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pugh-bug · 3 years

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Scott Lang x reader

Chapter 4 of this slow burn (which is fitting because I post the chapters slowly) story

Finally! The next chapter will follow on from this because it’s going to end up too long if I don’t post this chapter now. I hope you enjoy it! :)

You’d been stressed the last week and everyone could tell. A twenty thousand word uni essay you thought was in for the end of term turned out to have been due two weeks earlier. It only took one text from a fellow class member, who you never really spoke to or considered, asking you what your grade was to send you into a frantic meltdown. Luckily the Avengers were busy so you had Stark Tower to yourself for a few hours and took full advantage. By crying. A lot. Begging your professor to give you more time to hand it in (because you were sick cough cough) and planning the stupid thing to get it over with. Did you get it done eventually? Yes. Would a drunken chicken be impressed by your words? Doubtful.

Normally you gave Bruce your essays to look over but you couldn’t bring yourself to show him your so called ‘work’ so into the submissions it went. It was too embarrassing but your motivation levels had plummeted since meeting the Avengers and calling them your friends - you couldn’t care too much. In the scheme of things essays just didn’t seem important anymore.

On Sunday you submitted it and sat in silence for a moment. Everyone had gotten used to giving you space, for a change, so you were comfortable with quiet. However you were not going to quietly tell them you’d finally finished. No.

‘FINALLY!’ You yelled, purposefully leaning towards your door for maximum effect. Let them come to you, you thought. As the door opened and your friends pretty faces appeared you felt nothing but relief. It was silly to feel ‘free’ because it was just an essay but fucking hell did you despise avoiding everyone to write it for so long.

Scott came to you first with Tony, Thor and Vision behind. You tried not to revel in him being closest to you too much. He looked especially cute that afternoon, you could tell he’d had a lie in because of his slight bed hair, and you beamed at him. ‘So it’s finished?’ Making space for him so he could sit on your desk beside you, you nodded. ‘Yes!’

While Thor gave you a long speech about how pointless Earth school was in his charming way, Tony congratulated you like you’d had a baby.

‘Good. Knew that was hard for you.’

Scott was glued to your desk and you tried to make eye contact with everyone else in the room but him. Him and his pretty distracting face.

‘I have a brilliant idea!’ Tony then announced, commanding the room in his diva like way. Scott raised his eyebrows at you in anticipation before you all turned to look at the billionaire. ‘I think we’ve all disappointed ourselves this week. Do you know why? Work. We’ve been working too hard.’ Scott laughed and smiled down at you, which you returned. Poor Vision just stood in the doorframe glazed with visible confusion. It was like being in a Ted talk audience.

‘Y/N’s essay,’ Tony gestured to you. ‘My impeccable new suit. I’m sure Vision has been doing.. somethi- the point is, we need to party. My humble suggestion, which you’re free to disapprove of if you’re boring, is that we all get-‘

‘Smashed!’

The exclaim just left you. You had been fucking itching to be drunk all week and celebrate - even if it was a small achievement in the grand scheme of things. You wanted to do shots. Lie on the floor. Dance. Dance and finally eat! Somehow you hadn’t eaten anything all day and it was 4pm. Your stomach was growling at you.

Scott rubbed your shoulder playfully and smirked ‘I like that plan.’

‘Excuse me. My plan.’

You and Scott chose to ignore the diva in the room which of course Vision and his big computer brain had to comment on. ‘Erm...’ he hesitated as he walked towards the two of you in classic Vision fashion. ‘You two are-‘

‘About to find all the liquor!’ Before he could finish whatever awkward question he could ask you jumped out of your seat taking Scott with you. The cabinets where most of the alcohol got stored were all in the smaller of Tony’s kitchens. Scott’s hand in yours felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time as you giddily dragged him down the hall. You could not stop smiling and he could sense your mood change.

‘Someone’s happy today.’

Of course you somehow took that as a hint to let his hand go, which you did but sadly. Your hand felt a bit lost as you walked and you couldn’t remember if you normally swung your arms or kept them still like Vision.

‘I’m warning you now,’ you opened the cupboards with no specific alcohol in mind ‘I plan on getting very drunk tonight.’ Fuck. There wasn’t any kopperberg left. Oh well you’d settle for gasoline- it was one of those days.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Scott chuckled at you. ‘When I was your age I got black out drunk almost daily.’ Once you were carrying a dangerous amount of bottles and cans you looked up at the man and he looked a bit smug. ‘Am I right in thinking you’re proud of yourself?’ He didn’t have to reply, you could tell he was.

The two of you laid out the cans and wine, vodka, mixer and beer bottles out on the counter carefully. It looked like a beautiful recipe for disaster but it wasn’t anything you hadn’t all done only weeks before. The amusing sounds of Tony bossing everyone around to get off their asses and party met your ears. Your main goal was to start drinking as soon as possible. Red wine, you found in your ‘scientific studies’, got you the drunkest the quickest so it was the obvious choice.

As you swug it, Scott hesitated about starting his beer. He watched you but for once you didn’t have the energy to wonder what he was thinking. ‘Oh no,’ you laughed and carried on drinking. ‘I’m gonna have to peel you off this floor later aren’t I?’ His words were worrying but there was a gleam in his eyes and an energy radiating off the two of you that didn’t care what happened.

You laughed and told him that yes he definitely would have to. He seemed to think it was his mission and his alone to look after you. How sweet and incorrect. ‘Scott,’ saying his name never got old ‘Don’t you dare stay sober for me. I’ve never seen you drunk.’ Somehow you hadn’t. Unless you had and couldn’t remember which was also likely. The idea of the two of you dancing together and Scott twirling you under his arm made your cheeks warm and your chest flutter.

The urge to be overly sarcastic was building, why you got like this around attractive people when you were bored you didn’t know. It wasn’t your best trait - funny sometimes but not exactly mature of you. It was almost addictive and spending time with Tony’s sarcy ass did nothing to help you think before you spoke.

You leant on the counter drinking but your mind was trying to decide which playlist you were going to force everyone to dance to. ‘Plughole.’ Scott stated.

‘Wow...’

‘It’s too quiet in here. Did I miss anything?’ Tony strutted in with his classic arrogance. You gestured to yourself and repeated Scott’s remark while chugging more wine. If you didn’t feel tipsy soon you’d start taking shots.

‘Shots!’ Clint yelled, entering the kitchen behind Thor, Peter, Nat, Bruce and Vision. Maybe the archer could mind read after all? He was holding an oven tray filled with shot glasses. Just- a beautiful sight. Scott looked apprehensive on your behalf but that didn’t matter. If he didn’t want you to get plastered he didn’t have to stay with you all night. Nat would.

‘Finally, yes please yes.’

It was pure chaos before long, which was exactly what you craved after such a boring week. ‘I want it all’ by the Arctic Monkeys was playing, despite Thor’s drunken Asgardian chant suggestions, and you had somehow taken 5 shots already. Scott was on 4, Vision going strong with 0 (of course), Thor had beaten you with 7 and yet Tony was winning with 8. You lost count quickly after that.

There were so many people in one room you felt like leaving would be impossible. You’d have to crowd surf to get to the shitting toilet. ‘Scott!’ He’d stayed near you until Steve arrived, looking sophisticated in a suit. That was when drunk you decided Scott could only leave you for Steve. One exception.

‘Scott!’

He heard you the second time, just barely over the music Sam had turned up. You felt needy and raw. Almost all of your ‘holding back reserves’ had been chained up by copious amounts of vodka. ‘Are you okay?’ Slurring his words slightly, Scott put his hand on your shoulder looking genuinely concerned. Your heart swelled. ‘Aw fuck.’ He didn’t respond at your accidental ‘sentence’ that had meant to stay in your brain.

‘I need to throw up.’

You didn’t even know if you felt sick but you felt something. It was just words and a half arsed explanation for leaving the lively room. The two of you were stood in the centre of the dance circle so leaving was a struggle. Avoiding Tony’s flaying arms and Sam’s impressive dancing to find the empty corridor felt like an obstacle course.

As soon as you and Scott reached the bathroom your stomach grumbled. ‘Oh.’ You held it and looked up at Scott’s confused face with realisation. ‘I think I’m just h-hungry! And you burst out laughing in his drunken haze Scott joined in.

‘Pretty sure there’s cake over here.’ He laughed, partially at your excitement but also at his own. Neither one of you ate well without encouragement and all you wanted was to devour sugar or his face if you got any drunker.

Taglist: @supraveng

#marvel #marvel fandom #scott lang x reader #slow burn #scott lang fluff #scott lang

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techcrunchappcom · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/global-covid-19-news-live-updates/

Global Covid-19 News: Live Updates

Here’s what you need to know:

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in December.Credit…Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

As lawmakers push for billions of dollars to boost the nation’s efforts to track coronavirus variants, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday a new effort to ramp up this work, pledging nearly $200 million in federal funding to better identify the new threats as they emerge.

Calling the $200 million a “down payment,” the White House said that the investment will result in a threefold increase in the number of positive virus samples that labs can sequence, jumping from around 7,000 to around 25,000 each week.

But that goal still remains aspirational, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its lab partners are still far from hitting the weekly 7,000-sample mark.

“When we will get to 25,000 depends on the resources that we have at our fingertips and how quickly we can mobilize our partners,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, said at a White House news conference on Wednesday. “I don’t think this is going to be a light switch. I think it’s going to be a dial.”

The move comes as a contagious variant first identified in Britain, known as B.1.1.7, continues to sweep across the United States, threatening to slow or reverse the rapid drop of new coronavirus cases. From a peak of almost 260,000 new cases a day, the seven-day average daily rate has fallen to below 82,000, still well above the high point of last summer’s surge, according to a New York Times database.

A growing number of other worrisome variants have also cropped up in the United States, including one that was first found in South Africa and weakens the effectiveness of vaccines. The United States reported its first case of B.1.1.7 that had gained a particularly worrying mutation that has been shown in South Africa to blunt the effectiveness of vaccines, Dr. Walensky said. The F.D.A. is preparing for a potential redesign of vaccines to better protect against the new variants.

Researchers are hoping to increase the number of coronavirus genomes they sequence and rapidly analyze them to spot dangerous mutations. The current level of sequencing is inadequate, experts say. That, plus the lack of national coordination, has left them blind to where the most concerning variants are spreading, and how quickly.

To do more sequencing, officials said, the country needs to scale up its testing in general. The Department of Health and Human Services and Defense Department on Wednesday announced substantial new investments in testing, including $650 million for K-8 schools and “underserved congregate settings,” such as homeless shelters. The two departments are also investing $815 million to speed up the manufacturing of testing supplies and raw materials.

Dr. Walensky said the administration’s efforts to scale up sequencing would result in more “geographic diversity” in the test samples surveyed.

“It’s not just the test and getting the test done,” she said. “We need the computational capacity, the analytic capacity to understand the information that’s coming in.”

The White House’s announcement added to an effort by lawmakers to insert funds for a national sequencing program into an economic relief package that Democratic congressional leaders aim to pass before mid-March, when unemployment benefits begin to lapse.

Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, introduced legislation this month that would provide $2 billion to the C.D.C. to enhance its sequencing efforts, including through grants the agency would award to state health departments. As House lawmakers worked to finalize the details of Mr. Biden’s stimulus proposal ahead of a floor vote later this month, they incorporated Ms. Baldwin’s proposal and allocated $1.75 billion.

In an interview, Ms. Baldwin said she had been working closely with the C.D.C.’s Advanced Molecular Detection program. A substantial amount of money is needed just for staffing and training, she said. She suggested 15 percent as a target of how many positive virus samples should be sequenced around the nation, a goal far beyond what researchers believe is possible in the near term.

“This is intended to create the basis of a permanent infrastructure that would allow us not only to do surveillance for Covid-19, to be on the leading edge of discovering new variants, but also we’d have that capacity for other diseases,” she said of her bill. “There’s significant gaps in our knowledge because of a lack of variants resources.”

Ms. Baldwin’s target of fifteen percent would translate to about 85,000 sequences a week at the current rate of new positive tests. Last week, the United States sequenced only 9,038 genomes, according to the online database GISAID.

United States › United StatesOn Feb. 16 14-day change New cases 64,376 –43% New deaths 1,707 –29%

World › WorldOn Feb. 16 14-day change New cases 325,121 –28% New deaths 9,300 –20%

U.S. vaccinations ›

President Biden at the National Institutes of Health last week.Credit…Evan Vucci/Associated Press

The Biden administration has been quite cautious in setting its public vaccination goals.

During the transition, officials said they hoped to give shots to one million Americans per day — a level the Trump administration nearly reached in its final days, despite being badly behind its own goals. In President Biden’s first week in office, he raised the target to 1.5 million, although his aides quickly added that it was more of a “hope” than a “goal.” Either way, the country is now giving about 1.7 million shots per day.

The Times’ David Leonhardt spent some time recently interviewing public-health experts about what the real goal should be, and came away with a clear message: The Biden administration is not being ambitious enough about vaccinations, at least not in its public statements.

An appropriate goal, experts say, is three million shots per day — probably by April. At that pace, half of adults would receive their first shot by April and all adults who wanted a shot could receive one by June, saving thousands of lives and allowing normal life to return by midsummer.

Biden struck a somewhat more ambitious tone yesterday, telling CNN that anybody who wanted a vaccine would be able to get one “by the end of July.” But Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and an adviser to the president, also said that the timeline for when the general population could receive shots was slipping from April to May or June.

The key fact is that the delivery of vaccine doses is on the verge of accelerating rapidly. Since December, Moderna and Pfizer have delivered fewer than one million shots per day to the government.

But over the next month and a half, the two companies have promised to deliver at least three million shots per day — and to accelerate the pace to about 3.3 million per day starting in April. Johnson & Johnson is likely to add to that total if, as expected, it receives the go-ahead to start distributing shots in coming weeks.

Very soon, the major will be logistics: Can the Biden administration and state and local governments administer the shots at close to the same rate that they receive them?

“I’m not hearing a plan,” Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine, said. “In the public statements, I don’t hear that sense of urgency.”

Experts said they understood why Biden had set only modest public goals so far. Manufacturing vaccines is complex, and falling short of a high-profile goal would sow doubt during a public-health emergency, as Barry Bloom, a Harvard immunologist, said. If he were president, Bloom added, he would also want to exceed whatever goal was appearing in the media.

The appropriate goal is to administer vaccine shots at roughly the same rate that drug makers deliver them, experts said — with a short delay, of a week or two, for logistics. Otherwise, millions of doses will languish in storage while Americans are dying and the country remains partially shut down.

“We should be doing more,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, said. “I am kind of surprised by how constrained we’ve been.” Many vaccine clinics operate only during business hours, she noted. And the government has not done much to expand the pool of vaccine workers — say, by training E.M.T. workers.

The newly contagious variants of the virus add another reason for urgency. They could cause an explosion of cases in the spring, Hotez said, and lead to mutations that are resistant to the current vaccines. But if the vaccines can crush the spread before then, the mutations may not take hold.

Biden aides have emphasized the challenges — the possibility of manufacturing problems, the difficulty of working with hundreds of local agencies, the need to distribute vaccines equitably. They also point out that they have nearly doubled the pace of vaccination in their first month in office, accelerated the pace of delivery from drugmakers and have plans to do more, like open mass-vaccination clinics and expand the pool of vaccine workers.

Scientists want the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call for improved ventilation as well as mask-wearing to fight the airborne spread of the coronavirus indoors. Fourth graders wear masks in class at Elk Ridge Elementary School in Buckley, Wash.Credit…Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

Scientists are urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to swiftly set standards to limit the airborne transmission of the coronavirus in high-risk settings like meatpacking plants and prisons.

The push comes nearly a year after research showed that the virus can be spread through tiny droplets called aerosols that linger indoors in stagnant air and can be inhaled.

Action on air standards is even more urgently needed now because vaccination efforts are off to a slow start, more contagious virus variants are circulating in the United States, and the rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths remains high despite a recent drop in new cases, the scientists said in a letter to Biden administration officials.

The C.D.C. issued new guidelines on Friday for reopening schools, but the guidelines made only a passing mention of improved ventilation as a precaution against viral spread. The World Health Organization was slow to acknowledge that the virus can linger in the air in crowded indoor spaces, accepting that conclusion only in July after 239 experts publicly called on the organization to do so.

The 13 experts who wrote the letter — including several who advised Mr. Biden during the transition — urged the administration to blunt the risks in a variety of workplaces by requiring a combination of mask-wearing and environmental measures, including better ventilation. They want the C.D.C. to recommend the use of high-quality masks like N95 respirators to protect workers who are at high risk of infection, many of whom are people of color, the segment of the population that has been hit hardest by the epidemic in the United States.

At present, health care workers mostly rely on surgical masks, which are not as effective against aerosol transmission of the virus as N95 masks are.

Mr. Biden has directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which sets workplace requirements, to issue emergency temporary standards for Covid-19, including those regarding ventilation and masks, by March 15.

But OSHA will only impose standards that are supported by guidance from the C.D.C., said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and one of the signatories.

(Dr. Michaels led OSHA during the Obama administration; the agency has not had a permanent leader since his departure.)

“Until the C.D.C. makes some changes, OSHA will have difficulty changing the recommendations it puts up, because there’s an understanding the government has to be consistent,” Dr. Michaels said. “And C.D.C. has always been seen as the lead agency for infectious disease.”

An employee scans packages at Amazon’s distribution center in Staten Island, N.Y., November 2020. Conditions at the site is the focus of a lawsuit.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sued Amazon on Tuesday evening, arguing that the company provided inadequate safety protection for workers in New York City during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who raised concerns over the conditions.

The case focuses on two Amazon facilities: a large warehouse on Staten Island and a delivery depot in Queens. Ms. James argues that Amazon failed to properly clean its buildings, conducted inadequate contact tracing for known Covid-19 cases, and “took swift retaliatory action” to silence complaints from workers.

“Amazon’s extreme profits and exponential growth rate came at the expense of the lives, health and safety of its frontline workers,” Ms. James argued in the complaint, filed in New York Supreme Court.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the company cared “deeply about the health and safety” of its workers.

“We don’t believe the attorney general’s filing presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s industry-leading response to the pandemic,” Ms. Nantel said.

Last week, Amazon preemptively sued Ms. James in federal court in an attempt to stop her from bringing the charges. The company argued that workplace safety was a matter of federal, not state, law.

In its 64-page complaint last week, Amazon said its safety measures “far exceed what is required under the law.”

New York, in its suit, said Amazon received written notification of at least 250 employees at the Staten Island warehouse who had Covid-19. In more than 90 of those cases, the infected employee had been at work in the previous week, yet Amazon did not close portions of the building to provide proper ventilation as the state required, the filing said.

Ms. James also argued that Amazon had retaliated against Christian Smalls, a worker the company fired in the spring. Mr. Smalls had been raising safety concerns with managers and led a public protest in the parking lot of the Staten Island facility.

Amazon has said Mr. Smalls was fired for going to the work site for the protest even though he was on paid quarantine leave after he had been exposed to a colleague who had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Ms. James said that by firing Mr. Smalls and reprimanding another protest leader, Amazon sent a chilling message to others.

Eighty percent of Oregon’s 560,000 public schoolchildren remain in fully remote instruction.Credit…Sara Cline/Associated Press

Shortly before Christmas, as Oregon schools faced their 10th month under some of the nation’s sternest coronavirus restrictions, Gov. Kate Brown began a major push to reopen classrooms.

She offered to help districts pay for masks, testing and tracing, and improved ventilation. Most important, she prioritized teachers and school staff members for vaccination — ahead of some older people.

Her goal: to resume in-person classes statewide by Feb. 15.

But today, roughly 80 percent of Oregon’s 560,000 public schoolchildren remain in fully remote instruction. And while some districts are slowly bringing children back, two of the largest, Portland and Beaverton, do not plan to reopen until at least mid-April — and then only for younger students.

Oregon’s halting efforts to return children to classrooms are being repeated up and down the West Coast. The region’s largest city school districts — from Seattle to Portland to San Francisco to Los Angeles — have remained mostly closed, even as Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago have been resuming in-person instruction.

And the release on Friday of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urge school districts to reopen has not changed the minds of powerful teachers’ unions opposed to returning students to classrooms without more stringent precautions.

Tough state health restrictions imposed by Ms. Brown, a Democrat, helped protect the state from experiencing the high death tolls occurring elsewhere. But by December, she was growing alarmed at the toll social isolation was having on children.

“Eleven- and 12-year-olds were attempting suicide,” she said in a recent interview.

Worried that schools would not reopen until the 2021-22 school year if she waited to vaccinate teachers along with other essential workers, Ms. Brown rejected federal guidelines and bumped school employees up in priority, before people 65 and older, even though that constituency would — and did — protest.

Oregon was among a handful of states at the time, and the only one on the West Coast, to single out school employees for the vaccine. (About half of states now prioritize teachers.)

Rental prices in New York City have dropped, but the biggest cuts are mostly in Manhattan, not in cheaper neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where many essential workers live.Credit…Tom Sibley for The New York Times

Two things have been true since the pandemic flattened New York’s rental market last March: Prices have fallen sharply, but not for the people who need relief most.

Now a new report shows how little those price cuts have helped the more than a million New Yorkers the city calls essential workers.

From mid-March to the end of 2020, there were 11,690 apartments citywide that were considered affordable to essential workers, up more than 40 percent from a year before, according to the listing website StreetEasy. But that share represented just 4 percent of the total market-rate inventory in the city.

Essential workers — a broad category that includes teachers, bus drivers and grocery clerks, among others — make an average of about $56,000 a year. Using a common calculation to measure affordability, based on 30 percent of gross income, the highest comfortable rent on that salary is about $1,400 a month.

Record rent cuts have not bridged the gap. In January, the median monthly asking rent in Manhattan was $2,750, a 15.5 percent drop from the year prior, according to StreetEasy. Brooklyn and Queens also had record cuts of 8.6 percent, dropping to $2,395 and $2,000.

“It highlights a tale of two cities,” said Nancy Wu, an economist with StreetEasy, noting that the biggest price cuts have tended to occur in pricey neighborhoods in Manhattan, where only 12 percent of essential workers live. Neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, where roughly half of that work force resides, often had smaller discounts, or lost affordable inventory, because of high demand.

But most of Manhattan’s affordable apartments were studios, Ms. Wu said, while nearly half of essential workers have at least one child.

Of course, many New Yorkers spend more on rent than they can comfortably afford. In 2018, the latest year data were available, almost 53 percent of New Yorkers were rent-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their gross income on rent, according to the New York University Furman Center.

global roundup

Japan’s late start on vaccines has raised questions about whether it will be ready to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in Tokyo this July after a one-year delay. Credit…Koji Sasahara/Associated Press

TOKYO — Japan began its national coronavirus vaccination program on Wednesday, starting with the first of 40,000 medical workers and planning to reach the general population by the summer.

The comparatively late start has raised questions at home and abroad about whether the country will be ready to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in Tokyo this July after the pandemic forced a one-year delay.

Japan has managed to keep coronavirus infection levels relatively low and, so far, has recorded around 7,200 deaths. But the authorities declared a one-month state of emergency in early January, after daily case counts reached nearly 8,000. They have since extended it until at least the beginning of March, partly in response to more contagious coronavirus variants.

The vaccine rollout has been slower than in many other developed countries in part because the authorities requested that Pfizer run separate medical trials in Japan. That reflected some public ambivalence toward vaccinations, a general sense of caution that most recently surfaced after media reports about rare side effects related to vaccines for HPV.

Speaking to the news media on Tuesday, Taro Kono, the minister in charge of the rollout, emphasized that it was important to “show the Japanese people that we have done everything possible to prove the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.”

While that slowed the program’s start, he said, “We think it will be more efficient.”

Major obstacles to a rapid rollout remain. Japan relies on other countries for its entire vaccine supply and is still working to approve the vaccines from AstraZeneca and Moderna. It is also short of the special syringes that would allow its doctors to extract an extra, sixth dose from each vial supplied by Pfizer.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Kono said the vaccination program was not linked to the Games.

Speaking on Wednesday, the governor of Shimane Prefecture, which has recorded only 280 cases, threatened to pull it out of activities around the Olympic torch relay for fear of spreading infection.

In other developments across the world:

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa received the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine on Wednesday, hours after 80,000 doses arrived in the country. Health care workers will be among the first to receive the vaccine. The country paused its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine this month after a study suggested that it failed to prevent mild or moderate illness from a variant found in the country. South Africa has recorded nearly 1.5 million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, with 48,855 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, secured a contract for an additional 300 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Wednesday. The deal allows European countries to order up to 150 million doses in 2021, with an option for as many next year and authorization to donate unused doses to other countries. The commission, which has been under intense scrutiny following the sluggish vaccination rollout across Europe, had previously signed a contract for 160 million doses.

A five-day lockdown that started last week in the Australian state of Victoria will end at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, after 24 hours without a new coronavirus case. Residents will remain restricted to five visitors at a time and will still be required to wear masks in indoor public places.

The city of Auckland, New Zealand, will also emerge from a lockdown at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, after the authorities said that contact tracers could manage a cluster of six local cases. “We don’t have a widespread but rather a small chain of transmission which is manageable via testing procedures,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters.

Hong Kong plans to relax restrictions on a range of businesses on Thursday, provided they enforce use of a government-made app for contact tracing or keep records of customers. Employees must also be tested for the coronavirus every two weeks. Separately, on Tuesday, vaccine experts appointed by the Hong Kong government recommended the use of the Sinovac vaccine, a sign that health authorities will approve it for the city’s 7.5 million residents. They approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January.

Prosecutors in China said that a batch of fake coronavirus vaccines had been shipped outside the country last year, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. The fake vaccines were produced by a counterfeiting ring that the authorities broke up in February. Prosecutors said last week that the ring had manufactured and sold about 580,000 vials, for a profit of almost $280 million. The police have also arrested suspects they say smuggled 2,000 vials into Hong Kong, believing them to be genuine. Prosecutors said that 600 of those vaccines were later sent overseas, but did not say where.

Health authorities in Germany have documented rapid growth in the more infectious coronavirus variant first found in Britain, despite a general drop in new infections during a monthslong lockdown. Jens Spahn, the German health minister, said during a news conference on Wednesday that the variant now accounted for 22 percent of tested coronavirus samples, up from 6 percent at the beginning of February.

Palestinian health workers unloading the Gaza Strip’s first shipment on Wednesday.Credit…Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

JERUSALEM — The first doses of coronavirus vaccine arrived in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after Israel approved their delivery.

Mai al-Kaila, the health minister of the Palestinian Authority, said that 2,000 doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine had been shipped to the territory.

She said the vaccines would be allocated to frontline medical teams, but the territory’s Health Ministry said the first priority would be dialysis patients and people undergoing transplants, followed by medical workers.

The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule over parts of the West Bank, while the Hamas militant group controls Gaza. In Gaza, with a population of about 2 million, the number of recorded Covid cases has declined sharply after a surge in December.

The vaccines were delivered amid a heated debate over whether Israel bears responsibility for the health of Palestinians living in occupied territory.

While human rights groups have argued international law requires Israel to provide Palestinians with access to vaccines on a par with what it makes available to its own citizens, supporters of Israel’s policies have contended that the Palestinians assumed responsibility for health services when they signed the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

The vaccines delivered to Gaza were not supplied by Israel but by the Palestinian Authority.

Still, their transfer required Israeli approval and provoked a debate in Israel’s Parliament. Several right-wing lawmakers had demanded that the government make their delivery conditional on the return of two Israeli citizens and of the bodies of two soldiers believed to be held by Hamas.

“It is forbidden for Israel and its leader to abandon the fate of captive citizens and give up an opportunity to bring back the bodies of the fallen soldiers,” Zvi Hauser, a member of Parliament, told a parliamentary committee that discussed the matter on Monday.

A Hamas spokesman rejected the idea as “an attempt at extortion.”

However, an Israeli government official said that senior Israeli officials had recommended that the request be approved. It was on Wednesday.

In New York City, like other places across the country, the demand for vaccinations far outstrips the supply allocated each week. Credit…Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

The dangerous winter weather has delayed shipments of vaccine doses to New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday, preventing officials from scheduling between 30,000 and 35,000 new vaccination appointments and complicating a rollout already constrained by a limited supply of doses.

The problems in New York City, which could extend to suburbs and neighboring states, came as vaccination efforts have been disrupted nationwide. Clinics have closed and shipments have been stalled as snow and ice grounded flights and made highways dangerously slick. Many of the closures and cancellations have been in the South, where the storm hit hardest, with Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky canceling or rescheduling appointments this week.

Jeffrey D. Zients, President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, said on Wednesday that the Biden administration is pushing governors to extend the hours of vaccination sites once they reopen.

“People are working as hard as they can, given the importance of getting the vaccines to the states and to providers, but there’s an impact on deliveries,” he said.

Mr. de Blasio said he did not know when the shipments would arrive next or which specific weather conditions were snarling the shipments.

“It’s obviously a national problem what’s happening with the weather, and it is gumming up supply lines all over the country,” Mr. de Blasio said.

In New York City, like other places across the country, the demand for vaccinations far outstrips the supply allocated each week. Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday that the city had about 30,000 doses on hand, and that those could run out by Thursday.

“We’re going to run out of what we have now,” he said. “We could be doing hundreds of thousands more each week.”

The weather has caused problems for the city’s vaccination efforts before. A heavy snowstorm earlier this month had forced city and state officials to delay appointments for days until driving conditions improved.

On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio said the city was bracing for another bout of snow on Thursday, with forecasts predicting about six or seven inches of accumulation.

The Sambódromo in Rio de Janiero, normally the site of carnival parades, was lit on Friday in honor of victims of Covid.Credit…Buda Mendes/Getty Images

In good times and bad, Rio de Janeiro’s famously boisterous Carnival has endured, often thriving when the going got particularly tough.

People partied hard during years of war, hyperinflation, repressive military rule, runaway violence and even the Spanish Flu in 1919, when the Carnival was considered among the most decadent on record.

This year, though, the only thing keeping the spirit of Carnival faintly alive is online events produced by groups that traditionally put on extravagant street performances.

“It’s very sad for Rio not to have Carnival,” Daniel Soranz, the city’s health secretary, said this past Saturday morning, standing in the middle of the Sambódromo parade grounds as elderly residents got vaccinated under white tents. “This is a place to party, to celebrate life.”

Marcilia Lopes, 85, a fixture of the Portela samba school who hasn’t missed a Carnival for decades, looked relieved after she got her first dose of the Chinese-made CoronaVac vaccine.

She has been so scared of catching the virus for the past year that she refused to leave home for anything. On her birthday, she asked her children not to even bother buying a cake — she was in no mood to celebrate. So Ms. Lopes is missing her beloved Carnival this year, but stoically.

“I’m at peace,” she said. “Many people are suffering.”

Brazil’s coronavirus outbreak has been among the most severe in the world. It has killed more than 239,000 people here, second only to the death toll in the United States, and several Brazilian states are grappling with large caseloads.

As a second wave took hold in recent months, local officials across the country canceled the traditional Carnival celebrations, which normally bring in hundreds of million of dollars in tourism revenue and create tens of thousands of temporary jobs.

Marcus Faustini, Rio de Janeiro’s secretary of culture, said that as painful as it was to slog through carnival season without revelry, there was no responsible way to adapt the megaparty for this era of social distancing.

“It would make no sense to hold this party at this time and run the risk of driving a surge of cases,” he said. “The most vital thing right now is to protect lives.”

Lis Moriconi contributed reporting.

In Europe, pandemic spending has largely focused on helping people and businesses through the crisis.Credit…Yann Schreiber/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Billions of euros are being deployed to nationalize payrolls, suppress bankruptcies and avoid mass unemployment as Europe battles the pandemic. Trillions more are being earmarked for stimulus to stoke a desperately needed recovery.

The European Union has upended its policies to finance the largess, breaking with decades of strict limits on deficits, and overcoming visceral German resistance to high debt.

Austerity mantras led by Germany dominated Europe during the 2010 debt crisis, when profligate spending in Greece, Italy and other southern eurozone countries pushed the currency bloc toward a breakup.

The pandemic, which has killed over 450,000 people in Europe, is seen as a different animal altogether — a threat ravaging all the world’s economies simultaneously.

In the United States, President Biden is pursuing an aggressive strategy to combat the pandemic’s toll with a $1.9 trillion economic aid plan. While the national debt is now almost as large as the economy, supporters say the benefits of spending big now outweigh the costs of higher debt.

In Europe, pandemic spending has so far largely focused on floating people and businesses through the crisis.

For Philippe Boreal, a janitor at a luxury hotel in Cannes, the support has been vital.

“Without the aid, things would be much worse,” said Mr. Boreal, who is collecting more than 80 percent of his paycheck, allowing him to pay essential bills and buy food for his wife and teenage daughter.

But, he said, “at some point you ask yourself, ‘How are we going to pay for all this?’”

For now, such spending is affordable. And government debt may never have to be fully paid back if central banks keep buying it.

But some economists worry that inflation and interest rates could rise if stimulus investment revives growth too rapidly, forcing central banks to put a brake on easy-money policies. And weaker countries could struggle with the higher borrowing costs that resulted.

To people in charge of steering their economies through the pandemic, those potential troubles seem far away.

“We need to reimburse the debt, of course, and to work out a strategy for paying down the debt,” the French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said in an interview with a small group of journalists. “But we won’t do anything before growth returns — that would be crazy.”

For the strategy to work, Europe must act quickly to ensure a robust recovery, economists warn. While leaders approved a €750 billion ($857 billion) stimulus deal last year, countries haven’t been unleashing stimulus spending, to kick-start a revival and create jobs, nearly as rapidly as the United States has.

“Most of what’s been done in Europe is survival support,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London.

#covid #global #World

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wazafam · 3 years

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Now streaming on Netflix, The Ripper leaves out significant information about its titular subject. In an attempt not to glamorize serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, directors Jesse Vile and Ellena Wood inadvertently enhance the man's cultural persona, if only by making him a looming, mysterious figure through the four episodes. Whereas the 2021 serial killer doc Night Stalker arguably shows too much, The Ripper doesn't provide the audience with enough biographical information about Sutcliffe, details that are crucial when trying to understand his motivations.

Since releasing in December 2020, The Ripper has been accused of capitalizing upon serial killer tropes in pop culture. Specifically, family members of victims and survivors have expressed frustration about the title, which was originally supposed to be "Once Upon a Time in Yorkshire." It's certainly understandable that some folks aren't pleased with the sensationalized title, "The Ripper," but that was indeed how the subject was branded by the media during his late-'70s killing spree. Overall, the Netflix show mostly focuses on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, and how the failures of law enforcement resulted in numerous deaths that could've been prevented.

Related: The Ripper: Does Netflix's True Crime Series Glorify Serial Killers?

The Ripper plays out like a procedural during the first three episodes, as investigators and survivors recall their experiences. Much attention is paid to the female victims, along with how the police mistakenly believed that the Yorkshire Ripper only targeted prostitutes. As a whole, The Ripper is an especially unique serial killer Netflix documentary because of its societal commentaries about life in late '70s West Yorkshire. By the end, however, there's little insight provided about the killer himself, presumably because Vile and Wood didn't want to humanize Sutcliffe, and thus upset survivors and family members of victims. With serial killer docs, though, it's always important to meet the audience in the middle with objective analysis, so that viewers can better understand why the tragedies happened in the first place.

Who was Peter Sutcliffe? For many people, he was simply the Yorkshire Ripper, and that's the end of the story. But since Sutcliffe is the titular subject of The Ripper, it's crucial to present the audience with a full portrait of the man. For storytelling and dramatic purposes, Sutcliffe's image doesn't even appear in the Netflix docuseries until the fourth and final episode. From there, only a few images are shown of him while interviewees provide their opinions about his life and crimes. By nearly eliminating Sutcliffe entirely from The Ripper, the filmmakers do indeed keep the focus on the victims and the societal commentary. However, they also don't allow the audience to better understand the killer's personality and motivations. Was Sutcliffe charismatic like Ted Bundy? Or was he socially awkward like Richard Ramirez?

There's no video of Sutcliffe actually speaking in The Ripper, so that negatively affects the psychological aspect of the docuseries. The filmmakers don't provide any footage of the subject to analyze and interpret, aside from the arrest video when Sutcliffe walks with his head covered. A serial killer like Bundy used his intellect to manipulate people, but footage of him reveals his arrogance and self-delusion. So, what were Sutcliffe's defining personality traits? Unfortunately, The Ripper relies on a steady dose of "sinister" commentaries, just as Night Stalker relies on the "evil" factor when depicting Ramirez (a man who clearly wanted to manipulate the media to his advantage). For curious streamers, it always beneficial when biographical information is complemented with real-life footage. With The Ripper, the audience is led to believe that Sutcliffe's story doesn't necessarily matter, when in fact it very much does, at least according to psychology-themed serial killer documentaries like Crazy, Not Insane.

In The Ripper episode 2, "Between Now and Dawn," an interviewee named Bruce Jones recalls finding the body of 20-year-old Jean Jordan in 1977. His commentary is incredibly graphic, and the man himself appears visibly upset when remembering the specifics. It's a heartbreaking sequence, as it further underlines the Yorkshire Ripper's brutal methods while also showing the long-term consequences of his crimes. Jones' appearance is rather brief in The Ripper, but fans of the English soap opera Coronation Street may immediately recognize him as the man who portrayed Les Battersby. What The Ripper doesn't reveal is that Jones was initially targeted as a suspect and that his association with the case nearly resulted in him being fired from Coronation Street upon being cast in 1997. Jones survived a media scandal and ultimately remained on the show through 2007.

Related: Night Stalker: What REALLY Prompted Richard Ramirez to Kill

The Ripper surprisingly doesn't offer much insight about Peter Sutcliffe's 1974 marriage to Sonia Szurma, which, again, is relevant when assessing the serial killer's frame of mind. A detective named Andy Laptew recalls the moment he found out that Sutcliffe was the Yorkshire Ripper, and discusses his interview with the man years prior. Sutcliffe told Laptew that he didn't have a need to meet with prostitutes, as he'd recently been married. In reality, though, Sutcliffe had indeed been killing women since 1975, and reportedly even assaulted a prostitute all the way back in 1969 (which isn't mentioned in The Ripper).

What were the dynamics of Sutcliffe's marriage to Sonia? The Netflix docuseries implies that the killer pretended to be a paranoid schizophrenic in court, presumably because his wife had the same condition, and thus allowed him to effectively mimic her behavior. But if Sutcliffe hated women so much, then why did he marry one? It could be argued that he needed a cover to present himself as a family man, but it's also important to explore other possibilities. For example, the Netflix doc Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes shows that the subject was able to maintain a romantic relationship with a woman while killing others. The Ripper offers zero insight into Sonia's attraction to Peter and doesn't clarify if there was indeed a genuine connection. Incidentally, important questions about the subject's motives go unaddressed. For example, Peter killed prostitutes but didn't have sex with them. So did he murder women because of sexual inadequacy issues? Or did Sutcliffe have a somewhat healthy relationship with Sonia? This information is important, but it all goes unexplored in The Ripper.

Since The Ripper doesn't spend much time focusing on the subject's marriage, it's not a huge surprise that Sonia's later years aren't documented. Because of the lack of information, though, some Netflix viewers may be left wondering if she was somehow complicit in her husband's crimes. Sonia remained married to Peter all throughout the '80s and was later accused of trying to financially capitalize upon her involvement in the Yorkshire Ripper case. In 1997, she wed hairdresser Michael Woodward, and later stopped visiting her ex-husband around 2015, reportedly because he was "jealous and insecure" about her second marriage. Journalist Barbara Jones once described Sonia as "the most irritating, strangest and coldest person I've ever met." Sonia is currently 70 years old and reportedly (via Daily Mail) arranged for her ex-husband's 2020 funeral.

Unlike Night Stalker, The Ripper actually attempts to deconstruct the motivations of its subject. However, the psychoanalysis is relatively thin, and mostly comes from The Sunday Times' Joan Smith, who theorizes that Sutcliffe was raised in a misogynistic environment and learned to despise women because of masculinity issues. Based on Smith's opinion, along with commentaries from psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis in Crazy, Not Insane, it seems that Sutcliffe's inner demons resulted from childhood teasing and witnessing domestic violence. So, if the future serial killer was raised in a culture that prioritized masculinity over empathy, then that may partially explain his murderous behavior as an adult; Sutcliffe may have killed women because he was unable to properly cope with childhood trauma. Of course, his true motivations are probably much more complex.

The Yorkshire Ripper's modus operandi, along with the biographical information presented in the Netflix docuseries, suggests that he killed because of sexual inadequacy and personal insecurity issues. Sutcliffe would strike women from behind with a hammer, torture them, and then pose their bodies for people to find. Importantly, in The Ripper, the filmmakers do indeed make it clear that Sutcliffe didn't specifically seek out prostitutes but rather women of all ages who seemed to be easy targets in Red Light District areas. What the Netflix series doesn't fully address, however, is the possibility that Sutcliffe suffered from an Oedipal Complex, and that his marriage to Sonia was more about motherly protection and less about true romance.

Next: Crazy, Not Insane: What Movies & TV Shows Get Wrong About Serial Killers

The Ripper: What The Netflix Show Leaves Out About The Yorkshire Ripper from https://ift.tt/39yQ9MQ

#Blogger

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girlobsessedwithtv · 7 years

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My Last PLL theory....ever

I won’t stop posting PLL or sharing my thoughts, but this will be my last every PLL theory, and it’s gonna be long so bare with me.

PLL Explained:

Lets start from the beginning. Well as far back as we can. It was 1980 something, Mary hadn’t been out of Radley long but she was finally ready to get back to a normal life and go to college. She meets Ted, he’s sweet and just the kind of good guy a “bad girl” like Mary needed. They date. She gets pregnant. The first person she decided to tell was her sister Jessica, she had hoped this would bring them together as she wanted her sister to be a part of her child’s life. But we know Jessica she was born jealous. She makes up a lie to get Mary sent back to Radley. Mary wasn’t able to tell Ted she was pregnant. And now she was doomed to have her child in Radley. Jessica and her jealously of Mary getting pregnant first is what led to her affair with Peter Hastings. Ken was always away for work, making getting pregnant hard, but if she timed things right Peter could get the job done. And that is just what happened. Mary had Charles first he was taken by the state. About 6 months later Jessica delivered a boy too, Jason. She goes to visit her sister to rub it in her face only to learn that Mary’s baby was given to the state. Jessica, wanting everything of Mary’s decides to get custody of Charles making him her and Ken’s child. Once Jessica got custody of Charles the DiLaurentis moved far away from Mary and Peter to Georgia. The DiLaurentis family lived in Georgia happily for years, Even Mary was able to get her act together and was released from Radley. Jessica become pregnant again, this time with twin girls. Around this same time Mary pretends to be Jessica in Rosewood and meets up with Peter (who she knew was Jason’s father) and they have a moment. Mary ends up pregnant with Spencer. Jessica gives birth to two little girls in Georgia. Mary learns about this. She goes to Georgia to find Jessica, that’s when she realizes that Jessica has Charles. Mary is upset. She feels that Jessica stole Charles from her and decided to take one of Jessica’s babies for revenge. Jessica knows it was Mary who kidnapped her baby and she turns Mary in. Mary is sent back to Radley (very pregnant) but the baby was never found. Jessica and Ken decide to move back to Rosewood because they were “the people who lost a child” to all their neighbors in Georgia. So the DiLaurentis’ move back to Rosewood. Jessica tells Peter and Veronica what Mary did to Peter. Mary gives birth to Spencer in Radley and Peter and Veronica raise her. Jessica and Peter even got all the kids together once so they could meet their siblings (the Campbell apple farm - the baby the boys met wasn’t Alison, it was Spencer) A few months later the bathtub incident happens, and Jessica and Ken (worried that Charles is more like his mother than they believed) send Charles away to Radley. All is well for a few years then one day while visiting Charles, Jessica meets Bethany and her father. Bethany is about the same age as Alison and reminds Jessica of her with her blonde hair and pretty eyes. Jessica starts to wonder if Bethany could be her long lost child. She starts to buy Bethany gifts (the yellow dress, a horse, etc) and show her a little extra attention when she visited Charles. One summer Charles was able to go to a summer camp and Jessica spent a lot of time with Bethany getting to know her and even developed feelings for Bethany’s dad. But Bethany did not like this. She felt her dad was cheating on her mom with Jessica and it made her angry. This went on for a few more years. Then one day Bethany comes up with a plan to get rid of Jessica for good. She sees who she believes to be Jessica standing on the roof, without a second thought she pushes her over the ledge. Only it wasn’t Jessica it was Marion. Distraught at what she had done she blames it on Charles. But of course here comes Jessica to cover it all up. And before Bethany knew it, Charles was gone. He had died. The next time Bethany see’s Charles, he is now Charlotte. But Charlotte doesn’t introduce herself to Bethany as Charlotte, she introduces herself as Alison DiLaurentis, Jessica’s daughter. Charlotte tells Bethany how much she hates Jessica and how she would love to get her out of her life. Bethany believed every word, until that day when Radley called Jessica to come get her daughter Alison, Jessica shows up and it’s Charlotte dressed head to toe in Alison’s clothes. Bethany overheard Jessica telling Radley that this wasn’t Alison, but Jessica leaves with Charlotte anyway. Now Bethany doesn’t trust “Alison” (aka Charlotte) or Jessica. (hence the tapes and drawings) But there wasn’t much Bethany could do from Radley and she needed a plan. A good one.

Meanwhile. Alison’s twin is not Bethany Young. Alison’s twin grew up in Georgia, knowing nothing of her real family. Until one day a girl named Shana kept calling her Ali. The twin told her I think you have the wrong girl. Shana insisted not, that she looked just like her summer time friend Alison. So Shana shows the twin the picture. Twin can’t believe her eyes it was like looking at a picture of herself. So she asked Shana about this “Alison” girl and Shana told her what she knew. The twin made Shana promise not to tell Alison, and Shana agreed. When summer time came around Alison made her annual trip to go visit Grandma D. While she was there her twin watched her and studied her. She saw how Ali treated people badly. She even watched Ali play her mind games with Shana. Twin had enough, she decided to go to Rosewood to find out what was going on with the rest of her family. Shana even introduced her to a girl named Jenna who lived near Rosewood that twin could stay with. While in Rosewood she was mistaken for Alison a few times. Once by a girl named Mona. She played along trying to be a nicer version of Alison. After seeing how Ali’s life was, her twin decided she needed to know more. The A game starts. The twin starts watching Alison carefully and reaching out anonymously to others when she needed answers. That’s how she discovered NAT club. She is the one who paid Ian to film Ali and her friends. Twin decided that Ali doesn’t deserve this life anymore that she takes it for granted. So she plans to kill Alison and take her place. But her plans go on hold when Jenna and her mom needed to move to Rosewood (As Jenna’s mom was moving in with Toby’s dad) But Jenna told twin that should could stay at their place in Cape May.

Flash forward. The first secret. Twin is now reaching out to Mona (Ali’s enemy) more often via anonymous texts and emails. She convinces Mona that now is the time to take down Ali. She tells Mona exactly what to do (send the voodoo doll, leave the A notes etc)... It’s Jenna’s first week in Rosewood and she is already invited to a Halloween Party. She heads to the costume shop to pick a costume when she see’s Ali. She knew it was Ali and not twin. Twin had already told her all about Ali. After Jenna’s run in with Ali she calls twin and tells her that she met Ali. Twin pushes her to steal Ali’s spot as it girl and suggests showing up dressed as the “better gaga” Twin is officially kicking off her plan with the help of Mona and Jenna. Only one thing didn’t go as planned. Twin had no way of knowing that Charlotte and Lucas had planned their own special treat for Ali that night. (Ali getting attacked in the house) This actually helped twin because once Ali knew it wasn’t Noel she became aware that someone really was after her.

Moving on. Charlotte and Lucas continue to play silly games to make Alison look bad (the Radley stunt, etc) Twin takes notice and decides that she would like to recruit Charlotte (not knowing Charlotte is related) So she reaches out and asks Charlotte to meet her at Jenna’s. Charlotte who is half playing Ali, half playing with Ali, suggests that Ali stop putting up with Jenna and do something about it (this was Charlotte’s way to lead Ali to the person who was possibly after Ali) So Charlotte doesn’t show up that night, but Alison does and with the help of her friends (who thought they were after Toby) Alison throws the firework into the garage, blinding Jenna and hurting twin. The twin got away before the police came. But now she was super pissed with Alison and her friends. Putting most of the blame on Alison of course. Over the next couple of months Twin and Mona continued to torture Alison. And watched Alison slowly screw over more and more people. (Getting Charlotte kicked out of UPENN, the issues between Ian & Melissa, etc) Every time Alison ruined another life, twin reached out. Ian and Melissa were supplying the NAT videos so twin had knowledge of all the secrets. Charlotte was playing double agent and still pretending to have Ali’s back despite helping plan Ali’s death.

And finally we get to that night. Charlotte had already convinced Alison that if she couldn’t figure out who was after her she’d have to go on the run (hence Ali saving up money, passports, etc) Charlotte just wanted Ali gone but had little faith that the mystery person would actually do it. So Charlotte sends Bethany the top with a note from Ali, knowing this would set Bethany off. Bethany comes to rosewood to find Ali & Jessica (really Charlotte and Jessica). Meanwhile, Twin has given Mona orders to take Ali out. But Mona mistakes Bethany for Alison and hits her, but she hears someone coming (Melissa) and takes off. Melissa who had just heard Spencer and Ali fight see’s a girl (appears to be Ali) laying on the ground. Assuming the worst of Spencer, Melissa pushes the girl into the hole (that Mona dug) and starts to bury her. Charlotte walks up startling Melissa, and seeing what Melissa was doing. They speak about it for a second before being seen by Jason. At this point they both run away, leaving the girl in the hole only partially buried. Charlotte comes around to the front of the house and believes she see’s Bethany, she hits her upside the head. It’s actually Ali. And Jessica has seen it all. Jessica buries Ali for Charlotte, and calls Wilden to take Charlotte away (presumably back to Radley) Grunwald comes along and pulls Alison out. Alison is later picked up by Mona. Alison tells Mona what happened. That someone hit her in the front yard and that her mother buried her. Mona knows the girl she hit was in the backyard, realizing she did not hit Ali. She did not follow orders. Instead of killing Ali at this point she talks Ali into faking her death and running away. Which is exactly what Alison did; Leaving the yellow top and her Ali bracelet with Mona. During that night when Mona left to gathering somethings for Ali (most likely from the DiLaurentis house) she returned to the grave to see if anyone was in the grave. She finds Bethany, dead. She puts the Ali bracelet on her then recovers the hole. She returns to Alison gives her her things and off Alison goes. Mona informs twin that Ali is dead.

Now twin just needed to wait for the right time to take Ali’s place. It can’t be too soon because Ali’s family and friends might know its not Ali. So with the help of Mona, she learned how to act like Ali while also transforming Mona into an It girl and subsequently Hanna too. Finally the twin was about ready to make her move, Ali would come back from the dead, but things took a turn. The DiLaurentis’ decided to move away. Twin had Mona take the rest of Ali’s stuff. (When Maya’s family threw it out) Twin was going to need to learn a lot more about Ali. But then a body is found. Everyone finds out it’s Ali and now twin cannot just take Ali’s place. So with that plan being a no go. Twin decides to finish what she started and get back at the girls for being bullies and and blowing up Jenna’s garage. This is why Mona had no real reason for being after the liars, she was just doing the twins work. But during Mona’s reign as A the twin started noticing things. Someone who looked like Ali visited Hanna in the hospital. Someone saved Emily from that garage. Twin learned Ali was actually alive and that Mona had lied to her. So she made Mona out herself as A. She had hoped this would mean that with Mona locked up Ali would come home, then twin cold take her place again. But Ali didn’t come home. And Mona met a girl named Charlotte. Charlotte was the perfect pawn for twin. So via Mona she let Charlotte believe that she would be taking Mona’s place as A. Charlotte really wanted to play the game but couldn’t do that from Radley. So Charlotte leaves Radley and gets herself a place in Rosewood. For the twin the goal is to prove Ali’s alive, for Charlotte its about finding out the truth about her family. Eventually the twin tells Charlotte who she is, which makes Charlotte more on her side. Seasons 3 & 4 are the twin, CeCe, & the liars trying to find out if Ali is alive. Remember there were 3 redcoats in the sawmill in Ravenswood. Ali, Charlotte, & the person who led them to Ezra’s lair. The twin led them to this lair for a reason, this was to make Ezra look more guilty than Charlotte. Once the twin has confirmation that Ali was alive she tells Charlotte she needs to leave the country (because she is accused of murder). Charlotte leaves the country and Ali is exposed, just like the twin planned. This time she sends Shana to kill Ali (because Mona didn’t do it the first time) But instead the liars (Aria) killed Shana.

So just to add things up: The twin is after the liars for the Jenna thing and the Shana thing.

So twins next plan to take Ali’s place involves getting Ali and the liars put in jail. At this point (other than Aria) the liars haven’t killed anyone. So she convinces Mona to fake her death. Which Mona agrees too (the blood) The twin comes in and she and Mona fake the crime scene. Of course it looked like Ali in the surveillance video. Because it’s Ali’s twin. This is the first time Mona actually meets the twin (hence her being shocked) But don’t forget she was in on this.

Once Ali was in jail. Twin just needed to get the liars to Charlotte’s dollhouse, and why not ruin their names in the process. The liars are arrested then kidnapped, making it look like they had escaped. While in the dollhouse, the girls were being tortured by several people. The twin, Charlotte, Mona, Noel, & Sara. The plan would be to keep the liars their permanently. Eventually cluing them in. But holding them captive none the less. Mona would be eventually released having no memory of her kidnapping or the faking of her death. This would clear Alison’s name. She would then be taken to the dollhouse and twin would replace her for good. But the twin didn’t plan for the liars to be smart enough to figure out about Charles... At first the twin decided to play along in their quest to figure out who Charles was. Having Noel stand in as pseudo “Charles” what she didn’t plan for was them catching the damn place on fire. She was literally leading Alison there that night to bring her to the dollhouse. Once the girls had escaped her plan was ruined and Charlotte would be left to take the blame. (Game Over, Charlotte)

But of course Charlotte couldn’t let the game go.when the twin didn’t want to play with Charlotte anymore, Charlotte tried to assemble her own team, (Jenna, Noel, Archer, Lucas, & eventually Mary) She still wanted to play with the girls. But she needed out of Welby first. Finally she gets released. The twin did not want Charlotte to interfere with the plan she’s been coming up with for the last 5 years. So after Charlotte was released, the twin killed her. Using the plan from Spencer’s paper. Already trying to frame someone. Mona is still working for her. After Charlotte is killed she starts tormenting the liars trying to get them to give up evidence that Ali killed Charlotte. It’s just like her plan with Mona only this time someone will really die. She literally plays the girls against themselves. She knows who killed Charlotte and she convinces the girls that it’s possibly one of them, to the point that the girls actually do start incriminating themselves. (Killing Archer) Meanwhile the twin has also taken over all of Charlotte’s minions (Jenna, Noel, Archer, Mary, Sara, Lucas) with the promise that they would be finding Charlotte’s killer, again playing them because she already knows who killed her. Lucas built the board game. Archer got the money. Noel was gathering information. etc... They all played their part. And they all die off once they’ve been exposed or have said too much (Sara, Noel) Jenna hasn’t died yet because the twin has a soft spot for her. But she’s still expendable if she doesn’t play along. Which is why she is holding something over Sydney to force her to play too. By the end of the game one of the liars will go down for Charlotte’s death and the others will be left suffering.

But the twin never expects for the girls to figure things out. But I think this is actually going to end up being the case. One of the liars will figure out it’s the twin but she won’t be able to tell the others. Eventually someone from the twin’s minions will try to switch sides and help the liars most likely Mona. The twin will be caught and arrested but not before one or two people die in the cross fire (my guesses are one or two of these people; Lucas, Mona, Jenna, or one of the liars- Not Spencer)

We’ll prob have a time jump of the liars finally living an A/AD free life and see how they are. Alison and Emily will prob be together trying to raise the kid. Spencer and Toby will be friends but not together. Ezra and Aria will probably get married. Caleb and Hanna will probably get married.

Other things the twin was a part of:

The lodge fire, the twin was the person on the plane. She is the one who knew how to fly. Duncan never met the real Ali he had always met the twin when she was pretending to be Alison. The only time the liars ask Ali about Duncan is when Spencer drug-dreams her up. This was probably the twin at the time. And not actually Alison.

The girl outside the window when Hanna and Mona did the Ouija board was also probably the twin because it led to a pissed off Mr & Mrs D.

So that’s it folks. Ali has a twin and her twin is AD. Ali never knew she was a twin. It’s why she had so many baby pics (there were two of them) Jason was brainwashed to forget it just like he was with Charles.

For more on how I deducted it would be her twin check this theory out!

#pll #pll theory #final #final theory #endofmany #pretty little liars #theories #theory #endofanera #alison #ad #twin #spencer

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Coronavirus vaccine: problems that might hamper rollout prior to 2021

A subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety research study medical trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for the coronavirus.

Ted S. Warren/AP.

Drugmakers, researchers, and federal governments are racing to establish a coronavirus vaccine at unmatched speeds.

It appears possible, or perhaps most likely, that a vaccine could be readily available by early 2021.

But there are countless barriers to producing an effective vaccine and making sure people take it, including public hesitation about a vaccine’s security and the fair and fair distribution of shots.

Check out Company Expert’s homepage for more stories

If a fire breaks out in a school or a movie theater, everybody knows what to do: head for the exits.

The exit plan for this pandemic, on the other hand, is uncharted territory.

What’s certain is that a vaccine is important. That’s why scientists and federal governments are operating at unprecedented speeds to create one. Since the start of the break out, leading health authorities have said it’ll take about 12-18 months for a vaccine to be ready. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Contagious Diseases, has actually stated he’s “positive” that we’ll have at least one vaccine all set by the end of this year or the start of 2021.

However even that timeline is unknown.

Plus, even once we develop a promising vaccine, big challenges to mankind’s exit strategy come after that: in testing, mass-manufacturing, and dispersing these vaccines fairly and cost effectively.

Where things stand now

Development to date looks great: More than 150 coronavirus vaccine programs are underway

The frontrunners, from Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, are on the verge of kicking off medical trials that will enlist 10s of thousands of volunteers to assist figure out whether the shots prevent coronavirus infections or make it possible for individuals to combat off the virus if they do get sick.

Pharmaceutical huge Merck is likewise working on a coronavirus shot however hasn’t offered details on when it may be ready.

” I believe when people inform the public that there’s going to be a vaccine by the end of 2020, for example, I believe they do a severe injustice,” Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s CEO, said in a current interview with Harvard professor Tsedal Neeley

Here are the 7 significant questions that need to be addressed before a coronavirus shot is within reach.

Is the vaccine safe?

A staff member tests samples of a possible COVID-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm.

Zhang Yuwei/Xinhua via AP.

Since vaccines are developed to prevent disease in people who aren’t sick, regulators, physicians, and the public have little tolerance for side effects, particularly enduring or harmful ones.

Early coronavirus vaccine safety tests, done in small groups of young, healthy people, so far reveal that most of vaccinated volunteers experience some moderate negative effects, such as fevers, fatigue, and pain at the injection site.

Learn More: The very first look at human data from the coronavirus-vaccine front-runners is in. Here’s how Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca accumulate as they race to have their shots ready this fall.

That raises questions about whether people who are older or who have preexisting health conditions– those who require security from COVID-19 the most– will tolerate these shots as well as the test groups. Additional trials are underway in bigger groups of individuals, consisting of the senior and people with comorbidities.

Never lose out on healthcare news. Sign Up For Given, Organisation Expert’s daily newsletter on pharma, biotech, and health care.

When vaccine candidates get checked in tens of countless individuals, it’s possible we’ll learn about additional issues, consisting of ultra-rare but major side effects that have hindered some previous vaccine programs. There’s also a theoretical threat that a vaccine could make the illness worse in some individuals, a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement

Does the vaccine work?

The response to this concern is most likely more complex than a basic yes or no.

A best vaccine would be 100?ficient at avoiding viral infections. However no vaccine designer expects this to be the case with COVID-19 The US Food and Drug Administration has stated it wants to see at least 50?ficiency before it approves a shot.

Moderna workplaces in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe by means of Getty Images.

A coronavirus vaccine might end up being partially effective, like the influenza shot, indicating it decreases the likelihood that people who get the shot develop severe signs.

Moderna, for instance, has actually developed its big human trial to identify whether its coronavirus vaccine can accomplish at least a 60%reduction in symptomatic disease.

So even with a vaccine, it’s most likely that there will be some coronavirus that continues to circulate in society.

Will protection from a vaccine fade gradually?

A test tube consisting of coronavirus antibodies.

Thomas Peter/Reuters.

Vaccines are developed to trigger your body to create antibodies that protect you from future infection.

Companies like Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca have compared their vaccines to a sampling of recovered COVID-19 clients in early studies.

However some research study suggests coronavirus antibodies don’t last very long– one study recommended antibodies may last only three to 5 weeks in some clients If antibodies are actually that short lived, a vaccine’s security could be brief, too.

Still, experts say that’s no cause for panic, because our body’s resistance isn’t simply connected to antibodies. Leukocyte have a remarkable immunological memory that can help the body recognize and attack the getting into virus should it ever return. T cells can ruin infected cells, and B cells work to produce new antibodies. A vaccine might help produce both.

” There’s no proof that immunity is short lived and no extensive price quotes yet of for how long it will last,” Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist at University of California Santa Cruz, told Organisation Expert.

Dr. Rhonda Flores looks at protein samples at Novavax laboratories, among the laboratories developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, in Gaithersburg, Maryland on March 20,2020

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP.

And even if antibodies wane with time, that’s not an offer breaker for a vaccine, according to Florian Krammer, a vaccinologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

” This happens for a lot of vaccines,” he previously told Company Insider “It’s not a problem. You can get revaccinated.”

Lots of vaccines have to be provided consistently, or improved, at some time in an individual’s life.

” To be rather truthful, the least of our issues is, ‘Do we have a vaccine that is going to last us for several years?'” Maria Elena Bottazzi, a vaccine designer at Baylor College of Medication, informed Business Expert.

Can we mass-produce it?

Say a vaccine is discovered to be safe and efficient for extensive usage. Comes another huge challenge: developers will have to make huge amounts of it.

The leading vaccines use a number of various innovations– such as mRNA, recombinant protein, and adenoviruses– each of which has its own complex manufacturing procedure. While all the leading vaccine designers have been scaling up their production capabilities, none will have the ability to satisfy worldwide need anytime quickly.

Researcher Xinhua Yan operates in the laboratory at Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 28,2020

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images.

What’s more, when vaccine vials come off the factory line, the last mile of their journey might be the hardest.

That will position a formidable infrastructure concern for the developing world, especially in locations where electrical power or established health systems are not prevalent.

Still, world governments have actually currently dedicated billions to scale up vaccine production.

When will we really have a vaccine?

Having a vaccine is a mushy concept: Do we “have a vaccine” when one prospers in clinical trials? Or when it’s approved by regulators? Or just when there are enough dosages available to inoculate the world?

It’s possible that a vaccine could secure emergency situation usage authorization from the FDA in the United States as soon as this fall, but that doesn’t indicate it would be extensively available.

According to David Heymann, an epidemiologist and advisor to the World Health Organization, it’s likely that those first limited dosages will go to the swaths of the population at greatest risk of infection.

The Trump administration has actually set an objective of having 300 million doses of a vaccine by January.

A Seattle pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller the first shot in the first-stage security study scientific trial of a possible vaccine for coronavirus on March 16,2020

Ted S. Warren/AP.

There’s no detailed schedule for how to inoculate the world, however getting any vaccine to the whole world will take a minimum of numerous years, if not longer. Groups like Gavi and the World Health Organization are creating a structure to guarantee the establishing world is not left behind.

Once we have a vaccine, will individuals wish to get it?

Even if the United States end up all set to begin vaccinating great deals of people in early 2021, it’s unclear how many individuals would rely on the shots. Scientists and some politicians have struggled for months to encourage chunks of the American public that masks deserve wearing.

Winning over vaccine skeptics will likely be a lot more difficult. Doing so needs the general public to trust the drug companies that established the shot, the research system that vetted it in trials, and the Trump administration regulators that authorized it– all of which would have occurred in record time.

In a current survey, about one in five Americans said they don’t prepare to get a coronavirus vaccine, while half said they would. The rest were uncertain.

An anti-vaxxer protest in the UK.

AP Picture/ Sang Tan.

Another barrier could be the cost.

What about booster shots?

Given that people will likely require to get two shots of a coronavirus vaccine a few weeks apart for it to be efficient, health care systems in all nations will have to ensure that individuals come back for the second dose– which is sure to be an obstacle.

” The more complex the schedule, the harder it is to get individuals to come in,” Walt Orenstein, a vaccinologist and previous director of the US National Immunization Program, informed Business Insider.

Two required shots also indicates we’ll need twice as numerous vials, syringes, clinic gos to, and so on.

Those obstacles would only snowball if it ends up that people require to get revaccinated routinely.

Vaccines aren’t the only video game in the area

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Transmittable Illness, places on a Washington Nationals deal with mask when he arrives to affirm before your home Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, June 23,2020

Kevin Dietsch/Pool via REUTERS.

Despite the vitality we have actually seen around many vaccine programs’ promising early outcomes, specialists have been quite clear that even a coronavirus vaccine will not return bring pre-pandemic life back overnight.

” Offered public-health infrastructure, I question anyone is reasonably expecting we can eliminate the virus worldwide with vaccine,” Kilpatrick said. “It likely will be with us long term.”

Still, physicians are learning how to better look after coronavirus clients. Drugmakers have already identified treatments that can help people recuperate faster and decrease deaths in badly ill COVID-19 patients.

New, experimental therapies might improve patient results much more significantly. In particular, antibody drugs are now being checked in humans to see if they can deal with COVID-19 as well as avoid infections amongst high-risk people. If they work, some could be ready this fall– prior to a vaccine.

Find Out More: An antibody treatment may be our finest shot at stopping the coronavirus if a vaccine does not exercise. Here are the 9 leading programs, including 2 that are intending to be all set this fall.

In a July 14 livestream hosted by Stanford University, Fauci stated as much.

” What we really require, and we’re on the track of getting, are interventions that can be given early in the course of illness to avoid individuals who are vulnerable from progressing to the requirement for hospitalization,” he stated, adding, “I think we are on an excellent track to get there fairly quickly.”

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unfamiliarties-a · 5 years

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canon divergencies in characters.

i'll try and keep these as short as i can, but basically if you want to know where any timelines or portrayals differ from general canon then here's a master list for everyone. i'll update this for any muses i add or remove from here. any additional questions then just drop me a line. there will be spoilers for various fandoms. if any muses i have don't appear on this list then either there's no canon divergency to consider or i'm still in the process of deciding these things, again, feel free to just ask about it.

general.

tracy mcconnell. this one is kind of obvious but basically my tracy did not die at the end of the series and by extention ted did not wind up with robin after this, regardless of how much time had passed. ted and tracy both ended up together, had two beautiful kids penny and luke, and tracy was there for her daughter's wedding.

luke skywalker. i'm fine with everything that happened in the last jedi. i know a lot of other people weren't, but i'm cool with it. i didn't want luke to die particularly, but i'm okay with the fact that he did. i'm happy to write things with luke as a force ghost or luke if he had survived the finale fight.

elena gilbert. this is less a divergence of elena herself but more the general direction of the show that i didn't really enjoy. so with that everything after season three is considered to be divergent from the show. my particular peeves were plec's lack of care about elena's career goals from this point (aka the doctor thing) and her absence from the show after season six (aka why would you get rid of the main character of your show you dumb fucks). i'm fine with elena waking up as a vampire at the end of season three and the reveal of her and damon meeting before she met stefan.

loki laufeyson. no real canon divergency here. loki's death was heartbreaking and i definitely didn't want it to happen but i'm okay that it did and how well it was done. i will say here though that i do believe that loki was under some partial influence from the scepter during the attack on new york, but i'm not condoning anything either. that's just my five cents on the matter.

jess mariano. ooh, boy okay. so .. the kyle's bedroom thing. i wanna make it clear that jess, or my jess, or just how i saw things personally, was not going to rape rory. yes he was pushy and his behaviour that night was all around shitty and i do not excuse it for a moment, but he never would have gone all the way forcing her. and the first thing he did after the fight was apologise to her when he saw her next. that's just the tea for me. everything with a year in the life was cool with me i just wish there had been more scenes of him haha.

tony stark. the 'zuccini' comment just did not happen. k. thanks. bye.

natasha romanoff. i have my own bio for nat which you can read here. it's really the best guide for what i consider to be natasha's story, which is basically my own accumulation of natasha's appearances and history in the films and comics, so it would be nice also if no one stole what i wrote. also just a smol thing that the natasha and bruce trash romance did not happen here.

extended.

damon salvatore. similar to above that i have little to complain about with damon himself but with what way the show went after season three. i do think that damon's motivations and relationships with particular characters weren't put across properly to the audience, so i'll be here to clear up those instances. i'm okay with the damon and caroline thing, i don't ship them or i don't agree with what he did but i won't label it as rape. i'm not a survivor myself so i'm not telling anyone how to feel about it, to me i just think that caroline did want to sleep with him in the beginning but not after he attacked her and they didn't sleep together after that fact. the compulsion applied to damon getting her to help with with things in the town and feeding on her, but i don't think he compelled her for sex, so i treat it in that context. however i won't be explicitly writing this side of their relationship and my damon did apologize to her. i'm happy to keep the enzo and damon backstory but not them running off to kill people etc. the sibyl stuff however did not happen, nor the stuff with lily etc.

peter parker. i've seen a lot of the discussions about peter being transgender, i'm not against it in anyway, i actually think its kind of neat. i'm lgbt myself so its awesome to see some representation like that and i fully support all the trans peter's out there. personally for me however, i see peter as still figuring things out in all aspects of his life, including who he is as himself and being a friendly neighbourhood spiderman. so i'm not against exploring a trans peter in the near future, or atleast figuring that out, but for now i just think peter is too all over the place to put a label on himself either way, so he won't refer to himself as trans or otherwise, or who he's interested in sexually or romantically. it's all just one big figuring things out schtick, so be patient with him.

rory gilmore. okay so i liked the reunion series aka a year in the life but i didn't personally think that rory's arc was the best so i'm going to negate it entirely and do my own thing with it, whatever that will be. my biggest peeves really was her attitude to certain job prospects and her falling back into a crappy relationship with logan - which i never really cared for in the original series anyway. i can acknowledge that rory and logan were a thing back then, it actually lends to rory's conclusion at the end of that season but i won't write shippy things for them going forward, and i'm not even that keen in writing past shippy stuff for them. i'm a hardcore rory and jess shipper, so while she didn't wait around for him either, i'm totally down for them getting together.

sam winchester. the whole becky rosen debacle did not happen. this includes them meeting, the love potion and the mess that was their 'marriage’. it just did not happen. becky rosen does not exist here. sam did not kill emma. if dean were to have a daughter then sam would not just kill her, monster or not, he would try to help first and probably to a fault, like he did with jack. there was never a romantic attachment with ruby. they were work partners of circumstance, they both used each other and slept together and ruby did manipulate him. sam has all his memories of the cage, due to the immense torture he went under during that time, a good portion of his 'memory’ is down to sensation, sight, sound, feeling, ect. from this its hard for him to say whether or not he was sexually abused / raped by lucifer in the cage. he was most definitely tortured and he retains the feelings of being violated in every way imaginable, but he doesn’t have a solid picture in his head of what exactly happened or atleast the whole of what happened.

dean winchester. though the show isn’t explicit with dean’s sexuality, my dean is considered to be a closeted bisexual. he has an interest in men and at times doesn’t hide it well and is very in denial about it. he’s never gotten a chance to even experiment it or entertain the idea due to the kind of life he lives, i.e. being a hunter. he will be very concerned about getting into a relationship or even a romantic entanglement with another guy, but it’s not to say its something he doesn’t want with the right person. dean was a demon for a lot longer than the show portrayed, we’re talking months and not weeks. dean loved being a demon, not looking back on it now, it makes him feel unclean whenever he thinks about it, but as a demon dean was as dangerous as they come and it took several botched attempts to bring him down by sam and castiel before they were eventually able to catch him.

john winchester. sam and dean were never beaten by john or harmed physically by him, who never would have raised a hand to his kids over anything. he wasn’t a perfect dad, he was a man grieving his wife and he made mistakes, he made his boys grow up too soon bc he couldn’t stand the idea of them not being ready someone or something tried to hurt them. no john winchester hate will be accepted here. john did tell dean to kill sam if he went evil. not because he didn’t believe in sam or hated him for anything. they had both made their peace with each other before john died. john just didn’t want his son to be corrupted or become something he wasn’t, he didn’t want azazael’s plan for sam to ever come to fruition. he wanted sam safe and himself always.

mary winchester. sleeping with ketch did not happen. bc good god, no. she was grieving her husband, john was the one. she would not jump into bed with a shit like ketch. that is all. mary did abandon the boys for the british men of letters. she was dealing with coming back to life, being a mother to two grown boys, grieving a dead husband and now living in a time and place completely different to her own time. she was adjusting to her new situation and granted she did not deal with that very well. i won’t make excuses for her in that respect but she didn’t do it out of spite or dislike for her sons.

#｡･ﾟﾟ･　muses information.

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anchorarcade · 7 years

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Jared Kushner hid real estate tech company on disclosure form, profited

http://ryanguillory.com/jared-kushner-hid-real-estate-tech-company-on-disclosure-form-profited/

Jared Kushner hid real estate tech company on disclosure form, profited

Jared Kushner “enriched himself” by not revealing his ownership of a real estate tech business that raised millions of dollars while he served in the government, said a member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it part of a pattern of unethical behavior that he believes should cause the White House Senior Adviser to be stripped of his security clearance.

Congressman Ted Lieu told Newsweek that Kushner’s failure to list a company called Cadre on his initial financial disclosure forms—an oversight that could mean millions for the president’s son-in-law—is an ethical lapse that should have severe ramifications.

“It appears [Kushner] ended up being the beneficiary of that omission,” said Lieu, a California Democrat. “He enriched himself by failing to disclose the asset.”

More from Newsweek: Wait, are Obama and Tillerson hanging out together? They just joined the same country club Refugee policy: Trump’s America turning away the most in 37 years Did Trump just give up on Puerto Rico completely?

Kushner’s lawyer has said that her client’s failure to list Cadre on the initial filing in March was merely an “administrative error.” But that “error” allowed Kushner to maintain a stake in the start-up at a time when the three-year-old business doubled its venture funding from rich private investors.

Kushner’s failure to cite Cadre on his financial disclosure form came as the Office of Government Ethics was deciding whether to grant him a Certificate of Divestiture, which requires incoming government employees to divest “100% of all financial interests” from listed companies so they don’t violate conflict-of-interest laws. It also allows those government employees to sell their assets without paying heavy capital gains taxes.

The timeline suggests more than just an inadvertent oversight, but an effort by Kushner to hold onto Cadre rather than be forced to divest his interests in the emerging company, according to ethics experts.

On March 9, Kushner submitted his original financial disclosure form to the Office of Government Ethics. It did not specifically list Cadre as one of Kushner’s assets, though he co-founded the company with his brother, Joshua Kushner and his Harvard classmate Ryan Williams, who remains Cadre CEO.

The company was already attracting attention in New York’s real estate and tech circles because of its promise to disrupt both industries by allowing investors to buy shares in real estate developments much like they would buy shares of companies on the stock market.

Kushner’s lawyer says Cadre was not specifically cited on the March 9 form because his holding company, BFPS Ventures, acquired his interest in Cadre on February 17. That transaction appears to be noted on his financial records as a $100,000 to $250,000 sale.

But that amount does not match subsequent disclosures. When Kushner finally amended his financial disclosure form on July 21, he valued his interest in Cadre from $5 million to $25 million.

That disclosure came after Cadre had raised $65 million more in venture funding from major donors including Andreessen Horowitz, adding to a list of prominent venture capitalists such as Democratic donor George Soros and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

The disclosure form suggests that Kushner has not fully divested from Cadre. Indeed, a representative for the start-up told Newsweek that Kushner maintains “a small, passive investment,” but has “no operational or advisory role,” describing the cofounder as “an early investor in the company.”

Government watchdogs have a problem with Kushner’s continued ownership of Cadre.

“Mr. Kushner co-founded Cadre and continues to own a significant part of it,” the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote to then-Ethics Office Director Walter Shaub on July 6. “As a result [the Ethics Office] appears to have granted the certificate of divestiture based on incomplete information.”

Shaub, who resigned on July 19 from the ethics office complaining of the Trump administration’s disregard for conflict-of-interest guidelines, never signed off on Kushner’s Certificate of Divestiture. Instead, it was approved by the office’s general counsel, David Apol on July 20, the day after Shaub quit. Apol replaced Shaub the next day. The New York Times described Apol as having “a much more cordial relationship with the White House” than Shaub.

Kushner’s failure to include the full value of Cadre in his initial filing likely allowed him to hold onto most of his interest rather than be forced to divest, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says. And had Kushner revealed his ownership in Cadre, the company might not have been as attractive to investors, who would obviously be keen on putting money into a company so closely linked to a person inside the White House. A Kushner representative admitted that investors would certainly have known about Kushner’s holdings in Cadre from publicly available information, which concerns ethics experts.

“(Kushner) could potentially have been wanting to not disclose this asset as the latest round of funding was happening,” Elana Fine, executive director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, College Park, said. “When a venture capitalist like Jared Kushner invests in a company, they’re always expecting a return on that investment.”

The type of business Cadre does is also noteworthy because it sits at the nexus of Kushner’s two power bases: real estate and, now, politics.

Cadre operates as an online platform, connecting wealthy investors like Soros, for example, to emerging real estate properties in which they can buy partial ownership. The billionaire was one of Cadre’s initial key investors, opening up a $250 million line of credit between his family offices and Kushner’s start-up.

But ethics experts think the real estate investing platform may allow foreign investors to hide their identities to the public, though not to Cadre insiders.

“It’s a novel kind of business,” said Virginia Canter, who is executive branch ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Because of the real estate interests that can be traded on the platform, and who can be buying and selling that real estate, [Kushner’s] financial interest in Cadre concerns me … You can have foreign governments or other individuals who have significant interests before Jared Kushner. This is the man responsible for Middle East peace talks and the American Innovation office.

“The point is, Cadre could result in a benefit to him and there’s no way for us to have any insight or to hold him accountable,” she added. “In any other administration, he’d be required to divest of this asset. You line this up with [Kushner’s] failures on his security forms … and it’s a lot to just say it was an inadvertent failure. It looks like it’s a systemic problem and, in some cases, more than that.”

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awesomefelicitylewis-blog · 7 years