomatic that the emergence of tools and Homo were linked, and that they signaled a major step forward—the development of early human culture. Now, there is a different perspective, largely owing to detailed studies of living animals . To a striking degree, chimpanzees make a range of tools as well as use them, and so do the small capuchin monkeys of South America. Birds too are in the picture, especially the New Caledonian crow . Their tools may be simple—mainly made from plant materials—but they include stones used for hammering. There are many indications that this animal behavior is cultural , handed on as learned tradition. Granted that we, Homo sapiens , are the most cultural animal of all, there has to be a possibility that all hominins were toolmakers and users, given that all fossil hominins are more closely related to us than to the chimpanzee, which is itself a habitual toolmaker. Having said that, we don't know who made the earliest stone tools. We know that when Paranthropus and other australopithecines eventually disappeared, toolmaking continued—but this does not rule out earlier tool use by some of them. Most early stone artifacts, from about 3 to 1.8 million, are placed in the "Oldowan tradition" —named after Olduvai Gorge where so many tools have been discovered, typically made from carefully selected lava or quartzite rocks. Both heavy core tools such as "choppers" and sharper stone flakes were used for a variety of tasks—certainly including animal butchery, and almost certainly in the preparation of plant foods and shaping of wooden tools (although these did not survive for our discovery until much later ). This toolkit literally gave early Homo species a cutting edge in the struggle for survival in varied environments, and may have been a key factor underlying their ability to expand their niche into new areas, including Jordan , north India and China well over 2 million years ago. Homo erectus (about 1.8m up to 0.5m years ago) After the rapidly expanding australopithecines, it is a relief to find the next 1.5 million years of human evolution looking rather simpler. One hominin— Homo erectus —becomes supreme, and the archaeology is dominated by one great theme: the handaxe or Acheulean tradition . Homo erectus first appeared as long as 2 million years ago, and was living in southern, eastern and northern Africa as well as the Middle and Far East, according to its fossil remains. It was far more human than earlier hominins, with brain size ranging from about 500cc in early examples to more than 1,000cc in later times—around 70% of our modern cranial capacity. Its limb proportions were fairly modern too, showing a striding form of bipedalism, evident both at Dmanisi in Georgia, and in the near-complete skeleton of "Turkana Boy" in Kenya. Homo erectus was wide-ranging and capable, as its tools confirm, having been found all over Africa and most of Asia. The handaxe form emerged around 1.75 million years ago in eastern Africa, probably as a good multi-purpose solution to everyday needs, and again made from lava or quartzite. The handaxe concept spread very widely; indeed, this may have been the first great diffusion of a "package of ideas." Some were so finely worked that they have been deemed the first art —or at least a sign of aesthetic feeling. In fact, Homo erectus may represent a group of similar species that existed in parallel—and that in some locations, could be quite varied. The single site of Dmanisi has offered up as much variety in five skulls as has been found across Africa. Existing finds make a giant "geographical donut," with nothing in the middle across the whole of southern Asia from Georgia to China. While Far Eastern Homo erectus was very similar to the African species, there are anomalies in this part of the story. For example, a remarkable and diminutive hominin species, Homo floresiensis —discovered in 2003 on the remote island of Flores in Indonesia, and often known as "the Hobbit"– had anatomical details, especially of its wrists, to suggest it could have been descended from an earlier Homo than Homo erectus . In southern Africa, meanwhile, Homo naledi was a primitive-seeming species that dates back just 300,000 years, and seems likely to have been a small-brained descendant of an early Homo erectus . It may have lived in gallery forest alongside streams, and survived in splendid isolation. The handaxes, too, were not all the same. The idea of making them seems to have spread far and wide, but not everywhere—they are absent in much of the Far East, for example. While some are now known from China, the famous fossil site of Zhoukoudian near Beijing—where remains of more than 40 Homo erectus individuals have been found—lacks them entirely. In Europe, ice ages and temperate periods alternated many times, so across the last 1 million years much of the early record has been erased by ice sheets. There is no definite evidence of Homo erectus but a probable sister species, Homo antecessor , lived in Atapuerca , northern Spain, perhaps as long ago as 1.4 million years. In this climatically challenging environment, we could wonder how "primitive" humans survived—but at the Arago cave in the Pyrenees, near France's Mediterranean coast, we know they were butchering reindeer 600,000 years ago and so able to endure the most severe cold. There are three main things we can say about the hominins of this long period up to half a million years ago: they were widely dispersed (hence highly adaptable and resilient); technically capable to the point that at least some of them used fire; and were evolving large brains that reflected their highly social nature. Fire seems to have been very important in human adaptation . It fits with ideas about cooking —the need for high-quality food to fuel the brain—and a reordering of the day to provide more social time , especially in the evening. Fire was also a key enabler of other technologies, in time allowing these early humans to begin pottery and metalworking. The origins of fire's "domestication" are far from certain, but are likely to date back at least 1 million years. Opportunistic use probably came before full control, with the ability to kindle fire eventually releasing humans from the need to keep it alight for long periods. Talking point: The benefits of a bigger brain In brain size, Homo erectus was certainly not static. Contrary to a general impression that most of the great brain enlargement in Homo is relatively recent, there was already some overlap with modern humans half a million years ago. Although it is natural to think that to be clever is an end in itself, large brains like ours are costly enough to take 20–30% of our energy, and they have to pay their way. Most species succeed with far less than hominins, and to treble brain size in 2 million years is a remarkable phenomenon. Such an expansion was only possible through a high-quality diet and reduction in the size of other major organs. As the large brain is energetically expensive, it must have had evolutionary drivers. One of the most appealing is the "social brain hypothesis" , whose core idea is that in some environments, ecological survival favored larger groups. We know from regular stone tool transport distances of 5–10 km, and occasional ones of 20–30km, that hominins were ranging much further than apes even 2 million years ago. The social management of such groups is very demanding, and may have been a spur towards developing larger brains. The acceleration in change that is such a feature of modern life seems to have started around half a million years ago. In Africa, Homo erectus gave way to larger-brained descendants such as Homo heidelbergensis , which was also present in Europe. But in archaeology, major developments were seen even before the first early modern human fossils emerged. Two key developments were the appearance of projectile (spear) points and the long-distance transport of materials. The stone spear points indicated that their makers had mastered hafting , and hence had knowledge of fixatives such as glue or twine. In southern Africa, we see the beginnings of these developments as long as 400,000 years ago. With their bigger brains, larger social groups and better weapons, hominins developed and honed their unique hunting techniques , often working by ambush and taking prime animals rather than the old and young. While that pattern may date back more than a million years, in the last 50,000 years this practice may have been so intense that it contributed to the demise of many large animals, including the mammoth, mastodons, and giant marsupials. In all this, there is plentiful evidence of high skill. In the Levallois technique , which few can reproduce today, the maker prepared a stone core by careful flaking, and had to "see" the artifact before releasing in one blow. Such skills could approach art . Numbers of ancient pieces including some of the handaxes would qualify as art by modern definitions, although we know little about the past intent. Such finds suggest the basic abilities for art were in place as much as a million years ago, but its projection into non-utilitarian forms gives another level to the evidence of human intellect. Modern humans (from around 300,000 years ago) Many people look at human evolution chiefly to explain us, Homo sapiens . But we are the culmination of a long process of evolution—no more than 5% of the whole hominin story by time spent on this planet. Until the 1980s, our species was thought to have first appeared around 40,000 years ago in a "human revolution"—an explosion of creativity marked by the flowering of cave art and sophisticated tools. However, many events in this analysis were incorrectly concertinaed together by a ceiling in radiocarbon dates , which the rapid decay rate of carbon-14 limited to a maximum age of about 40,000 years. Since then, new dating techniques based on other radioisotopes and new finds have expanded the timescale for the existence of Homo sapiens by almost a factor of ten. In fact, the first early modern humans , closely resembling us, appeared about 300,000 years ago in northern and eastern Africa. This drastic change of timescale alters our perspective in ways that are still being explored. For a start, we now know that for a long period, the earliest modern humans were not alone. They existed alongside Homo neanderthalensis , the Neanderthals—the people of the north, ranging from western Europe to Siberia—for hundreds of thousands of years. To the east, DNA studies have recognized a probable sister group of the Neanderthals, the Denisovans —best known from Denisova cave in the Altai mountains of Siberia—while to the south, Homo naledi was still there, and the Kabwe skull from Zambia is evidence for at least one other species. Astonishing progress in genomic research has shown that the Neanderthals and Denisovans were separate species , but so closely related to our H. sapiens ancestors that interbreeding was possible. Does the ability of these species to interact imply the existence of language? As with fire, language origins have been one of the major debating points within palaeoanthropology. Small clues are enigmatic. More than 2 million years ago, a mutation reduced the power of the chewing muscles in human ancestors. That may indicate they were doing more food preparation, but also possibly making more controlled use of their mouths . Expanded nerve outlets in the thoracic vertebrae appeared in Homo erectus , indicating the millisecond control of breathing that is necessary for language. And later, 400,000-year-old Homo heidelbergensis remains from Atapuerca in northern Spain had perfectly preserved ear canals which were tuned to the frequencies used in human language. As these Atapuerca hominins were probable Neanderthal ancestors, there is a good chance that at least a simple form of language was very widespread at this point, if not earlier. Paintings first appeared—or were preserved—around 50,000 years ago, but beads and ornaments can be traced back much earlier. The oldest so far are shell beads from Es-Skhul cave on Mount Carmel in Israel, dating back about 130,000 years. They mark out personal identity, and hence the idea that one person can appreciate these signals in another. Shell beads occurred again at Blombos in South Africa about 70,000 years ago, along with a piece of engraved ochre. Burials have a similar antiquity: both Neanderthal and early modern burials occurred from about 130,000 years ago—although older finds such as the numerous human remains in one cave at Atapuerca, or cutmarks on a skull at Bodo in Ethiopia, may indicate there was already a special interest in human bodies. The burials suggest that early humans had a strong idea of the needs of others. Some burials—both of early moderns and Neanderthals—had red ochre smeared on the bodies. This is likely to have carried symbolic significance. "Symbolism" has played a crucial part in all modern human behavior, underpinning language, religion, and art. However, studying its origins presents pitfalls, because other animals seem capable of using symbols, as when a chimpanzee offers a clipped leaf to another. The line between such "signs" and symbols is easily blurred. But the projection of symbols into the outside world in the form of material objects is a measurable step, so long as they survive. The beads and burials are among the earliest evidence of behavior which may, in fact, have had much deeper origins. The great breakout (about 100,000 years ago) More than 100,000 years ago, the early modern humans began to expand outside Africa, leading to the greatest diaspora in human history. Variation in modern human DNA preserves geographic signals that tell us something about past population movements. Even better, fossil DNA can be isolated from bone specimens up to about 50,000 years old in cool climates, and sometimes even older. The results confirm that the Neanderthals were a truly separate species, with their ancestors separating from ours between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago, and living on until about 40,000 years ago. Some of the clearest genetic signals come from parts of the genome that do not recombine each generation—that is, the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA. These have allowed scientists to assemble "family trees" which show that all modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) are related within about 150,000 years. They also indicate, along with the archaeological evidence, that modern humans surged out of Africa after that date, sweeping around the world and eventually completely replacing other hominins such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans—although some of their genes survived in us, thanks to rare past matings between species. In essence, this was a great population expansion rather than a migration. Populations remained in Africa and along the way, but this astonishing wave of advance headed east across Asia, then north into Europe, and ultimately to all parts of the world. The start was necessarily from north-east Africa, offering a land route into the Middle East and, at times of low sea-level, a likely southern one to Arabia . Climate changes almost certainly played a major part: each time "green Sahara" became desert Sahara in the rhythmic changes of the ice ages, this would pulse people out into the Levant . Modern humans are visible there around 130,000 years ago—but Neanderthals succeeded them around 80,000 years ago as conditions became colder again. Probably by then, the great move east had already happened: early modern humans had covered the 12,000 kilometers to Australia as long as 70,000 years ago. At least 45,000 years ago, they were in north-east China , perhaps arriving by a route north of the Himalayas. From there, it was 6,000km to the Bering landbridge that would lead to Alaska. By 14,500 years ago, modern humans were in Monte Verde, Chile after an astonishing 15,000km journey down the Americas. The severe cold of the last glacial maximum , 20,000 years ago, must have slowed down this progress. Sea levels dropped more than 100 meters, and northern populations were rolled back by the ice advances. Many American archaeologists still believe the first settlement in their continent began after this, but footprint trails in New Mexico dated to the 20,000s BCE are part of growing evidence for earlier dates. Such debates do not alter the big picture: at times, our direct ancestors were progressing about a kilometer every five years; at others, they were shooting forward great distances. Some of them, at least, had become adventurers, with something like the wanderlust characteristic of modern explorers. They traveled both inland and along the coasts, by foot and certainly by boat. They covered high and low terrain, in warm and cold, wet and dry—all the while, living by the ancient and enduring adaptation of hunting and gathering. Last of the Neanderthals (about 40,000 years ago) Historically, studies in human evolution greatly emphasized Europe. While the balance has rightly been redressed to a global perspective in the last 50 years, Europe remains important in our record—both because northern climates better preserve organic remains including DNA, and because this rich record has been studied intensively for more than 150 years. Amid the great diaspora of early modern humans, a newer perspective is that, by the time the last Neanderthals were gone from Europe, fully modern humans had already dispersed through Australia and throughout the Far East. But these events remain puzzling because the Neanderthals had held their own with early modern humans for hundreds of thousands of years across a fluctuating frontier, and were dominant in the Middle East as late as 60,000 years ago. The Neanderthals have an enduring fascination because they are so like us and yet so different. They were stocky and strong, and had a brain size as large as ours. Their abilities have been debated for more than a century, but there is strong evidence that they are an alternative humanity rather than an inferior humanity. They had full control of fire, made bone tools, and used pigments as well as burying their dead. Their replacement by modern humans was completed between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. What gave the moderns the edge? It could be that a known series of rapid climate fluctuations destabilized the Neanderthal populations. There is evidence that they were living in small groups, under stress and with significant inbreeding , and a consensus now is that demographic factors were a main cause of their disappearance. Talking point: Art and technology In Europe, the traditional idea of a "creative revolution" was highlighted by the disappearance of the Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago, and the arrival of new populations with new toolkits—the Upper Paleolithic with its blade tools, bone tools and artwork. Elsewhere, such advanced traits often appeared earlier. At the moment, the earliest known cave art comes from Karampuang Hill on Sulawesi, Indonesia, where there are representations of humans and animals dated to 51,000 years ago. European art is considerably later, except for some markings which could have been made by Neanderthals, who certainly used pigments. From around 40,000 years ago, there began to be other representations, including one of exceptional importance: a small statue of mammoth ivory found in a cave in what is now southern Germany. It combines the head of a lion with a human body , showing the artist's ability to morph a 3D form which may have had religious significance. By the time of the 20,000s BCE, we see many signs of new technologies and skills: basketry in the Gravettian phase of central Europe; the first pottery in China ; polished axes in Australia and New Guinea ; and specialized use of marine resources in South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere. Probably, there were also the first domesticated dogs , who became well-documented in Europe about 15,000 years ago. After the ice (about 20,000 years ago) Following the glacial maximum, there came a steady return to warmer conditions, culminating in the period we call the Holocene . Ice sheets retreated to the north, temperate vegetation appeared and the sea came up, with profound effects on coastal settlement around the world. Along with new environmental stresses, around 12,000 years ago came the next major shift in human adaptation: the agricultural revolution . The domestication of plants and animals soon led to vast increases in population numbers. Villages, towns and civilizations followed, ultimately made possible by the control of food supplies that hunters and gatherers could never have, but also dependent on technological advances and complex social behavior. It is easy to take for granted that we are human. But knowing the human evolutionary story, even if at times from only a few fossil fragments, shows it could easily have been otherwise. Had climate patterns been slightly different, Neanderthals might have survived. They or the Denisovans could be carrying the flag of progress, in a different way and at a different pace. Today, we are still not on top of things. The greatest changes in the world are humanly created, and they stem above all from our vast numbers. For at least 99.5% of the time of Homo , our ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers, with global numbers no more than a few million. Yet now, over a single human lifespan, the global population has grown fourfold, from 2 billion to 8 billion. The story of human evolution is about more than bones and stones. It helps us to see our many strengths and limitations. The strengths include an ability to manage rapid cultural change, especially in technology—the key to our survival over a very long period, and vital for coping with environmental change. But this ability is also having many unforeseen consequences to our planet and its biodiversity, and to our own human societies. It is a triumph that most of the 8 billion humans alive today are living relatively happily and, thanks to modern medicine, for longer than ever before. But it is all part of a high-risk species strategy that has characterized the story of human evolution from its earliest origins nearly 8 million years ago. Throughout this story, success has regularly thrown up new sets of problems. Our ancient ancestors had no choice but to forge forwards into the unknown, adapting to survive. Many times over, they surmounted challenges at least as great as those we face today. Provided by The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 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Who are the 10 biggest UK lottery winners?But it is not the largest prize a person has won in this country. Here are the 10 biggest UK lottery winners – all from EuroMillions draws – and what some of them did with their fortunes. – Anonymous, £195,707,000 A UK ticket-holder scooped the record EuroMillions jackpot of £195 million on July 19 2022 – the biggest National Lottery win of all time. – Joe and Jess Thwaite, £184,262,899.10 Joe and Jess Thwaite, from Gloucester, scooped a then record-breaking £184,262,899 with a Lucky Dip ticket for the draw on May 10 2022. At the time, Joe was a communications sales engineer, and Jess ran a hairdressing salon with her sister. – Unclaimed ticket holder, £177 million Tuesday’s winner is wealthier than former One Direction member Harry Styles and heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua, who are both worth £175 million, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List. Players have been urged to check their tickets to see if they can claim the prize. – Anonymous, £170,221,000 The fourth biggest winner of the National Lottery to date scooped £170 million in October 2019, after matching all the numbers in a Must Be Won draw. – Colin and Chris Weir, £161,653,000 Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs, North Ayrshire, bagged their historic winnings in July 2011, making them the biggest UK winners at the time. Colin used £2.5 million of his fortune to invest in his beloved Partick Thistle Football Club, which led to one of the stands at the stadium being named after him. He later acquired a 55% shareholding in the club, which was to be passed into the hands of the local community upon his death. He died in December 2019, aged 71. The couple also set up the Weir Charitable Trust in 2013 and donated £1 million to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. They divorced in the same year as Colin’s death. – Adrian and Gillian Bayford, £148,656,000 Adrian and Gillian won 190 million euros in a EuroMillions draw in August 2012, which came to just over £148 million. The couple bought a Grade II listed estate in Cambridgeshire, complete with cinema and billiards room, but it was sold in 2021, some years after the pair divorced, as reported by The Mirror. – Anonymous, £123,458,008 The seventh biggest National Lottery winner won a Superdraw rollover jackpot in June 2019, and decided not to go public with their success. – Anonymous, £122,550,350 After nine rollovers, one lucky anonymous ticket-holder bagged more than £122 million in April 2021. – Anonymous, £121,328,187 Another of the UK’s top 10 lottery winners found their fortune through a Superdraw jackpot rollover, this time in April 2018. – Frances and Patrick Connolly, £114,969,775 Former social worker and teacher Frances set up two charitable foundations after she and her husband won almost £115 million on New Year’s Day 2019. She estimates that she has already given away £60 million to charitable causes, as well as friends and family. She considers helping others to be an addiction, saying: “It gives you a buzz and it’s addictive. I’m addicted to it now.”
Kolkata: The juggernaut of the BJP-led NDA, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee’s TMC registered a six-on-six clean sweep. In its process of continuing to deny the BJP its coveted foothold in the state’s political theatre, the TMC retained five of the six seats it had previously won during the 2021 polls, while wresting the key Madarihat seat from the saffron camp in north Bengal’s Alipurduar district, and opening its account in the segment for the first time. The scene was much brighter for the ruling NDA in neighbouring Bihar where it swept the bypolls to four assembly segments, retaining Imamganj and wresting from the INDIA bloc Tarari, Ramgarh and Belaganj, in a shot in the arm ahead of the assembly polls due next year. In Assam, the BJP and its allies retained four assembly seats and were leading in one, where the bypolls were held on November 13. The sole assembly segment of Gambegre in Meghalaya was won by the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) nominee and chief minister’s wife Mehtab Chandee Agitok Sangma, by a margin of over 4,500 votes. The NPP is a constituent of the NDA at the Centre. The TMC whitewash in Bengal included two of its candidates, Sangita Roy from the Sitai seat and Sk Rabiul Islam from Haroa, registering victories by margins of over one lakh votes. The bypolls in the state were also held in Naihati, Medinipur, Taldangra, and Madarihat (ST), after sitting MLAs vacated their seats after winning the Lok Sabha elections. These were the first set of elections in the state, held in select rural and suburban pockets, after the RG Kar hospital rape and murder incident, which took significant areas of Bengal by storm barely two months ago. Saturday’s results suggested that the anti-establishment edge in those agitations, confined largely to urban pockets, made little or no dent in the Trinamool Congress vote bank in the state’s countryside, and the party romped home in continuation of its winning streak in the 2024 general elections. In Haroa, a constituency overwhelmingly dominated by minorities, the BJP was pushed to the third position with the All India Secular Front (ISF) candidate Piyarul Islam finishing a distant runner-up, behind TMC’s Rabiul. The saffron candidate forfeited his poll deposit in the seat, prompting party leader Suvendu Adhikari to state: “Minorities don’t vote for the BJP”. The poll results brought no joy to either the CPI(M)-led Left Front, which had hoped to capitalise on the RG Kar protests to revive its fortunes, or its erstwhile ally, the Congress. Both suffered crushing defeats in all the six segments and lost poll deposits. In Bihar, candidates of the Jan Suraaj floated recently by former political strategist Prashant Kishor with much fanfare, lost deposits in all but one seat, in a clear indication that the fledgling party, despite claims of taking the political landscape in the state by storm, needs to cover much ground. The biggest setback for the INDIA bloc, helmed by the RJD, came in Belaganj, a seat the party had been winning since its inception in the 1990s, but this time lost to the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the arch-rival of its founding president Lalu Prasad. The JD(U) candidate Manorama Devi, a former MLC, defeated RJD’s debutant nominee Vishwanath Kumar Singh by over 21,000 votes. The margin of victory was greater than the 17,285 votes polled by Mohd Amjad of the Jan Suraaj, whom the RJD may have liked to blame for its defeat by causing a split in Muslim votes. JD(U) national spokesman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said, “The people of Bihar deserve kudos for rejecting the negativity of the opposition and reposing their trust in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Under his leadership, the NDA will win more than 200 seats of the 243-strong assembly in 2025.” In Assam, while the BJP emerged victor in the Behali and Dholai (SC) segments and looked all set to win the Samaguri seat, its allies, the United Peoples’ Party Liberal (UPPL) and the AGP comfortably bagged the Sidli and the Bongaiganon constituencies, respectively, humbling their nearest Congress rivals. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma termed the wins a testament of people’s support to “good governance and development”. Maintaining that the people of Gambegre voted along expected lines, Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma said, “Voters are intelligent. They know what is good for them and how they should vote. In this election, people voted specifically for change,” he said. “I would like to thank and congratulate the ‘Maa, Mati, and Manush’ from the bottom of my heart. Your blessings will help us work for the people in the coming days,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on X. TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee congratulated the candidates, claiming they had “defied the narratives created by the Zamindars, the media, and a section of the Kol HC to defame Bengal for their vested interests.” BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, however, downplayed the significance of the results. “Bypoll results cannot serve as a reliable indicator. Whether the people are with the TMC or against them will be reflected in the assembly elections,” he said. With this victory, TMC’s tally in the 294-member state assembly rose to 216, further consolidating its position. The BJP’s tally dropped to 69, from 77 in 2021.Democrats plan to elect new party leader just days after Trump's inauguration
Head coach Vanni Sartini paid the price Monday for the Vancouver Whitecaps’ mediocre results this past season and subsequent first-round playoff exit. His firing came about two weeks after the Major League Soccer team won a play-in game before falling to top-seeded Los Angeles FC in a three-game series that went the distance. “The desperation on my side is absolutely there,” said Axel Schuster, the Whitecaps’ sporting director and chief executive officer. One of the reasons for the change, he said, is everyone in the organization, including himself, needs a reminder that playoff success next year is imperative. “We cannot not get there.” The Whitecaps haven’t reached the conference semifinals since 2017. In a one-hour availability with reporters, Schuster noted the team had the second-worst home record in the Western Conference this year and recorded just two points over its last seven regular-season games. He referenced the need for fresh energy from a new coach and added there was no firm timeline in place for a replacement to be named. “I had to make a professional decision (for) how we can get the biggest impact to make this step forward and to get to a progression,” he said. The Whitecaps’ late-season slump dropped them to eighth place in the West with a record of 13-13-8. Vancouver won a play-in game at Portland before dropping a 1-0 decision at LAFC in the deciding game of the series. Vancouver also won its third-straight Canadian championship this season, beating Toronto FC 4-2 on penalties after the final ended in a 0-0 tie. “I took my time with this decision, and it was not taken lightly,” Schuster said. Sartini, a 47-year-old from Florence, Italy, took over coaching duties on an interim basis in August 2021 after the Whitecaps dismissed Marc Dos Santos. He was officially named head coach that November. “For the last three years and three months, it has been an absolute honour to be the head coach of Vancouver Whitecaps FC,” Sartini said in a release. “I will always be grateful to Axel Schuster and ownership for entrusting me to be the technical lead of this club in such an important time. “Vancouver will always have a special place in my heart and my wife’s heart,” he added. He posted a record of 57-51-39 across all competitions. The exuberant Italian made headlines in November 2023 when he publicly criticized a referee following a playoff game and made a joke about being a suspect if the official were to be found dead. He was suspended for the first six games of the 2024 MLS campaign, fined US$20,000 and ordered to complete a league-approved behavioural assessment. The coach later apologized for the comments and his suspension was cut to four games. Sartini came to Vancouver in 2019 as Dos Santos’ assistant coach and spent two seasons with the first team before being named the club’s “director of methodology” and taking over coaching the U-23 team in 2020. Before joining the Whitecaps, he worked as a coach educator for the Italian Football Federation and the U.S. Soccer Federation, and coached several different clubs in Italy.
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In the Indian scenario, even calling the framers of the Constitution of India as ‘founding fathers’ is very patriarchal and paternalistic. The fact that the ‘founding mothers’ of the Indian Republic, the eminent women in the Constituent Assembly, too painstakingly co-authored the Constitution, has been spitefully hidden from the popular imagination. Achyut Chetan writes in his Founding Mothers of the Indian Republic: Gender Politics of the Framing of the Constitution (2022): “It is through the dynamics of will, consent, and, frequently enough, dissent, that women members carried the feminist movement through and beyond the Constituent Assembly. Each article of the Constitution, therefore, is a point of diffraction in the history of Indian feminism. The Constitution is drafted not just by the consent of women but also by their will.” However, Christine Keating in her Framing the Postcolonial Sexual Contract: Democracy, Fraternalism, and State Authority in India (2007) demonstrated how the ‘founding fathers’ constitutionally subjugated the woman: “The Constituent Assembly struggled to reconcile their commitment to an egalitarian polity with their efforts to build consent for the political authority of the new Indian state...the assembly settled on a compromise, what I call the postcolonial sexual contract, to resolve that dilemma: they established equality in the public sphere as a fundamental right for women yet sanctioned discriminatory personal laws that maintained women’s subordination in the family in order to secure fraternal acquiescence to the centralized rule.” The beginnings The founding mothers cobbled an intersectional alliance with B.R. Ambedkar for the realisation of social revolution. They shared his sceptical attitude towards the romantic celebration of Indian culture which is deeply anchored in the brahmanical patriarchy. Amrit Kaur, a prominent founding mother of the Constitution, asserted in 1932 that the women of India were no longer willing to submit to standards, whether local, political, or ethical, which had been set for them by the male conscience of the community. The founding mothers laboured in and out of the Constituent Assembly to break the patriarchal ecosystem. But the nation has failed them deplorably. Fight against a goliath The founding mothers conceived the Fundamental Rights not just as injunctions against the state but also as a social charter that restores their inherent freedoms curtailed by the behemoths in the private sphere such as religion and family which enjoyed privileged insulation from political interventions. Hansa Mehta and Amrit Kaur demanded that a Uniform Civil Code capable of arresting the aggrandising social-patriarchal power must be included in the Fundamental Rights. And when the Uniform Civil Code was relegated to the Directive Principles, they played a remarkable role in bringing a prelude to the Directive Principles, that they are ‘fundamental in the governance of the country and the state has a duty to apply them in making laws’. This prelude, incorporated at the behest of the founding mothers, played a vital role in the ascendancy of the Directive Principles in the constitutional jurisprudence of India in the 1980s. Begum Aizaz Rasul articulated that secularism was the most outstanding feature of the Constitution. In the Sub Committee on Fundamental Rights, Hansa Mehta tried to limit the right to religion as she believed that it would curtail women’s right to equality and social reforms such as the abolition of child marriage. Hansa Mehta and Amrit Kaur demanded the term ‘free practice of religion’ be replaced by ‘freedom of religious worship’ as a constitutional carte blanche for religion would impede Indian women’s emancipation. In Amrit Kaur’s note of dissent on the ‘Freedom of Religion’, she vigorously underscored the anti-woman tendency of religious practices: “[unbridled freedom of religion] would not only bar the future legislation but would even invalidate past legislations such as the Widow Remarriage Act, the Sarda Act or even law abolishing sati. Everyone is aware how many evil practices which one would like to abolish, are carried on in the name of religion, for example, purdah, polygamy...dedication of girls to temples, to mention a few.” A disheartening chapter in the life of the Indian Republic is that the man’s right to religion conquered the woman’s right to equality and dignity. Still a struggle Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay believed that the Constitution heralded a new beginning for women in India as it guaranteed equality and justice for them. But this euphoria did not last for long. The Government of India’s official report, ‘Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India’ (1974), concluded that the Indian Republic had failed to achieve equality for its womenfolk even after two decades of the promise made in the Preamble. After the passing away of the ‘founding mothers’, Indian feminist constitutionalism has been affected. Despite strong women leaders in politics, India has not been blessed with a feminist stateswoman or jurist. Women’s presence in the corridors of power remains abysmal. The Uniform Civil Code designed to dispel gender injustice has been a cheque drawn in favour of the Indian woman by the founding fathers and mothers. But it has been dishonoured by the Republic’s political bankers despite sufficient jurisprudential funds at their disposal. Faisal C.K. is Deputy Law Secretary to the Government of Kerala. The views expressed are personal Published - November 26, 2024 12:45 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit India / constitution / Republic Day / history / laws / genderSANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s prosecutor’s office confirmed Tuesday that President Gabriel Boric is being investigated for sexual harassment, in connection with a case in which the president says he was systematically harassed via email by a woman over a decade ago. The country’s attorney general, Cristián Crisosto, said in a statement that prosecutors have opened “a criminal case related to" allegations filed by an unidentified woman in September. The complaint alleges sexual harassment as well as the leaking of private images. Crisosto did not provide details of the alleged events, or say when or where they took place. Boric, 38, has denied the accusations through his attorney, Jonatan Valenzuela, who in a statement described the president as “the victim of systematic harassment via email.” The alleged harassment occurred between July 2013 and July 2014, when Boric was an intern in the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas, near Patagonia, and was already a well-known figure in national politics thanks to his role in student-led protests a couple of years earlier. Valenzuela said Boric “never had an emotional or friendly relationship” with the woman and both have not been in communication since July 2014 when she is alleged to have sent the last of dozens of emails, some with explicit images, to the now president. Valenzuela said his team handed authorities all communications between Boric and the woman after learning of her complaint, to “clarify the status of the president as a victim.” Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
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Approximately 300 people attended the grand opening of the Subhani Family Clubhouse Thursday in Harker Heights. The event included numerous presentations and addresses, a ribbon cutting held in collaboration with the Harker Heights Chamber of Commerce, free refreshments and tours of the facility among other activities. The new clubhouse is at 200 Nola Ruth Blvd. It is the 30th location for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas and the first in Harker Heights. “We have grown and grown,” said Tiana Quick, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas. “Collectively, we serve almost 13,000 youth annually.” The building was named after businessman and philanthropist Abdul Subhani. He is the president and CEO of Centex Technologies, an IT consulting firm that has offices in Killeen, Austin, Dallas and Atlanta. Subhani was on hand for the event and gave a brief address, accepted numerous awards and cut the ribbon at the new clubhouse. For Subhani, the event brought him back to his roots. His first job after obtaining a post-secondary degree in information systems was working as a technology director for the Boys & Girls Clubs from 2002 to 2004. “It was a great experience,” said Subhani. “I’m here in America right now because of them.” He elaborated that the clubs sponsoring him was what enabled him to get a visa to stay in the country. Subhani is originally from Pakistan and grew up there before moving to the United States in 1998. After working for the clubs, he founded Centex Technologies in 2006. “Today is a monumental day for Harker Heights,” said Subhani to the roughly 300 in attendance. He explained that while the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas have a wide range of locations in the area, until Thursday, it was missing one in Heights. The new clubhouse, which is approximately 7400-square feet, will serve children from 6 to 12 years old. Activites at the building include esports gaming, a teaching kitchen, family counseling, creative arts and more. “Subhani family clubhouse is more than just a building,” said Subhani, elaborating that it is a place for children to learn, grow and thrive. Quick highlighted the family counseling and other mental health supported offered at the new clubhouse. She said it has become a new focus for the clubs ever since the COVID-19 pandemic excerbated mental health issues among children and youth. “If they’re struggling with their mental wellness, they can’t learn,” she said. One key aspect of the mental health care offered at the clubhouse is free counseling for children and their families. Quick noted that was a big benefit, saying, “Counseling is very hard to obtain right now.” There were numerous presentations at the event from a variety of local leaders. State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, read a resolution from the Texas House of Representatives. Speaking about the clubhouse, he said, “Too many kids live in chaos; this is a respite from that chaos.” While Thursday provided an opportunity for people to tour the new facility and learn more about it, the clubhouse will not start serving children until after the holiday break. The first day will be Jan. 6.Asian Stocks to Waver as US Shrugs Off Tariffs: Markets Wrap
THE National Alliance of Reading Advocates (NARA), a coalition of over 100 organizations, held its inaugural conference at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila on Saturday. Convened by the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the event tackled the ongoing literacy crisis in the country and the promotion of reading culture among Filipinos. Register to read this story and more for free . Signing up for an account helps us improve your browsing experience. OR See our subscription options.
Although Queens (Reinas) is Switzerland’s entry for the International Feature Oscar this year, the movie is actually set in Peru and told in Spanish. Director and co-writer Klaudia Reynicke , who left her native Peru at the age of 10, says the film helped her reconnect with her roots after spending most of her life in Europe and the U.S. “I didn’t think it in a conscious way, but I had a need of going back to Peru and shooting something in Spanish,” she said during a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season showcase. “Now that I have done it,” Reynicke added, “I can see that it was actually very important this reconnection, something has changed. I guess cinema allows this, right?” While Queens is not Reynicke’s own personal story, “it’s definitely very, very connected to it,” she said. The touching family drama — which also has comedic elements — is set in 1992 Peru as the country undergoes social and political upheaval. Single mother Elena is making plans to leave the country with her daughters Lucía and Aurora, but needs their predominantly absent father, Carlos, to sign papers to allow the daughters to cross a border. The girls, whom the well-intentioned but hapless Carlos calls “queens,” are at first skeptical of him. But they eventually warm to their father as the impending farewell from home and family draws ever nearer. RELATED: Contenders International — Deadline’s Complete Coverage This is Reynicke’s third feature, and premiered at Sundance before going on to win the Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature in the Generation Kplus strand of Berlin. In Locarno, it won the Audience Award and took Best Screenplay at the Festival de Lima in Peru. Gonzalo Molina , who plays Carlos, describes the character as “a broken man” who thinks the only way to be forgiven “by these two lovely kids is calling them queens ... Carlos thinks that they are better in many ways than him.” He also “doesn’t know how to repair the damage, but he tries to make things a little better.” RELATED: Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery Luana Vega , who plays Aurora, says she had to “search for these feelings” when playing “the resentment Aurora has ... Aurora has lived more of this not-present father and Lucía hasn’t, so I think that’s why she tries to take advantage of him.” And yet, the family does come together before parting ways, with Reynicke framing them as a unit. “When you feel that this group of people is becoming a family finally, and the camera embraces them, that’s when you know there is going to be a big separation,” she said. “But to me it’s not really a bad ending, it’s actually life. The family has gained in love and has gained in solidity.” Check back Monday for the panel video.