text:
Hey everybody! I wrote this piece for a final project where I am supposed to present my work to people and have it critiqued. I thought, what better place to do that than r/shortstories. This is the first time posting and also the first creative writing class that i've taken so any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated as I am sure there are a bunch of things that I could change. Thanks in advance!

It was a cold winter night. The snow had just started to fall, and nights were getting longer and longer. It was only 4:30 p.m. when the sun decided to set. Of course, night time was the only thing that I looked forward to throughout the day. I look forward to it because it is when HE decides to come out. By “HE” I mean the man that had been murdering unsuspecting people every day. Why do I look forward to this man coming out and brutally murdering innocent people you ask? Because I follow him. That’s right, I know who he is and where he lives. Pretty stereotypical serial killer if you ask me, I’m surprised they haven’t caught him yet. I follow him every night, and watch him seek out his victim. I have been doing it for so long now that I am actually starting to feel some kind of weird connection to the guy. It’s like I can read his mind and tell ahead of time who he is going to kill tonight. By now you’re probably wondering why I don’t just turn him in. Well, around when all this started I had hit a low point in my life. I was working a dead-end job, I had no friends, and my parents didn’t even care about me. They were too busy showering my old brother with praise while I struggled to make ends meet. After months of waking up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner alone and then getting ready to do it all over again, I finally decided that I had had enough. I was going to end it. Kill myself, that is. What’s the point? I’m living this miserable life that’s going nowhere. If I don’t end it now then what? Go through this for the next 50-60 years of my life? Fuck that. Why waste time, I figured I’d just get it over with. I had it all planned out. I was going to make a big spectacle of myself. My plan was to head over to the nearby park and hang myself from one of the trees. Then leave a suicide note, of course, because how could I forget that? What would a suicide even be without a suicide note? So I brought all my “supplies” to the park and prepared to do the deed. I had climbed a nice tall tree in the center of the park to make sure that I would not go unnoticed. As I sat atop the tree branch, trying to tie the god damn noose correctly, I heard a scream. I stopped what I was doing and scanned the park for the source. It was dark out and the lights around the park were not doing a very good job, but as I stared out into the distance I noticed two figures that looked to be struggling with one another. Great…someone’s getting murdered on the night that I’m going to kill myself. Who the hell is going to care about me when this shit is all over the news? Well not on my watch. I am not going to sit by and let these two people steal my spotlight. I climbed down from the tree and ran over two the two people with the intention of stopping the murder. As I got closer the screens became muffled. I quickened my pace but was apparently not quick enough. As I came upon where the figures were I heard only silence. I remained out of sight from the person that was standing up; I was close enough now that I could make out every little detail of him. I looked down and saw the woman’s neck had been sliced open. God dammit…well I can’t kill myself now! Frustrated I began to hatch a new plan. This woman’s murder is going to be all over the news, and I have seen the killer! I bet I could give them a pretty accurate description that would lead to his arrest. But that still wouldn’t solve my problems. I needed to do something better than that. I needed to stop this man myself and be seen as a hero. Yeah, then my parents would talk about me instead of my brother and I would probably be able to find a better job as well. That night, I followed that man home, and have been following him ever since, learning everything about him, and perfecting how I was going to take him out.

title: Short Story for a Final Project: Suicide Spotlight

question: Will the narrator tell the police who the serial killer is?

answer: No

question: What is the serial killer's motivation for murder?

answer: Information not found.

question: Why did the narrator want to kill himself?

answer: He did not like the life he was leading. His parents were not giving him any attention, he was working in a dead-end job, he had no friends.

question: What stopped the narrator from killing himself?

answer: As he was preparing to kill himself that night, he saw a murder happen so he stopped to go and check that out. He wanted to make a spectacle out of his suicide so having someone get murdered in that same park, that same day would take attention off of him.

question: Why did he start following the murderer?

answer: He wanted to make a plan to stop him so that he could be viewed as a hero.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator is living a depressing life and decides to kill himself and make a spectacle out of that. The same night he wants to hang himself from a tree in a park he sees someone getting murdered. He goes over to check it out and follows the killer. He then proceeds to follow the killer every day in the hopes that he will eventually stop him, become a hero, and better his life.


split: train

text:
I am trying to be a writer, I would like opinions.  Feel free to be as harsh or as flattering as you want, in my eyes its all constructive.  It might be a bit hard to figure out, so I guess also comment on what you think its about.

	The lights were flickering on and off.  He came into view three or four times.  Large bursts of light erupting from a pitch black abyss.  In the room, there were no sounds, no breaths, no heart beats.  When the lights were on the black abyss turned into a room, and the room was all white with blisteringly powerful light spraying off everywhere.  When the lights turned on, maybe a half a second, maybe three quarters, I was able to make out a figure.  Large, dark and angry.  Eyes completely yellow, staring me down.  My eyes reflected in his, the reflection so bright, how could I possibly look away.  I shoved my hands against my temples and squeezed, the man falling in and out of my sight.  The light turned off, a wave of black falling over me, like a midnight black blanket being wrapped around my head on a bright day.  I fell over slightly and felt nauseous.  I tripped on my own feet and my head banged against the floor, or the wall, I’m not really sure which.  At times like these I always ran to the door, kicking and screaming to let me out, to let me breathe, but I always heard the same words every time I banged the door, “anesthesia.”  I would loose track of the door at that point.  First it was on the left, then it was on the right.  Rotating around me like the orbit of a moon sped up.
	They would always turn the lights on at the worst moment, right when I would close my eyes, right when I was going to get some rest finally.  I was a child waiting for a Christmas that never came.  Sometimes, during these fits of light, I would catch the faint glimmer of a shadow over me.  The shadow of a demon like being with the horns of a devil and the knife of a butcher.  Picking and pulling at my well being, the chords of thought being plucked right from under me.  I was never able to move at these moments, never able to reach out my hand and grasp the ephemeral hand over me.  The lights started to flicker again, in and out.  If I was a bucket of sand, they would be emptying me gradually, and each grain of sand that would fall out would just disappear as it left the bucket, with each flicker of the light this would continue to happen.  The bang and the light coming and going from those in front of me who were never actually in front of me.  A worthless fight.
	How long has it been?  A week?  A month?  I’d bang on the door when I could find it.  I’d yell my name just to yell it, just to gain something from a lost experience, right up until that was lost too.  And when I’d yell, I’d cry, because I was yelling my life, my upbringing, my experiences.  After each yell, it would go, after each cry I’d forget.  And on that final day, when there was nothing left to yell, I’d wake up.
	I would wake up lying down, people in white standing over me with light shining down and red tools lying next to me.  Everything is in front of me, but I cant grasp it.  Like a fisherman trying to grab the reflection of a fish going by with his bare hands.  Except now, I am all empty.

title: This is my story (read and criticize)

question: Is the narrator locked somewhere?

answer: Yes, the narrator is locked in a room. The lights of the room are mostly switched off so he cannot figure what the room looks like.

question: What did the demon look like?

answer: The demon had yellow eyes, he was large and had horns. He held a butcher's knife.

question: What did it feel like being locked inside the room?

answer: The narrator felt completely lost. He had lost track of time. The room was completely dark and he felt nauseous. Irritated by his situation, he would kick the door and scream to let him out.

question: Is the narrator dreaming?

answer: This information is not mentioned.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer:
The narrator was locked inside a dark room. The lights would turn on for hardly a second and he would witness a large, dark, and angry demon staring right back at him.

He would scream and kick the door to let him out but they wouldn't. He had forgotten how long had he been in there.


text:
The BUNDOK FLYCATCHER (_Ficedula luzoniensis_) or THICKET FLYCATCHER, is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is endemic to the Philippines.

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

title: Bundok flycatcher

question: What is the scientific name of the Bundok Flycatcher?

answer: The Bundok Flycatcher's scientific name is Ficedula luzoniensis.

question: What family is the Bundok Flycatcher in?

answer: The Bundok Flycatcher is in the family Muscicapidae.

question: What country is the Bundok Flycatcher found in?

answer: The Bundok Flycatcher is found in the Philippines.

question: What habitats does the Bundok Flycatcher live in?

answer: Bundok Flycatchers live in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The Bundok Flycatcher is a bird that lives in the forests of the Philippines.


text:
                                                                                Stay alive; that was the goal. Stay alive long enough for History to remember you… What if I can’t make it that long? What if this rifle I carry becomes too much for me? I shoved those questions into the back of my mind, vigorously, as if slamming a drawer shut in hurriedness. My mother told me to get out, get out of the house and don’t look back, that she and my sister would endure the raids on the homes of our village. I don’t know why they couldn’t keep with me, why they couldn’t follow me through the valleys and mountains I’ve traversed in these past few weeks… Maybe they lost hope? Maybe they didn’t want to wage war with life any longer…
But I am alone now, just a boy and his gun on the run for his life. I had one magazine and a bullet in the chamber, enough to get me through to a new home… or another soldier, you never know out here. But they were after me, The Tyrants, my mother would call them; an organization bent on taking over this entire country. We were just another check in the tallies, our small mining town on the side of a mountain, far off from anywhere. They still wanted us anyway, just for land… Just for land.
                 I lay prone in a bush covered in thorns under a downed tree, the needles piercing through my clothing as I watched the enemy militia sit around a small fire, ranting on about how their Commanding Officer doesn’t give enough food in their daily rations. I could hear my stomach growl in anger at them as I longed for their steaming cups of coffee with a buttered biscuit. My mouth watered from the aroma they gave… But maybe that was just my senses going into over drive. My eyes drooped with weariness, and sank lower and lower with every breath of frozen winter air I took. I thought they were weighed down with lead, and I couldn’t hold them open anymore…
The sky seemed to hold a dark blue hue, fading to light as it touched the horizon. I looked upon the floor, vertical lines seeming to span on forever. I saw two figures in close, one seemed familiar to me. In her hand she held a page, smeared in illegible writings that only her eye could read. Her head hung low, a tear dripping from the corner of her eye, a creek of one drop.  Before her was another woman, but of strange stature, a bouquet of flowers a-many color, but with the grey of steel mixed in with the fibers, showing her tense visage. “Why did he have to die mother?” The first woman asked the other, a tremble in her voice, easily comparable to a warble in the voice of an anxious public speaker.
                “Every person has a role to fill in life, he has done his, my child, and God needs him no longer.” I tried to rush to the both of them, as fast as my weary legs would bear, but my soles seemed to fill with lead, and my feet were encased in stone. The stone seemed to multiply particle by particle around me, panic rising in my blood like bubbles in a boiling pot. By the time it covered my face, I was absorbed in a dark unlike no other, it was a compressed abyss that seemed to never end, like a nightmare that you can’t escape. My sight was restored, oddly, but it seemed dark, every color muffled to its lightest degree. I saw the women still standing there, the first woman now with a rush of tears pouring down her pink pastel cheeks. The woman with her flowery head comforted her to the best extent she could, trying to put on a dance for the crying girl. I opened my mouth and tried to scream, but I seemed heavier, bulkier than normal, weighed down by my own body. I couldn’t utter a sound, it was as if my vocal cords had frozen, maybe they turned to stone themselves. A bright light figure appeared before my frame, slender and tall like an un-bruised birch.
         “Shh…” He muttered before waving his slim fingers before my eyes, making my shift to black again…
I shuttered awake, the queer sense that the dream left behind made my bones rattle under my skin. The soldiers now slept around their dying fire, snoring so loud, it could over power a truck horn. I sighed quietly, relief flowing through my body a wave at a time. “I wonder what that could have meant?” I questioned myself as I pulled my tattered body out of the shrub little by little. The snow crunched as I wiggled out from under the downed tree, to make my get away from these pigs-of-soldiers. But before I could manage to pull myself up and make a break, and hand pushed my back into the ice glazed snow, the water from the melted bits coursing in through the tears in my dress. It rolled my over to face a completely bright man, slim and tall, just like the one in the dream.
“Shh…” He whispered, before his blade stuck in my chest, and my heart rate fell to nothing…

title: [Slim] Inspired by Salvador Dali's Femme a tete de Roses

question: Why is the boy running away?

answer: The boy is running away because his life is in danger.

question: Summarize everything about the Tyrants.

answer: The Tyrants are an organization that's bent on taking over the entire country. They raided the mining village where the boy lives because they wanted the land. Now, they are after the boy because he presumably escaped. The Tyrants seem like a military or paramilitary organization, where units have soldiers and a Commanding Officer.

question: Who were the two women in the boy's dream?

answer: Although unnamed, the women appear to be older versions of the boy's mother and sister because they looked familiar to him.

question: Did the boy dream about his own death? Explain why.

answer: Yes, the boy dreamt about his own death when he saw the same tall, slender man who woke him up in his dream wake him up and stab him in real life.


text:
He sat silently in his bedroom with the shades pulled down and the lights switched off. It was afternoon, so this failed to create the effect of complete darkness. Rather, it caused a bluish dimness to permeate the room. How dramatic, he mused, but it soon passed from his mind, replaced by a shade of some other train of thought.

It was only a shade because he had never truly had a fully formed thought about it. ‘It’ was an emotionally destructive event that had happened only a day prior. The thoughts he had had about it weren’t full in that they lacked any amount of emotion; they were totally logical, totally reasonable.

He was no stranger to such a thing; this had happened to him a number of times before in similar situations, but an emotional shock had always come a few hours later. Not this time. The fact that it had been a full day and nothing of the sort had transpired was enough for him to know the shock would never come.

The event was that his girlfriend had broken up with him. Naturally, the few people he had informed had given him plenty of advice on the matter. “There are other fish in the sea”; “Don’t give up! You can get her back!”; “Don’t be too sad”.

‘There are other fish in the sea’ was entirely obvious. The boy knew he would eventually find someone else, forget about his old girlfriend, and be happy. He knew that there was no such thing as “the one”.

‘Don’t give up! You can get her back!’ was foolish: no he couldn’t. The only way she would want to be with him again would be if she made the decision of her own accord. People were stubborn. Unwavering. Illogical. Their minds could not be changed on these matters.

‘Don’t be too sad’ was the most curious. Its stupidity and uselessness aside, the boy seemed to be following it of his own accord with his aforementioned lack of emotional thoughts. He had felt no rush of sadness, of helplessness or of desperation. His sadness had been private, internal. Its effects on his behavior were nothing more than some tiredness, and perhaps a tendency not to laugh as hard at jokes. Anyone who was unaware what had happened would assume he was just low on sleep; not that an event of immense consequence had just occurred in his life. Quiet sadness.

The boy knew from experience (both personal and of others) that ‘getting over a breakup’ typically involves a feeling of superiority, of maturing, of scorning your former partner. This was foolish, he felt. It was natural, and he had nearly given into it, but he had stopped himself. Perhaps he was above her, but not by all that much. He tried his best not to think any lower of her than she objectively deserved.
The silhouette of a tree outside his window shone through the shades. He stared as it danced in the wind for half a minute, then blinked.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the words ‘stupid bitch’ entered his mind, but he shook them off. There it is again, he thought; that unrelenting desire to show himself that it didn’t matter. That she was inconsequential, and that the prior event had been a fortunate one. But it hadn’t been. And he knew that he could never truly ‘get over her’ unless he accepted that it had indeed been a bad occurrence.
And she truly was not a stupid bitch. She was a wonderful, intelligent girl, who had been nearly perfect for him. And yet, she possessed a select few qualities that made the two of them incompatible. It was a terrible shame.

At that moment, his mother opened his bedroom door, bringing in light from the hallway, “There you are, sweetie. I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing in here all by yourself?”

“Nothing, Mom. I was just going to go mow the lawn.”

She smiled, nodded and left the room. The boy followed a few moments later, and went to get the mower.

title: Quiet Sadness

question: What emotions are depicted in this story?

answer: Quiet sadness, acceptance, disappointment, reflectiveness

question: Describe the emotionally destructive event?

answer: The male subject's girlfriend had broken up with him.

question: What did the male subject like about his girlfriend?

answer: He found her to be a wonderful, intelligent girl, who had been nearly perfect for him.

question: What is described as unwavering and illogical?

answer: The subject describes people as this. He's referring to his ex-girlfriend being the only one who could decide if they get back together or not.

question: Does the male subject have friends?

answer: The subject doesn't describe any specific friends, but he mentions many people gave him advice about the breakup.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: A male subject deals with the after effects of his girlfriend breaking up with him. He experiences a quiet sadness that is personal and internal. He reflects on the ex-girlfriend, the advice he's been given, and how to get over her. His mother comes in to check on him in his dark room, and he tells her he was just about to mow the lawn. He doesn't reveal how he is feeling to her.


text:
This will ideally be a multi-part story dealing with the aftermath of a tragic event.

Part 1 -  Letters/The people we wish we knew

A.
She worked in an office where she made 12$ an hour and the coffee looked terrible. She punched numbers into a spreadsheet and wrote cash reports by hand, scrawled in pencil and she laughed at the jokes. The racist jokes, the sexist jokes, the jokes about menopause and children and shit. She read a book while she worked and brought a new one in every week. Jane Austen, Bukowski, and Dostoyevsky and Salinger and Aristotle. She listened to them talk about their husbands while she collected papers and added numbers up, she listened to them berate their boyfriends and butcher foreign politics while she made paper clip necklaces. It was the kind of  job where  you didn’t make much and the coffee was terrible and you still drank at least three cups every shift.

She wore stockings with tears  in them and sweater dresses and worn boots. She wore a leather jacket and big sunglasses and crooked half-smile. She chewed on her pens and her pencils and she got so lost in her own thoughts that the girls she worked with would  call her half a dozen times before she heard them and her eyes would light up like fireworks when she came to.

I didn't work in her office, I didn't know her name, but I felt like I knew  her. I sat in security and the screens surrounding me were a blanket of black and grey and the images were a blur of bodies and movement, and there she was, sitting still as the the grainy world catapulted around her.

B.
He wore beat up runners and a three day stubble, I never quite caught his name. His uniform was too big on bony shoulders and he was intense looking; with eyes that made you feel naked and vulnerable. He had an easy smile and the kind of tan you get from working outdoors, he was always humming The Smiths under his breath. I thought about him when I got home and drank a glass of wine, pulled off my work clothes and washed off my face, touched myself as I lay on the couch: eyes closed, for a minute, I thought of him.

Every few days I’d pick up a different bottle of wine and he’d be wearing the same stubble and the same stare as he packed my purchases into paper bags. Sometimes he would ask me how my day was, or what the weather was like outside. He noticed when I cut my hair and always told me to enjoy the book crooked under my arm. I liked him more than most people I worked with, that I saw every day, but I never quite caught his name.

I imagined him going home to a girl with a cheap haircut and a part time job who loved him more than life itself. I imagined him going home to a ramshackle house, rented, with sunflowers growing in the front yard. I imagined him smoking a joint and strumming on an acoustic guitar, calling to the girl for a beer and thinking about not exactly anything when the bottle pressed against his lips. I wish I knew him, I still do.

C.
We rode the subway together every morning, sat in the same train, and read the same newspaper. He had a kid with him, two or three, pressed next to him and chattering away in that way that kids do: no purpose or drive, just words strung together and volume up and down. He always looked calm like he’d just finished a yoga class or something and I’m sure that cup he carried was filled with green tea and not the triple sweetened, whipped-cream-covered, diabetes-in-a-cup in my own travel mug. I always wondered he stayed that way, even when the train stalled and the kid screamed and spilled juice all over his paper, he stayed calm. When it was raining and snowing and it was hot as all hell, he was calm.

I never said hello to him or even smiled at him and I don’t think I ever caught his eye but he was the kind of person that just made you feel better, just to be around him. I wish I had asked him how he stayed that calm, I wish I had known his girl’s name, I wish I had brought her candy on halloween. Her and her father dressed in matching costumes; Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss . Sometimes he read to her, on halloween he read that to her and she was so quiet that for a moment she looked just like he did, eyes went placid and focused all at once.

I wonder what happened it was like for her, after it had ended. I wonder if she ever found her daddy’s calm again. I wish I knew her, I wish I could tell her that I’m sorry.

title: [RF] After it ended/ notes and letters

question: Summarize everything relating to the tragic event.

question: What does the story say about the type of person the woman in part A is?

answer: She laughs at the racist, sexist jokes her coworkers tell. She reads a book while she works every week. Her stockings had tears in them and her boots were worn. She chewed on her pens and pencils and got lost in her thoughts.

question: Summarize everything relating to beverages.

answer: The coffee at the woman's office is terrible. The narrator in part two drinks a glass of wine when she gets home. She picks up a different bottle of wine at the store every few days. She imagines her crush calling to his girl for a beer. She rides the subway together with him and assumes his cup is filled with green tea rather than the whipped-cream-covered sweetened beverage she is drinking.

question: Summarize everything relating to positive emotion.

answer:
The woman laughs at the jokes told at her office. Her eyes light up when her coworkers call out to her and snap her out of her daze.

The narrator likes the man at the store more than most people she works with. Being around him makes her feel better.


text:
AP — Israeli taxpayer support for an organization fueling investment in West Bank settlements rose by more than $100 million last year, making it a top recipient of money being furtively channeled into politicians’ pet projects, according to an Associated Press analysis.

The AP examination of national budget figures found that the settlement building unit of the World Zionist Organization received a bigger funding boost last year than nearly any other government-backed project. The figures provide a rare glimpse behind the smoke screen of bureaucracy that finances one of Israel’s most widely condemned practices.

More than 350,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and 200,000 more in East Jerusalem today. The Palestinians want both areas — captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Say War — included in their future state, and the international community regularly denounces Israeli expansion of settlements in occupied lands as illegal or illegitimate.

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For nearly half a century, the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division has played a key role in managing land and infrastructure in these settlements. Although its funding comes entirely from the government, how it spends that money is largely kept secret.

According to 2014 budget figures, public funding for the division increased more than eightfold last year, including a last-minute spending spree advanced by pro-settlement lawmakers just days after the collapse of Israel’s previous government.

“Once the country allows this corruption with our public funds, it has no end,” said Stav Shaffir, an opposition Labor Party lawmaker who has led a campaign to expose the division’s finances.

[Labor MK Stav Shafir attends a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, September 9, 2014 (photo credit: Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)]

Labor MK Stav Shafir attends a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, September 9, 2014 (photo credit: Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Shafir and other dovish lawmakers have taken aim at the group and its ballooning budget in hopes of using the issue against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his pro-settler partners in Israel’s March 17 elections.

Netanyahu’s main opponent, Labor leader Isaac Herzog, has vowed to reform the Settlement Division if elected. He says he would redirect funds away from investment in settlements and into Israel’s weaker northern and southern regions, which are not subject to territorial disputes with Palestinians.

The Settlement Division serves “narrow interests that have gotten on everyone’s nerves,” Herzog told Channel 2 TV.

On Thursday, a Finance Ministry official said a government task force was investigating the group’s funding methods and structure. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe was incomplete.

An Israeli financial newspaper, Calcalist, reported that the Justice Ministry soon would recommend the division’s closure. Officially, Justice Ministry officials would confirm only that the issue was being investigated.

The division’s troubles follow a police raid on the group’s offices in December as part of a wide-ranging probe into misappropriation of public funds. Police arrested some leaders of West Bank settlement councils that received Settlement Division funds.

“Why do you think that police searched the Settlement Division offices? Because the corruption is ongoing,” Yair Lapid, whom Netanyahu fired as finance minister in December, told supporters.

The World Zionist Organization, an international body founded more than a century ago, promotes Jewish education and immigration to Israel. It serves as an umbrella group for a host of international Jewish groups and youth movements.

After Israel captured the West Bank, the Golan Heights and other lands in 1967, the Israeli government began settling Jews in those territories.

It turned to the WZO, which set up the Settlement Division. Because the division is technically not part of the government, it is not required to detail how it spends public funds.

The group’s stated aim is to create and support rural communities in the West Bank, Golan Heights and Israel. Its responsibilities include leasing West Bank land to settlements, according to anti-settlement researcher Dror Etkes. It also provides money for construction in settlements and bankrolls infrastructure projects.

[Anti-settlement researcher Dror Etkes (photo credit: Matti Friedman/Times of Israel)]

Anti-settlement researcher Dror Etkes (photo credit: Matti Friedman/Times of Israel)

The recent criticism focuses on “budgetary transfers,” a process whereby a parliamentary finance committee transfers public funds from one pot to another. Details of such transfers were published starting in 2012 following protracted criticism of the opaque accounting practice.

Last year, a committee chaired by a pro-settlement lawmaker increased the Settlement Division’s funding for 2014 to about $126 million, more than eight times the sum originally budgeted for the group, according to data from the oBudget.org transparency website.

Only three other areas — environmental matters, emergency preparation for a potential chemical attack, and a financial bailout for a major hospital — received increases at a higher rate in 2014, the budget data showed.

The data for previous years revealed a similar pattern. In 2013, the Settlement Division’s budget grew ninefold over its originally budgeted figure. In 2012, it grew fivefold.

“When every inflated transaction and every shady subsidy are immediately made public on oBudget.org, the public can no longer accept, and the political system can no longer ignore, this twisted budgetary process,” said Adam Kariv of the Public Knowledge Workshop, which runs the site.

Some $23.4 million of funding last year to the Settlement Division, about a fifth of the total, was transferred in December in a rapid-fire parliamentary vote. The move came one week after Netanyahu called for new elections, fired Lapid and took over the Finance Ministry.

[View of a construction site in the Jewish settlement of Tekoa, in the West Bank on September 7, 2014 (photo credit: Flash90)]

View of a construction site in the Jewish settlement of Tekoa, in the West Bank on September 7, 2014 (photo credit: Flash90)

Last year, the Settlement Division for the first time published itemized budgets showing how it distributes its money.

The 2014 itemized budget revealed that the Settlement Division distributed much of its money to activists for social causes, including groups that promote Jewish religious activities. Many of these groups were affiliated with the pro-settler Jewish Home political party, according to the Molad think tank.

“The WZO’s Settlement Division has become a private slush fund for the settler movement,” a Molad report said.

Yaron Ben Ezra, director general of the Settlement Division, said Wednesday the group was closing the department that funds the activist groups because the government had not renewed the department’s budget. He denied that the closure was connected to criticism of the Settlement Division.

Questions still arise from the released figures. About $28.7 million is marked “other,” with little description about who received the money. And the government does not release a total figure for all settlement activity.

Last year, a parliamentary committee rejected an attempt by centrist and left-leaning lawmakers to subject the Settlement Division to Israel’s freedom of information law, which would require it to become more transparent about its funding.

David Rotem, a lawmaker and former Settlement Division lawyer who now chairs that committee, said he voted against the move because he wanted to shield the group from lawsuits that aim to block settlement construction in the West Bank.

_Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. _

question: Why are the West Bank and East Jerusalem disputed lands?

question: What is a settlement?

question: Who funds the WZO?

answer: The Israeli government

question: Who is running against Benjamin Netanyahu?

answer: Isaac Herzog

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Israel has significantly increased taxpayer funding to the WZO which creates Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands. This is controversial within Israel and in the international community. The public usually does not know what their money is used for by the WZO.


text:
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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

-   -   Pernilla Syrjä ,
-   Vidhya Jagannathan ,
-   Gayathri Chandrasekar,
-   Tarja S. Jokinen,
-   Eija H. Seppälä,
-   Doreen Becker,
-   Michaela Drögemüller,
-   Elisabeth Dietschi,
-   Cord Drögemüller,
-   Johann Lang,
-   Frank Steffen,
-   Cecilia Rohdin,
-   Karin H. Jäderlund,
-   Anu K. Lappalainen,
-   Kerstin Hahn,
-   Peter Wohlsein,
-   Wolfgang Baumgärtner,
-   Diana Henke,
-   Anna Oevermann,
-   Juha Kere,
-   Hannes Lohi ,
-    [ ... ],
-   Tosso Leeb
-   [ view all ]
-   [ view less ]

-   Kaisa Kyöstilä,
-   Pernilla Syrjä,
-   Vidhya Jagannathan,
-   Gayathri Chandrasekar,
-   Tarja S. Jokinen,
-   Eija H. Seppälä,
-   Doreen Becker,
-   Michaela Drögemüller,
-   Elisabeth Dietschi,
-   Cord Drögemüller

[PLOS]

x

-

    Published: April 15, 2015
-

    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1005169

Abstract

Inherited neurodegenerative disorders are debilitating diseases that occur across different species. We have performed clinical, pathological and genetic studies to characterize a novel canine neurodegenerative disease present in the Lagotto Romagnolo dog breed. Affected dogs suffer from progressive cerebellar ataxia, sometimes accompanied by episodic nystagmus and behavioral changes. Histological examination revealed unique pathological changes, including profound neuronal cytoplasmic vacuolization in the nervous system, as well as spheroid formation and cytoplasmic aggregation of vacuoles in secretory epithelial tissues and mesenchymal cells. Genetic analyses uncovered a missense change, c.1288G>A; p.A430T, in the autophagy-related _ATG4D_ gene on canine chromosome 20 with a highly significant disease association (p = 3.8 x 10-136) in a cohort of more than 2300 Lagotto Romagnolo dogs. _ATG4D_ encodes a poorly characterized cysteine protease belonging to the macroautophagy pathway. Accordingly, our histological analyses indicated altered autophagic flux in affected tissues. The knockdown of the zebrafish homologue _atg4da_ resulted in a widespread developmental disturbance and neurodegeneration in the central nervous system. Our study describes a previously unknown canine neurological disease with particular pathological features and implicates the ATG4D protein as an important autophagy mediator in neuronal homeostasis. The canine phenotype serves as a model to delineate the disease-causing pathological mechanism(s) and ATG4D function, and can also be used to explore treatment options. Furthermore, our results reveal a novel candidate gene for human neurodegeneration and enable the development of a genetic test for veterinary diagnostic and breeding purposes.

Author Summary

Neurodegenerative disorders affect millions of people worldwide. We describe a novel neurodegenerative disease in a canine model, characterized by progressive cerebellar ataxia and cellular vacuolization. Our genetic analyses identified a single nucleotide change in the autophagy-related _ATG4D_ gene in affected dogs. The _ATG4D_ gene has not been linked to inherited diseases before. The autophagy-lysosome pathway plays an important role in degrading and recycling different cellular components. Disturbed autophagy has been reported in several different diseases but mutations in core autophagy components are rare. Histological analyses of affected canine brain tissues revealed altered autophagic flux, and a knockdown of the gene in the zebrafish model caused marked neurodevelopmental alterations and neurodegeneration. Our findings identify a new disease-causing pathway and implicate the ATG4D protease as an important mediator for neuronal homeostasis. Furthermore, our study establishes a large animal model to investigate the role of ATG4D in autophagy and to test possible treatment options.

CITATION: Kyöstilä K, Syrjä P, Jagannathan V, Chandrasekar G, Jokinen TS, Seppälä EH, et al. (2015) A Missense Change in the _ATG4D_ Gene Links Aberrant Autophagy to a Neurodegenerative Vacuolar Storage Disease. PLoS Genet 11(4): e1005169. htt

question: What is neurodegenerative disorder?

answer: A debilitating disease that occur across different species.

question: Who is affected by neurodegenerative disorders?

answer: millions of people worldwide

question: What does the study reveal?

answer: Reveals that a novel candidate gene for human neurodegeneration and enable the development of a genetic test for veterinary diagnostic and breeding purposes.

question: When was the article published?

answer: April 15 2015

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer:
In a peer-reviewed research article, the author summarizes Neurodegenerative disorders affecting millions of people worldwide.
The study establishes a large animal model to investigate the role of ATG4D in autophagy and to test possible treatment options.


text:
ROBERT B. “YANK” HEISLER JR. (born July 4, 1949; died April 11, 2017) was the retired chairman of KeyBank, the 12th largest bank in the United States by total assets, the retired chief executive officer of McDonald Financial Group, and was the dean of the Kent State University College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management until 2011.[1] The Kent State business school under Heisler's leadership was selected by The Princeton Review for its 2009 list of the top business education programs in the United States.[2][3] In 2005, he was named to the _Inside Business_ Hall of Fame.[4]

Early life and education

Heisler was raised in Ravenna, Ohio, roughly 40 miles southeast of Cleveland. He was an all-star athlete in golf, basketball, and football at Ravenna High School from 1962–1966, winning back-to-back State Championships in golf his junior and senior years.[5] He was inducted for his athletic accomplishments into the Ravenna Raven Hall of Fame, which also recognized his later business leadership.[6]

He graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1970 and earned his master's degree in business administration from Kent State University in 1974. He also attended Northwestern University's National Graduate Trust School, the University of Oklahoma's Commercial Lending School, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business' Bank Executive Management Program and Harvard Graduate Business School's Program for Management Development.

Career

After graduating from Kent State with his MBA, Heisler went into banking with the former Goodyear Bank in Akron, Ohio. In October 1976, he became an assistant vice president of the Corporate Loan Review Division for Second National Bank in Ravenna, an affiliate of Society Bank (a predecessor of KeyBank). In less than two years, January 1978, he was elected president and chief executive officer of Second National Bank.[7]

In September 1982, he was elected vice president and senior regional manager for Society National Bank. In January 1984, he was named president of the Akron District. He was elected executive vice president of the bank in August 1986 and deputy manager of the Retail Banking Group. In May 1990, he was elected senior executive vice president and named vice chairman of Society National Bank in January 1993.

In March 1994 when Society and KeyBank merged, Heisler was sent to Seattle, Washington, to lead seven state bank region in capital markets and commercial banking product lines. In June 1995, he was named president and chief executive officer of Society National Bank, which would later be renamed KeyBank National Association (N.A.) once the merger was fully integrated. Later he would also add the title of Chairman of KeyBank.

Heisler was named CEO of McDonald in December 2004, replacing Robert “Bob” Jones who left to become President and CEO of Old National Bank. However, Heisler would retain the title of chairman of KeyBank N.A.[8] He would be the last CEO of McDonald, which was eventually sold to the U.S. investment arm of Swiss banking giant UBS AG in 2007. Heisler was instrumental in the negotiations with UBS.

In September 2008, Heisler was named dean of the College of Business at Kent State University. He was previously the interim vice president for business and finance for the university.[9]

He was a member of the board of directors for FirstEnergy Corporation, an electric utility company based in Akron, Ohio, from 2006. He previously served on FirstEnergy board between 1998 and 2004.[10]

Community

Heisler was the chairman of Team NEO, a regional economic development organization in Northeast Ohio, from 2004 to 2008.[11] He remains on Team NEO's advisory council.[12]

He served on the Championship Committee for the NEC Invitational at Firestone Country Club, the Growth Association of Greater Cleveland, the Center for Families and Children, the Ronald McDonald House. He also serves as treasurer of the Musical Arts Association, and as a trustee on the boards of The Union Club, Business Volunteers Unlimited, Kent State University Foundation (chair), Ohio High School Athletic Association Foundation, and is president of Leadership Cleveland class of 1993.

[1] Heisler dean of Business College

[2] Business School Rankings

[3] Kent State Featured

[4] Genuine Leader

[5] http://www.ohsaa.org/sports/records/bgrecrd.htm

[6] Robert “Yank” Heisler Jr.

[7] http://people.hoovers.com/executives/chief-executive-officer/keycorp/robert-b-heisler-jr

[8] http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2004-12/4198503-robert-b-yank-heisler-jr-named-ceo-of-keycorp-s-mcdonald-financial-group-008.htm

[9] http://media.www.kentnewsnet.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2008/09/22/News/Heisler.Named.Dean.For.College.Of.Business-3443413.shtml

[10] http://www.firstenergycorp.com/investor/Corporate_Governance/Robert_B._Heisler__Jr.html

[11] http://www.clevelandplusbusiness.com/News/2008/ChrisConnor011708.aspx

[12] http://www.teamneo.org/About-Team-NEO/Board-and-Advisory-Council.aspx

title: Robert B. "Yank" Heisler

question: Who was Robert. B Heisler Junior?

answer: retired chairman of KeyBank, the 12th largest bank in the United States by total assets, the retired chief executive officer of McDonald Financial Group, and the dean of the Kent State University College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management until 2011

question: When was Robert B. Heisler named to the Inside Business Hall of Fame?

answer: 2005

question: What company bought McDonald Financial Group in 2007?

answer: Swiss banking giant UBS AG

question: What was Robert B. Heisler Junior's nickname?

answer: Yank

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Robert B. "Yank" Heisler, Junior was the retired chairman of KeyBank, the 12th largest bank in the United States by total assets, the retired chief executive officer of McDonald Financial Group, and the dean of the Kent State University College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management until 2011.


text:
Birth

Atop a lush green hill sat a medium sized home. It had no servant’s quarters, but it did have a guest house. It had no storage building, but it did have a root cellar. It was no mansion, like those found in the city, but it was definitely a home. In the front door, and into the first door on the left, a slender elf was sleeping in his bed. His long hair pulled into a ponytail to prevent tangles he lay there snoring ever so lightly. His right arm was draped over the body of a pregnant half-elf. Her black hair splayed out everywhere, not unkempt, but not tamed either. Her soft face was half pressed into her pillow. Suddenly, her eyes sprung open. She bolted upright grabbing her belly.

“It’s time.” She rasped quietly, her voice still waking up. The elf next to her jittered a bit and went back to snoring. She shook him, and with her voice returning shouted “IT’S TIME!” The male elf bolted out of the bed, grabbing the dagger under his pillow. He looked around and noticed the woman clutching at her stomach and breathing heavily. He dropped the dagger to the floor and ran out of the room. She slid her feet off of the bed, and sat there for a moment. Gathering her strength she rose out of the bed and over to a place that had been prepared on the floor. A soft mattress and clean clothes were everywhere to be found; a rune glowed on a stone next to the mattress. She touched the rune.

Her husband came running back to the room carrying two basins of water, one was steaming. He set them down next to her. An older elven gentleman walked through the door. His eyes looked a mirror to the eyes of his son standing next to him. A rain drop dripped off the tip of his hooked nose. His silver hair glistened with the sheen of a fresh rain. He turned to his son.

“It’s about time we meet that child of yours.” He said light-heartedly “I’ve never been so excited save the time your mother decided to head to the elven shore.” He nudged his son with his elbow and chuckled. He left the room and returned carrying a hand harp and began to play a soothing melody. The woman on the floor started to look more relaxed.

“I’ve always said Morina, if you relax you feel less pain,” The older gentleman spoke to the woman and then turned to his son, “and if Isolian had paid more attention to his music lessons and less attention to his swordmaster he would be able to help with that.” He winked at his son. He knew that although Isolian was intelligent and capable he never had much talent for music. Isolian just looked at him.

A tall man in dark green robes walked in carrying a bag. He set the bag down next to the woman. He opened the bag and aromatics filled the room. The soft smell of pine and sage only helped the woman relax even more. He spoke softly, while feeling her belly. “It appears that the baby has not turned around, so we should be fine.” He spoke some soft words, holding a mistletoe switch to her stomach. She instantly relaxed and looked pain free. He spoke audibly again to the two other gentlemen.

“I have made her comfortable for the moment, however this baby will be here soon and I will need one of you to help me keep her mind off the pain and on task.” Isolian stepped forward, the older gentleman gestured to him.

“I already helped his mother birth him and his siblings. I have no desire to do that again, but have fun; you’ll be miserable” the old man said jokingly. It was obvious that he was excited about the birth, but a spark of strange reminiscent fear marked his last words.

“Good then, Tilanious,” The unnamed Druid said, “I will need someone to remove the afterbirth to the fields after we are complete.” He shot the old man a playfully serious look. Tilanious’ face dropped until he noticed the joking expression the Druid had.

“Very funny.” He said, as he continued playing the harp.

Morina grunted loudly in pain. The Druid felt her belly again and got everyone into position. He began coaching Morina, telling her when to push and when to breathe. Isolian stood next to her, holding her hand and telling her how well she was doing. Morina screamed and grunted with agony and apprehension. Her face would change from a deep red when she pushed to a ghostly pale between bursts. A few minutes later she screamed like a warrior on the attack. The Druid sat back and smiled. The soft cries of a baby filled the room. He raised the baby to the mother.

“Here he is.” The Druid said. “Your beautiful baby.”

Morina took the child in her arms. His swaddling cloth still covered in fresh blood. Isolian leaned down and looked at the baby’s face.

“He has your eyes.” Isolian said softly, putting a light kiss on Morina’s cheek.

“What should we call him?” She asked him back, smiling at her newborn son.

“Itharious.” He said. It took him no time at all to come up with the name. In his heart, he just knew it was the right choice for his son.

title: Itharious: Birth

question: How does the story reflect the experience of childbirth?

answer: The story describes labour in a way that makes it sound special. Morina's experience is painful, but she gets through it. One interesting point if that the aid offered and the important decisions that are made are all done so by male characters, including the name of the child.

question: What is unique about the characters in this story?

answer: The story seems to take place in a fantasy setting. The characters are of 'elven' origin and there are some cultural differences that are apparent. The elven way appears to be controlled by men. They play the harp while Morina gives birth and speak about the experience of giving birth as though they know how it feels first-hand.

question: What is the significance of the name 'Itharious'?

question: What allusions to magic does the story make?

answer: When Morina sits up on her mattress she touches a glowing rune. The harp that the baby's grandfather brings seems to soothe Morina. When the druid arrives he places mistletoe on Morina's belly and that takes away her pain. The druid also brings a bag that is filled with smells that help relax her.


text:
8.7.2016

[160708_tesla]

On June 6, 2016, AQU Catalunya, as leader of WP4 (Work Package 4 - Quality Assurance), held a meeting with other consortium partners of the TeSLA project. The meeting was attended by members of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), the Open University UK (OU) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).

Throughout the day, different aspects related to quality assurance of the pilots of the TeSLA project (to begin on September 2016) were discussed. The decisions made at the conclusion of the meeting will benefit the continuous and proper development of the project to eventually obtain the expected outcomes.

question: What was the meeting about?

answer: The meeting was about TeSLA project.

question: Who attended the meeting?

answer: The meeting was attended by members of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), the Open University UK, and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.

question: What was discussed in the meeting?

answer: Different aspects related to the quality assurance of the pilots of the TeSLA project were discussed.

question: Were any decisions made in the meeting?

answer: It may be implied that there were a few decisions made during the meeting.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: AQU Catalunya held a meeting with the other partners of the TeSLA project. During the meeting, they discussed aspects related to the quality assurance of the pilots of the TeSLA project. The meeting also suggests that the decisions made will help in eventually obtaining the expected outcomes.


text:
A FORMER principal of a Melbourne Jewish girls’ school has been arrested amid claims she sexually abused students including sisters.

Malka Leifer was arrested in Israel overnight where it is believed extradition proceedings have started in an attempt to have her returned to Melbourne.

The Attorney General’s office confirmed this morning Ms Leifer is wanted in Melbourne to face allegations of historic sexual offending against a string of girls.

The mother of eight left Australia in 2008 after she was sacked as principal at the ultra orthodox Adass Israel School in Elsternwick.

The sacking followed complaints that she had acted inappropriately with students while principal between 2001 and 2008.

Victoria Police launched an investigation into the complaints in 2011.

A police spokesman confirmed this morning that an investigation into “complaints of historical sex offences at an Elsternwick School” continued.

It is believed Ms Leifer could face dozens of charges of indecent assault and rape.

Her arrest is the latest in a string of scandals to rock Melbourne’s orthodox Jewish community.

Manny Waks, founder of sexual assault victims support group Tzedek, said Ms Leifer’s arrest was a welcome development.

“It should be seen in the greater context of the ongoing child sexual abuse scandal that has been plaguing the Australian Jewish community,” he said.

“This is further evidence that the tide is turning within our community.

“Many victims are no longer willing to remain silent, and neither is the community.”

Mr Waks said he expected the Adass Israel School would co-operate fully with the police.

“I also hope and expect that the police will examine all the circumstances surrounding Ms Leifer leaving Australia and hold to account anyone who may have acted inappropriately.”

Adass Israel School principal Prof Israel Herszberg issued a short statement in light of the arrest.

“The school has and will continue to co-operate fully with the authorities but otherwise is unable to comment further where the matters involving Mrs Leifer are before the courts.”

The school, of about 500 students, caters primarily to members of the closed ultra-orthodox Adass Israel Community in Elsternwick and Ripponlea.

In line with their strict religious beliefs students at the school are segregated on the basis of gender and have little interaction with people outside of the community.

shannon.deery@news.com.au

question: What might be the reason behind Leifer leaving Australia?

answer: It may be implied that the reason behind leaving Australia was to not get arrested.

question: Did the Adass Israel School co-operate with the police?

answer: This information can't be found.

question: Why was the investigation launched late?

answer: This information can't be found.

question: How many allegations were raised against Ms. Leifer?

answer: This information can't be found.


text: There are certain moments in the middle of chaos where clarity briefly resurfaces. Moments where you become painfully aware of just how out of control the world has become. I experienced one of these moments three weeks into my freshman year of college. I was sitting in my english class like any other day when some girl across the class started staring at me. While I stared back I noticed the care she put into her appearance. She was wearing a pale blue that perfectly complemented her dark skin, matching shoes, a white bow in her hair, and a noticeable amount of make-up. Most guys my age would just think “damn she’s hot”, or something along those lines, but all I could think was “why all the effort?”. She was obviously attractive, why was she trying so hard to make herself look even better? I was sure she could have slept for at least an hour or two longer if she hadn’t taken so much care and she would have looked just as good as any other girl in the classroom. While I was contemplating the purpose of her effort, she winked at me. I sat there puzzled because I didn’t know this girl at all. My puzzlement probably showed on my face because she smiled and licked her lips slowly, wiping her tongue from the right to the left and back right again. All I could think was “The only thing this girl knows about me is that I’m attractive, she doesn’t know who I am and she doesn’t care.” While I was thinking this, I watched as she smirked, leaned over her desk, squeezed her breasts, in between her arms and kissed the air in my direction. Out of embarrassment my eyes shifted to the corner of the class. There I watched as the hand of a shaggy haired student retreated from the inside of his elbow. My eyes caught the flash of a needle and my realization of what he was doing came in complete synchronization with the expression of euphoria that was painted on his face. My disgust turned my eyes back to the girl who had planted her face in her palm and gave me a wink when my eyes met hers. Before I could react I felt a hand land on my shoulder. I turned to meet the face of a cocky looking red haired guy. “ay bro I can get you the answers to this test, for the right price”.First I felt my blood get hot. Then I felt the sting of his face against my knuckles. It was a reflex. A response my surroundings. What happened next was more of a reckless impulse. I flipped my desk over in the process of standing up, and yelled at the top of my lungs “this is fucking bullshit!”. Then clarity came. I realized exactly how I appeared. So I grabbed my backpack, stood up straight, and marched out of the classroom.

title: I woke up one morning and wrote this, this is my first short story so I am very open to criticism

question: What does the narrator do?

answer: They are a freshman in college.

question: Why was the narrator feeling embarrassed?

answer: They see an attractive girl flirting with them

question: What test is the narrator taking?

answer: There is not enough information to answer this question.

question: Why is the narrator angry at the end?

answer: Someone grabs their shoulder and offers to help them cheat

question: What is the shaggy-haired guy doing?

answer: Injecting himself with drugs.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This story captures a scene in a college classroom. The narrator describes their impressions of several classmates and, when approached by another student offering test answers, punches them and leaves.


text:
The TOMB OF SULEYMAN SHAH () is, according to Ottoman tradition, the grave (tomb, mausoleum) housing the relics of Suleyman Shah (c. 1178–1236), grandfather of Osman I (d. 1323/4), the founder of the Ottoman Empire. This legendary tomb has since 1236 had three locations, all in present-day Syria. From 1236 until 1973, its first location was near castle Qal'at Ja'bar in present-day Raqqa Governorate, Syria.

Under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), breaking up the Ottoman Empire into Turkey, Syria, and other states, the tomb site at Qal'at Ja'bar remained the property of Turkey.

In 1973, when the area around castle Qal'at Ja'bar was due to be flooded under Lake Assad, the tomb by agreement between Turkey and Syria was moved northward on the Euphrates River in Syria, from the Turkish border.

In early 2015, during the Syrian Civil War, Turkey unilaterally moved the tomb again to a new site in Syria, about from the Turkish border, west of Kobanî and just north of the Syrian village of Ashme,[1] evacuating the approximately 40 Turkish soldiers guarding the tomb.[2] The Turkish government has stated that the relocation is temporary,[3] and that it does not constitute any change to the status of the tomb site.[4][5]

Death of Suleyman Shah

Suleyman Shah (c. 1178–1236) was, according to some but not all Ottoman genealogies, the grandfather of Osman I (d. 1323/4), the founder of the Ottoman Empire.[6] Suleyman Shah is believed to have drowned in the Euphrates river near castle Qal'at Ja'bar in present-day Raqqa Governorate, Syria, and was according to legend buried near that castle, in a tomb.[7]

Legal status of tomb

Article 9 of the Treaty of Ankara, signed by France and Turkey in 1921, states that the tomb of Suleyman Shah (at its first location) “shall remain, with its appurtenances, the property of Turkey, who may appoint guardians for it and may hoist the Turkish flag there” Initially, an 11-man symbolic garrison of Turkish soldiers were guarding the tomb.[8] [Qal'at Ja'bar castle in Syria, as it is surrounded since 1973 by the waters of Lake Assad. Previously, this was a fortified hilltop overlooking the Euphrates valley. According to legend Suleyman Shah in 1236 drowned in the Euphrates near this castle, and was buried near the castle. With the creation of this lake in 1973 the tomb was relocated, northward on the Euphrates River, from the Turkish border.] The Protocol of 2003 between the Republic of Turkey and the Syrian Arab Republic regarding the Tomb of Suleyman Shah (at its second location) gave Turkey transit rights to the Tomb through Syrian territory, in order to maintain and carry out repairs at the Tomb.[9] Since 2014, the official position of Turkey appears to be that the land around the second location (1973 – February 2015) of the tomb is or was the sovereign territory of Turkey.[10][11] Turkey required visitors to the site to carry passports.[12] However, there is no evidence to date that other countries, including Syria, have publicly supported this position.

The Syrian position is that the first relocation relinquished any Turkish rights over the sovereignty of the site, and the latest relocation of the tomb in February 2015 (to its third location) is a breach of the Treaty of Ankara.[13]

First relocation

In 1973, the area around castle Qal'at Ja'bar, with the location of the tomb, was due to be flooded when the Tabqa Dam would create Lake Assad. [View of the Tomb of Suleyman Shah on its second location (1973 – February 2015)] The tomb by agreement between Turkey and Syria then was moved to a new location at some northward[14] but also on the Euphrates riverside and also in Syria, northwest of the town of Sarrin, in Aleppo Governorate, and some from the Turkish border.

Until February 2015, Turkey maintained at this site a small military presence as an honour guard.

Events during the Syrian Civil War

On 5 August 2012, during the Syrian Civil War, the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that “The tomb of Suleyman Shah [in Syria] and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land... Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary”.[15]

ISIL threats

On 20 March 2014, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) threatened to attack the tomb site unless the Turkish troops guarding it were withdrawn within three days.[16][17] The Turkish government reacted by saying it would retaliate against any such attack, and did not withdraw its guards.[18][19] However, the threatened attack did not take place.[20] Due to (such) tensions, the garrison at the tomb was increased to 38 men, in 2014 or earlier.[21]

On 27 March 2014, recordings were released on YouTube of a conversation, probably recorded at then Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's office on 13 March, purportedly involving Ahmet Davutoğlu, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, then National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan, and Deputy Chief of General Staff General Yaşar Güler, discussing possible Turkish intervention or incursion into Syria ahead of the Turkish local elections of 30 March.[22][23]

Between June and September 2014, while ISIL held 49 Turkish consulate personnel in Mosul hostage (see Fall of Mosul#Aftermath), there was a rumour that Turkey had agreed to disengage from the Süleyman Shah Tomb in exchange for the hostages’ release.[24]

On 30 September 2014, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said that ISIL militants were advancing on the Suleyman Shah tomb.[25] An earlier report of pro-government newspaper _Yeni Şafak_, citing anonymous sources, had mentioned 1,100 ISIL militants surrounding the tomb.[26] On 1 October, however, President Erdoğan denied that ISIL had encircled the tomb.[27]

On 2 October 2014, Turkish Parliament authorized the use of the Turkish military force against ISIL. One argument mentioned in the parliamentary debate was the increasing security risks to the Süleyman Shah Tomb.[28]

Second relocation (2015)

In early 2015, according to Al Jazeera, the tomb was surrounded by ISIL.[29] The BBC however stated, that after having driven ISIL out of Kobanî in January 2015, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian rebels took control of several villages surrounding the tomb.[30]

“Operation Shah Euphrates”

In the night of 21–22 February 2015, a convoy of 572 Turkish troops in 39 tanks and 57 armoured vehicles entered Syria through Kobanî to evacuate[31] the 38-man Turkish military garrison[32] guarding the Suleyman Shah tomb and move the remains of Suleyman Shah to a different site.[33] Those remains were moved to a site in Syria closer to the border in an area under Turkish military control, after which the rest of the old mausoleum was demolished.[34] One soldier died in the overnight raid.[35][36]

ISIL did not impede this Turkish operation.[37] A local Syrian Kurdish official said the Kurds had allowed the Turkish forces to cross their territory, but Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu denied such cooperation.[38] Syrian Kurdish leader Salih Muslim revealed the close collaboration of Syrian Kurds and Turkish forces for this operation, with positive top level planning in Ankara (Turkey) and operation monitoring.[39] The operation went smoothly, and Syrian Kurds coordinators left Ankara.[40] After this Turkish evacuation, entitled ‘Operation Shah Euphrates’, Al Jazeera assumed the area to be “most probably” under full ISIL control.[41]

New location

Since then, the tomb has been located in Turkish-controlled territory inside Syria,[42] just north of the Syrian village of Ashme[43] and less than southeast of the Turkish village of Esmesi (Esmeler or Esme or Eshme) in the southernmost Turkish Birecik District of Şanliurfa,[44][45] east of the Euphrates, northeast of the Syrian town of Jarabulus[46] and west of Kobanî.[47]

The Turkish Foreign Minister has stated that the relocation is only a temporary measure[48] and that it does not constitute any change to the status of the tomb.[49][50] The Syrian government said the raid was an act of “flagrant aggression” and that it would hold Ankara responsible for its repercussions.[51]

Return

On 2 April 2018, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Fikri Işık said the tomb would be relocated to its original location in northern Syria.[52]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15] Ankara warns against attack on tomb, Hürriyet Daily News, 7 August 2012.

[16] Erdoğan: Attacking tomb of Süleyman Şah means attacking Turkey , Today's Zaman, 26 March 2014.

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22] ‘Ankara Bar Association challenges YouTube ban’ . Today’s Zaman, 28 March 2014. Retrieved 11 September 2015.

[23] ‘Turkish journalist detained over leak of key Syria meeting’ . Today’s Zaman, 29 March 2014. Retrieved 11 September 2015.

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28] Turkish lawmakers OK military action against ISIS CNN, 3 October 2014. Retrieved 11 September 2015.

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43] The name of Ashme is spelled normally Eşme in Turkish media and often Esme in English-language media.

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51]

[52]

title: Tomb of Suleyman Shah

question: Where is the tomb of Suleyman Shah located?

answer: The tomb has been moved 3 times. From 1236 until 1973, the tomb was near castle Qal'at Ja'bar in present-day Raqqa Governorate, Syria. After a flood in 1973, the tomb was moved northward on the Euphrates River in Syria. In 2015, during the Syrian Civil War, Turkey moved the tomb to a new site in Syria neat the Turkish border.

question: Where was the tomb moved to in 2015?

answer: The tomb was moved to a Turkish-controlled territory inside Syria that is east of the Euphrates.

question: When did Suleyman Shah die?

answer: He died in 1236.

question: How many times has the tomb been relocated?

answer: The tomb has been relocated three times.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The tomb of Suleyman Shah is, according to the Ottoman tradition, the grave of the founder of the Ottoman empire. It has been relocated three times, all within modern-day Syria.


text:
The Focus on the Family Broadcast provides daily encouragement that helps families thrive each day. For 40 years running, one half-hour at a time, Focus on the Family has shared meaningful advice across the nation. The broadcast has become one of today’s most recognized Christian radio programs and continues to grow in exciting ways with Focus President Jim Daly and co-host John Fuller.

Meet the Hosts

[Jim Daly]

Jim Daly

Jim Daly is an author and broadcaster, president of Focus on the Family and host of the daily broadcast, heard by more than 6.3 million listeners a week and honored as 2012 Program of the Year by the National Religious Broadcasters.

[John Fuller]

John Fuller

John Fuller is vice president of the Audio division and co-host of the daily "Focus on the Family" radio program. He speaks and writes about family, faith, media and business. John and his wife, Dena, reside in Colorado Springs, Colo., and have six children.

Most Recent Episode

[Jonathan McKee with Jim Daly & John Fuller]

Championing Your Son Through His Battles

Jonathan McKee offers advice to parents on how they can help their teen sons win the four common battles every young man faces – self-image, screens, sexual temptation, and substance abuse.

 December 7, 2020

Take Focus Wherever Life Takes You

Listen to the Focus on the Family Broadcast, discover more podcasts, and find help for your family at your fingertips.

[John Burk Headshot]

Featured Broadcast

SPECIAL GUEST: Pastor John Burke

13 million Americans – that’s 1 in 25 – have had a near death experience, and according to author/pastor John Burke, “all of them are interpreting an experience that is truly out of this world.” Don’t miss this conversation with Burke as he offers the hope and encouragement found in his best-selling book _Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You._

Past Episodes

[Focus on the Family Broadcast]

 December 4, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast]

 December 3, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast]

Holding on to the Hope of Heaven

Pastor John Burke offers hope and encouragement found in his best-selling book _Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You_. Jim Daly’s wife, Jean, joins the conversation.

 December 2, 2020

[Listen to our broadcast with Josh and Christi Straub]

 December 1, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast logo]

Seeing Christmas Through Women’s Eyes

Liz Curtis Higgs offers a fresh perspective on the Christmas story as she examines it through the lens of three women in Jesus’ life, revealing how Jesus’ coming to Earth impacted those around Him and can impact your family this Christmas, too.

 November 30, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast logo]

Showing Kindness and Generosity to Others

Be inspired to help others as you hear stories from some Focus on the Family listeners who reflect on a time in their lives when someone went out of the way to provide a miracle in their moment of need.

 November 27, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast logo]

Celebrating the Miracle of Thanksgiving

Best-selling author Eric Metaxas tells the incredible story of the history of Thanksgiving, focusing on Squanto, a Native American man of faith who was called by God to help the Pilgrims in their hardships.

 November 26, 2020

[Jessica Smartt being interviewed in the Focus on the Family broadcast studio]

 November 25, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast logo]

 November 24, 2020

[Focus on the Family Broadcast logo]

Encouragement for the Single Life

Cheryl Martin encourages singles to view their singleness not as a mistake or a holding pattern until marriage, but as an opportunity to become the person God wants them to be. She also shares how to honor God in the dating process through the use of firm boundaries and an accountability partner.

 November 23, 2020

Find a Station

Listen to the Focus on the Family Broadcast on a radio station near you.

question: What does the text say about what radio frequency the Focus on the Family Broadcast uses?

question: What does the text say about the Focus on the Family Broadcast?

answer: The Focus on the Family Broadcast provides daily encouragement that helps families thrive each day. For 40 years running, one half-hour at a time, Focus on the Family has shared meaningful advice across the nation. The broadcast has become one of today's most recognized Christian radio programs and continues to grow in exciting ways.

question: What does the text say about the hosts of the Focus on the Family Broadcast?

answer: The hosts of the Focus on the Family Broadcast are Jim Daly and John Fuller. Jim Daly is an author, broadcaster, and president of Focus on the Family and host of the daily broadcast. The broadcast is heard by more than 6.3 million listeners a week and honored as 2012 Program of the Year by the National Religious Broadcasters. John Fuller is vice president of the Audio division and co-host of the daily "Focus on the Family" radio program. He speaks and writes about family, faith, media, and business.

question: What does the text say about Pastor John Burke?

answer: Pastor John Burke was a special guest on the Focus on the Family broadcast. He talks about his new best-selling book "Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You". According to Burke, 13 million Americans (1 in 25) have had a near-death experience, and all of them are interpreting an experience that is out of this world.


text:
The NATIONAL TRADE COUNCIL (NTC) of the United States was the principal forum used by the President of the United States to advise on strategies in trade negotiations, coordinate with other agencies to assess U.S. manufacturing capabilities and the defense industrial base, and help match unemployed American workers with new opportunities in the skilled manufacturing sector. The council formed part of the Office of White House Policy which contains the National Economic Council and other offices. President-elect Donald Trump announced his intent to create the office on December 21, 2016, and named Peter Navarro as its inaugural director.[1] In April 2017, the NTC was folded into the newly created Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy; by September 2017, both the NTC and OTMP were reorganized again and placed under the National Economic Council by then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.[2] In February 2018 the OTMP (and by extension the NTC) regained independence.[3] Although the National Trade Council still exists, its responsibilities and duties have largely been taken over by the Office of Trade and Manufacturing policy, rendering it effectively defunct.[4]

Directors

  Officeholder    Term start         Term end         President
  --------------- ------------------ ---------------- --------------
  Peter Navarro   January 20, 2017   April 29, 2017   Donald Trump

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

title: White House National Trade Council

question: What is the purpose of the National Trade Council?

answer: The National Trade Council was the principal forum used the President of the United States to advise on strategies in trade negotiations, coordinate with other agencies to assess U.S. manufacturing capabilities and help match unemployed American workers with new opportunities in the skilled manufacturing sector.

question: How old is the National Trade Council?

answer: It was less than a year old before it was rolled into the other structures.

question: Does the National Trade Council still exist?

answer: It still exists, but most of its functions have been taken over by the Office of Trade and Manufacturing. It has been rendered defunct.

question: Summarize all the information relating to the structure of the National Trade Council.

answer:
The National Trade Council formed part of the Office of White House Policy. Peter Navarro was named its inaugural director by the president in December 2016.
In April 2017 it was folded into the newly created Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy (OTMP).
By September 2017 both the NTC and OTMP were placed under the National Economic Council by the White House chief of staff.
In February 2018 the OTMP regained independence. The NTC still exists, but has become defunct.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The National Trade Council of the United States was the principal forum used by the President of the United States to advise on strategies in trade negotiation. It's functions have been taken over by the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.


text:
ERIC CALCAGNO Y MAILLMANN (born April 9, 1967) is an Argentine sociologist, journalist, diplomat and politician. Having been the Ambassador to France, he became a member of the Argentine Senate in 2007 before joining the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as a junior minister. He returned to his Senate seat in 2008.

Career

Born in La Plata, Calcagno comes from a family with a strong background in academia and connections with France. His grandfather, Alfredo Domingo Calcagno, rector of the National University of La Plata, was the Argentine ambassador to UNESCO in Paris during the Presidency of Arturo Frondizi. His father, Alfredo Eric Calcagno, studied at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris before working for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America for more than twenty years.

Calcagno studied at French schools and, in the early 1990s, graduated from the École Nationale d'Administration in France in public administration and from the Sorbonne in sociology.[1]

Calcagno worked as an economics consultant and journalist, including for _Le Monde Diplomatique_ (Southern Cone Edition), _Diario Hoy_ of La Plata, the magazines _Veintitrés_ and _Veintitrés Internacional_ and Terra. With his father he co-wrote two books on politics and economics: _Para entender la política, entre la ilusión de lo óptimo y la realidad de lo pésimo_ (English translation of title: How to understand politics. Between an utopian illusion and the worst reality), Editorial Norma (Buenos Aires, 1999) and _La deuda externa explicada a todos (los que tienen que pagarla)_ (English translation of title: Foreign Debt Explained to Those Who Have to Pay it), Editorial Catálogos (Buenos Aires, 2000).[2]

He published _Terra incógnita, crónica de la caída de la convertibilidad_[3] (English translation of title: Terrae Incognita: a chronicle of the fall of the dollar peg of the Argentine peso), a chronicle of the Argentine economic crisis, in 2005. He was known as a critic of neoliberal economics and the Washington Consensus. He teamed up with his father to teach economics at the National University of Lanús, Buenos Aires and taught a range of other universities, including as Director of the Centre of Studies of National Economic Thought (CEPEN) at the University of Buenos Aires.[4]

In 2005, Calcagno was a reserve member on the Front for Victory list for the Senate for Buenos Aires Province. The list was headed by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and was successful in the October elections, winning the maximum two places. Shortly after the election, in December 2005, Calcagno was named Ambassador to France, after Rafael Bielsa had accepted that position only to reject it a day later in public.[5] In 2007, upon the election of Fernández de Kirchner as President of Argentina, Calcagno replaced her in the Senate. However, within ten days he was granted a leave of absence to take up the President's offer of a position in government. He became subsecretary of Small and Medium Enterprises.[6]

Calcagno's post at the Senate was left vacant until July 2008, when the tax farm issue arose. In March the government tried to introduce a new taxation system on agricultural exports. Nationwide mass protests were the result and the government eventually was forced to send the government's farm exports tax proposal to the Argentine Congress. Calcagno had to leave his office and return to the Senate in order to vote in favour of the government, as a close tie was due.[7] This vote was eventually decided by Vice-President Julio Cobos, who rejected the farm exports tax bill. Calcagno remained in the Senate, where he took over the chairmanship of the Infrastructure, Transport and Housing committee soon afterwards.[8]

He was elected National Deputy for the Buenos Aires Province in 2011 from the Front for Victory party.

[1] _Clarín_: Eric Calcagno, un intelectual con fuertes raíces en Francia, 9 December 2005.

[2] Terra: Quién es Eric Calcagno . Accessed 28 April 2008.

[3]

[4] Government Press Release 026/06 'Nuevo embajador argentino en Francia' , 17 January 2006.

[5] _Clarín_: Un sociólogo educado en París es el nuevo embajador en Francia, 10 December 2005.

[6] _La Nación_: Polémica por los 6 meses de licencia para Eric Calcagno, 29 February 2008.

[7] http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2008/07/06/noticia_0040.html

[8] http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1041098

title: Eric Calcagno

question: Summarize some of the accomplishments of Eric Calcagno.

answer: He has worked for a number of influential publications. He also has co-written two books. Calcagno has been a reserve member of an organization called Front for Victory, which has their hand in lot of political elections in Argentina. He has taught economics at prestigious Argentinian universities, sometimes alongside his father, a fellow academic. Temporarily, Calcagno was elected to the Argentinian senate. Eventually he was elected to the post of and would serve as National Deputy for the Buenos Aires Province from 2011 to the time of the publishing of this article.

question: Summarize Eric Calcagno's political influences.


text:
A significant boost in retail sales has been forecast for the UK economy as a result of this weekend’s upcoming wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

[Royal Wedding]

Based on the 6.31% increase in monthly like-for-like retail sales and 17% in weekly sales that resulted from the Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton in April 2011, KPMG UK has said, “this weekend will mark a prime opportunity to fly the flag for Brand Britain.”

Chief economist at KPMG Yael Selfin said: “The royal wedding will mark a happy occasion, and an opportunity for people in Britain to celebrate. While it may encourage some rise in spending by UK consumers – particularly in areas such as fashion and merchandising, as well as food and drink – the overall impact on the UK economy is likely to be small.

“One of the more significant boosts to the UK economy will come from a rise in tourism, particularly given Meghan Markle’s American background. Coupled with the weak pound and a strong US economy, we are likely to see a jump in US tourism spend this summer.”

Year on year, on a like-for-like basis, the latest BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor recorded the sharpest sales drop in non-food retail sales for nine years in the three months to 28 April.

UK head of consumer markets at KPMG Linda Ellett said: “If we look to the impact on tourism, ONS statistics recorded that 30.8 million overseas residents visited the UK the year of the last royal wedding – a boost of 3.3% on the previous year. Businesses of all shapes and sizes will no doubt be poised and ready to capture the increased footfall.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement

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“The hope, of course, is that we don’t only see an uptick now, but visitors go on to recommend a trip to our shores when they are back on home turf.”

TagsBRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor Meghan Markle royal wedding sales figures

question: Who is BRC-KPMG?

answer: A company that appears to monitor the spending habits of the Brtish public year on year.

question: Why will the Royal Wedding impact on sales in the UK?

answer: People will wish to celebrate the happy occasion and so spend more on fashion, merchandise, food and drink.

question: What is the expected impact?

answer: Small, but useful. There will be a likely spike in tourism from the US the summer that this article was written.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A description of how the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle will effect the British economy from a marketing a sales perspective.


text:
Processing it was a challenge addressed by the team

[]

Multifaceted: Spiders can make seven types of silk from different glands, each tuned to a special task   | Photo Credit: K_R_DEEPAK

__

Processing it was a challenge addressed by the team

Spider silk is a biomaterial that has come to intrigue many in recent times. With five times the strength of steel of comparable weight, it offers immense possibilities for applications, however the difficulty in processing it and also welding it with other excellent materials were posing a challenge. Now, researchers at IISER Mohali have demonstrated how to overcome these challenges using a femtosecond laser pulse. They have succeeded in cutting and manipulating spider silk and making tiny objects of complex geometries such as braids and Mobius bands out of it. Their research is published in _Nature Materials._

The early use of spider silk material was in microscopes, telescopes, guns and bomb-guiding systems as cross hairs in the optical elements. Since then, its extraordinary properties have been discovered. During spinning of the silk, amino acids arrange themselves as tiny nanocrystals embedded in a soft amorphous matrix of molecular nanosprings. While the amorphous regions provide elasticity, the nanocrystalline domains are optimized to provide great strength, explains Kamal P. Singh, School of Physical Sciences, IISER Mohali, who has carried out the research with Mehra S. Sidhu, a Post Doctoral Fellow at the department and first author of the paper.

Jumping spiders

“We collect spiders from gardens near Mohali and Chandigarh and grow them in large plastic boxes… to collect silk, we make the spider jump from a stick. It immediately suspends its body with a silk known as dragline silk. This is typically a few micrometer in diameter and is the strongest type of silk,” says Prof. Singh. Spiders can make seven types of silk from seven different glands. Each is tuned to perform a special task. For instance, capture silk is much more elastic with glue drops to trap the prey. The silk it makes to hold its babies can be softer, he explains in an email.

The researchers’ key innovation was that femtosecond (fs) laser pulses of duration about 10 fs can effectively process the silk fibre with minimal damage to its properties. They have also shown that these pulses can be used to weld the silk fibre with metals, glass and polymers to produce combinations that come in useful.

“The femtosecond pulses in our study were produced with commercial lasers. But we had to design our own experimental setup to target these pulses on the fine silk fibre precisely,” says Prof. Singh. A femto second is a millionth of a billionth of a second. “The mechanism of interaction of the silk with sub-10 femtosecond pulses was not known previously,” he adds.

Sun-power

The high strength and elasticity of the material makes many applications possible. They can be used, the researchers explain, in building radiation pressure meters. Radiation pressure can be felt when the momentum carried by photons is transferred to objects in its path. This is the operating principle of optical tweezers for instance. “With NASA trying to build tiny satellites and space vehicles that can be propelled in space by the pressure of sunlight (without burning fuel), it is important to develop sensors that can measure these tiny forces accurately,” says Prof. Singh.

question: What is spider silk?

answer: Spider silk is a biomaterial that is five times stronger than steel of comparable weight and has many applications but is difficult to process and weld to other materials.

question: Who are the researchers at IISER Mohali studying spider silk processing?

answer: Kamal P. Singh, School of Physical Sciences and Mehra S. Sidhu, a Post Doctoral Fellow

question: What is the strongest type of spider silk?

answer: The dragline silk when a spider suspends its body.

question: What is a femtosecond (fs) and why is an fs laser pulse effective in silk processing?

answer: A femtosecond (fs) is a millionth of a billionth of a second. Femtosecond laser pulses of 10 fs can effectively process silk fiber with minimal damage to its properties and can even be used to weld silk fiber with metals, glass, and polymers.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Researchers at IISER Mohali, Kamal P. Singh, and Mehra S. Sidhu discover how to effectively process spider silk using a femtosecond (fs) laser pulse that causes minimal damage to silk fibers. The researchers have also shown that fs laser pulses can be uses to weld spider silk fibers with metals, glass, and polymers to produce useful combinations. Spider silk is a biomaterial that is five times stronger than steel of comparable weight and has immense possibilities for applications.


text:
I don't want to read about a "veneer" and what's beneath it. I don't want to read about glass and wires and the new noir.

It's the way that you think of the concrete in an alleyway, the door that you look at with the blue light buzzing overhead in its wire-caged socket. I mean:

I hack away furiously at a keyboard, minding the sirens in the distance —and this time, for the first time, I'm sure that they're for me— and she bursts through the door and slips on the tile for a second, just catching herself. "Shitshitshit! Come the fuck on! Come on!"

I jump up, barely catching up to the moment. Her coat is blown by strong gusts from outside. Then I see a blinding white spotlight stream through the doorframe into the room right in front of me, painting her into halves before I hear "zeeowwhap! zeeowwhap!" and she's too shocked to scream as she looks down at the torn fabric and dark spots, all the blood. She looks up at me. She won't make it, and as soon as I realize that, I feel like throwing up. But there's no time. I grab the memfile and I run through the narrow hallway towards the front of the place. There are already people shouting at the back entrance as I make my way onto the street. I slam the door behind me, as if that would somehow separate me from what's coming to get me.

As I run down the stairs, I lock eyes with a guy standing right next to my bike. He and I both know what's happening and he widens his stance and squares towards me, taking deliberate steps over the curb, past the parking meter. He's not pulling a gun; he wants me alive. That's even worse... I'm fighting panic, the urge to run. This guy is fucking moving on me. What am I doing? There, in the gutter next to the steps: the vodka bottle. I pick it up and rush him, and he seems to get what's going on, but he's pissed off, like he expected the confrontation to go a lot smoother, like me not surrendering doesn't fit into his schedule. But he doesn't feel what I feel, which is all the unused adrenaline from a docile life (a life that, undoubtably, is past and gone now) surging and spiraling through my veins like bobsleds made of electricity. And rage— rage because they killed her and I didn't even know what she was like, because now she can't be "like" anything anymore, because they want to kill me too and I don't want to be killed.

So it proceeds that, as he tries to reach for the bottle to grab it out of my hands, to go on with his plan of subduing me without becoming dead, I yell and swing as hard as I can. His eyes get big. I hit a home run. It's nothing like the movies, the bottle doesn't break. He doubles over and screams because his nose and part of his face are broken. Still yelling, I pull the bottle in an imaginary arc through the side of his head, like driving a golf ball— the sound is sort of the same too, "WHOP-ping!" except it's followed immediately by another scream and the guy is stumbling and falling onto the ground. He is about as angry as someone can get, reaching out desperately with one hand to hook my leg or something. I step back and dart to my bike, turn the key in the ignition. Come on. Thumb the start. Ok. Pull as hard on the throttle as I can. Shit. The other people are bursting out of the front door now, still yelling. "Shit!" From a few hundred feet behind, they're firing at me— I know because I can see lines of air and things spraying sparks and bits of themselves all around me. I'm ducking and turning sharply into the next street.

The air is freezing. The night is dark. Streetlights and neon pass by as lines of fire; almost nobody is driving. It's terrifyingly empty. About a half hour later, I'm out of the city. I pull behind an abandoned gas station, cut my engine, step off of my bike, and collapse into the wall. I can't seem to cry or think about what I'll do next. All I can do is stare and think about how fucked it all was, how I want to go back to before it all happened.

title: The Protean Incident

question: Who is after the narrator?

answer: an undisclosed group to which even bystanders seems to support or actively cooperate with. The group is armed with powerful and lethal weaponry. Based on the presence of sirens, they appear to be some form of law enforcement.

question: What is the setting of the story?

answer: Cyberpunk noir (futuristic action detective mystery)

question: who was the woman?

answer: The person for whom the sirens were originally for.

question: What does the group behind the sirens want?

answer: No directly stated, presumbly information in the memfile that the narrator took during his escape.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator is alarmed by approaching sirens and a woman bursting into his door. As the woman tells him to come with her and go, she is instantly killed by weapons fired from outside the window. The narrator grabs a memefile and escapes on his bike, but not before knocking out a bystander who tried to stop him. As the narrator drives away, he thinks about how bad things happened.


text:
The official site for the upcoming TV anime _Persona 4 the Golden Animation_ has updated with a new key visual featuring the protagonists Yu Narukami and Marie. The anime is adapted from the 2012 PS Vita game _Persona 4 Golden_ by Atlus, an enhanced remake of the 2008 PS2 game _Persona 4_. The first TV anime _Persona 4: The Animation_, which was based on the original PS2 game's story, was aired for 25 episodes in Japan from October 2011 to March 2012, then the unaired final episode was contained in the 10th volume of the Blu-ray/DVD.

Daisuke Namikawa reprises his role as Yu Narukami with other cast, while Kana Hanazawa voices Marie, a new character who first appears in _Golden_. The site has also announced that the TV anime will premiere on MBS at 25：49 on July 10. Check the on-air schedule below.

July 10: MBS (every Thursday 25：49~)

July 11: TBS (Friday 25:55~), CBC (Friday 26:37~)

July 12: BS-TBS (Saturday 24:00~)

New key visual

[]

via: moca

_© ATLUS © SEGA/P4GA Committee_

question: Who are the protagonists of Persona 4?

answer: Yu Narukami and Marie.

question: Who reprises his role as Narukami?

answer: Daisuke Namikawa.

question: What month does the show premiere?

answer: July.

question: As of now, how many years has it been since the game Persona 4 Golden came out?

answer: It has been nine years.