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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Sunday, March 14, 2021

Warp-speed spending and other surreal stats of COVID times (AP) The U.S. effort in World War II was off the charts. Battles spread over three continents and four years, 16 million served in uniform and the government shoved levers of the economy full force into defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. All of that was cheaper for American taxpayers than this pandemic. The $1,400 federal payments going into millions of people’s bank accounts are but one slice of a nearly $2 trillion relief package made law this past week. With that, the United States has spent or committed to spend nearly $6 trillion to crush the coronavirus, recover economically and take a bite out of child poverty. Set in motion over one year, that’s warp-speed spending in a capital known for gridlock, ugly argument and now an episode of violent insurrection. Once, the attack on Pearl Harbor was the modern marker for national trauma. About 2,400 Americans died in the assault on the naval base in Hawaii that drew the United States into the Pacific war. The nearly 3,000 dead from the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, became the new point of comparison as the ravages of COVID-19 grew. The U.S. reached a total of 3,000 COVID-19 deaths even before March 2020 was out. By December, the country was experiencing the toll of 9/11 day after day after day. With deaths now moderating—so that a 9/11 toll comes cumulatively every few days—the U.S. death toll now has surpassed 530,000, exceeding U.S. combat deaths of all of the last century’s wars.

The Fighter Jet That’s Too Pricey to Fail (NYT) Last week, the new head of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, said in an interview that the F-35 fighter jet was a “rathole” draining money. He said the Pentagon should consider whether to “cut its losses.” That promptly set off another round of groaning about the most expensive weapon system ever built, and questions about whether it should—or could—be scrapped. Conceived in the 1990s as a sort of Swiss army knife of fighter jets, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was meant to come as a conventional fighter for the Air Force, as a carrier-based fighter for the Navy and as a vertical-landing version for the Marines. The problems, and there were lots of them, set in early. All three versions of the plane ended up at least three years behind schedule, and sharing less than a quarter of their parts instead of the anticipated 70 percent. Many of those already built need updates; hundreds of defects are still being corrected; the jet is so expensive to maintain that it costs around $36,000 per hour to fly (compared to $22,000 for an older F-16). At the current rate, it will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over its 60-year life span. So, kill the monster and start looking for alternatives? Or declare it too big to fail and make the best of it? Last month, the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Charles Brown Jr., gave his answer when he said that the F-35 should become the Ferrari of the fleet: “You only drive it on Sundays.”

Colorado and Wyoming brace for severe snowstorm and potential blizzard conditions this weekend (Washington Post) A major winter storm is set to unload massive amounts of snow, the most in years in some areas, in parts of Colorado, Wyoming and western Nebraska this weekend into early next week. Before the wintry onslaught is over, some locations in the Colorado foothills and eastern Rockies might end up with as much as four feet. Winds are also going to howl, bringing the potential for blizzard conditions across parts of the region. Gusts of 35 to 50 mph or higher will cause blowing and drifting snow, as well as compromised visibility and whiteout conditions. Winter storm warnings are in effect in Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins where the National Weather Service predicts 12 to 24 inches of snow. In Cheyenne, Wyo., also under a winter storm warning, 22 to 34 inches of snow is forecast.

Stay or go? Fence, Guard pose Capitol security questions (AP) Nobody, it seems, wants to keep the security fence around the U.S. Capitol anymore—except the police who fought off the horrific attack on Jan. 6. Lawmakers call the razor-topped fencing “ghastly,” too militarized and, with the armed National Guard troops still stationed at the Capitol since a pro-Trump mob laid siege, not at all representative of the world’s leading icon of democracy. “All you have to do is to see the fencing around the Capitol to be shocked,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said in an interview Friday. How to protect lawmakers, while keeping the bucolic Capitol grounds open to visitors has emerged as one of the more daunting, wrenching questions from deadly riot. With warnings of another attack in early March by pro-Trump militants and threats on lawmakers that have nearly doubled since the start of 2021, the police, the Pentagon and lawmakers themselves are wrestling with how best to secure what has been a sprawling campus mostly open to visiting tourists and neighborhood dog walkers alike.

Bolivia arrests ex-leader in crackdown on opposition (AP) The conservative interim president who led Bolivia for a year was arrested Saturday as officials of the restored leftist government pursue those involved in the 2019 ouster of socialist leader Evo Morales, which they regard as a coup, and the administration that followed. Jeanine Áñez was detained in the early morning in her hometown of Trinidad and was flown to the capital, La Paz. She had earlier warned that officials were searching for her, terming it “abuse and persecution” in Twitter posts. The arrest of Áñez and warrants against numerous other former officials further worsened political tensions in a South American country already torn by a cascade of perceived wrongs suffered by both sides. Those include complaints that Morales had grown more authoritarian with nearly 13 years in office, that he illegally ran for a fourth reelection and then allegedly rigged the outcome, that right-wing forces led violent protests that prompted security forces to push him into resigning and then cracked down on his followers, who themselves protested the alleged coup. Dozens of people were killed in a series of demonstrations against and then for Morales.

British police officer charged with murder in missing woman’s kidnapping and killing (Washington Post) A British police officer was charged late Friday in the kidnapping and killing of Sarah Everard, whose disappearance and death has sent shock waves through the nation. Wayne Couzens, 48, who previously had posts at Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster, was charged with the kidnap and murder of Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive. She was last seen at 9:30 p.m. on March 3, walking home from a friend’s house in south London. Her disappearance sparked a national outcry in Britain over the harassment and abuse of women. The case has struck a chord with women across the country, with many demanding change. In the days after Everard’s disappearance, women have taken to social media to share their own experiences and fears about their personal safety and walking alone. Caitlin Moran, an author and journalist, tweeted: “Being a woman: my “outside” day finishes at sundown. If I haven’t taken the dog for a walk/jogged by then, I can’t.” Writing in the Guardian, columnist Gaby Hinsliff said: “When she went missing, any woman who has ever walked home alone at night felt that grim, instinctive sense of recognition. Footsteps on a dark street. Keys gripped between your fingers.”

Car bomb kills at least 7, injures 53 in Afghan Herat province (Reuters) A powerful car bomb near a police station on Friday night killed at least seven people and wounded more than 50 others in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, officials said. Herat Governor Sayed Abdul Wahid Qatali said that at least 53 people, including civilians and security forces, were hurt when a van packed with explosives went off in a crowded part of the city in the evening.

4 killed as Myanmar forces continue crackdown on protesters (AP) Security forces in Myanmar on Saturday again met protests against last month’s military takeover with lethal force, killing at least four people by shooting live ammunition at demonstrators. Three deaths were reported in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, and one in Pyay, a town in south-central Myanmar. There were multiple reports on social media of the deaths, along with photos of dead and wounded people in both locations. The independent U.N. human rights expert for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said Thursday that “credible reports” indicated security forces in the Southeast Asian nation had so far killed at least 70 people, and cited growing evidence of crimes against humanity since the military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

For Syrians, a decade of displacement with no end in sight (AP) Mohammed Zakaria has lived in a plastic tent in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley for almost as long as war has raged in his native Syria. He and his family fled bombings in 2012, thinking it would be a short, temporary stay. His hometown of Homs was under siege, and subject to a ferocious Syrian military campaign. He didn’t even bring his ID with him. Almost 10 years later, the family still hasn’t gone back. The 53-year-old Zakaria is among millions of Syrians unlikely to return in the foreseeable future, even as they face deteriorating living conditions abroad. On top of his displacement, Zakaria now struggles to survive Lebanon’s financial meltdown and social implosion. Nearly half a million people have been killed, and about 12,000 children have died or were injured in the conflict in the past decade, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. The conflict also resulted in the largest displacement crisis since World War II. The Norwegian Refugee Council this week said that since the war began in 2011, an estimated 2.4 million people were displaced every year in and outside Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians face continued displacement with each year that the conflict continues and economic conditions deteriorate.

Number of missing Nigerian students raised to 39 after armed raid (Reuters) Nine more students than originally thought are missing after gunmen stormed a forestry college in northwest Nigeria earlier this week, a government official in Nigeria’s Kaduna state said on Saturday. The revision brings the total number of missing students to 39 following Thursday’s nighttime raid on the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, the fourth mass school abduction in northern Nigeria since December. Kaduna city is the capital of Kaduna state, part of a region where attacks by gangs of armed men, referred to as bandits, have festered for years. Military and police attempts to tackle the gangs have had little success, while many worry that state authorities are making the situation worse by letting kidnappers go unpunished, paying them off or providing incentives.

#headlines #news

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years ago

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Just as America’s Syrian bases, including its two main headquarters — Advanced Operational Base West and Advanced Operational Base East — the Lafarge Cement Factory, and a facility at Manbij were being abandoned, in another sense entirely they suddenly came to exist (at least in news reports anyway). This is something that Castle Black, in its relatively brief life, never officially did. When I asked about its status in late August, for example, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve refused to even acknowledge the existence of such a base. Now, the outpost and its status are no secret at all. “Castle Black is closed,” CJTF-OIR’s media team told TomDispatch more recently.

According to the Pentagon’s official inventory of bases, the Department of Defense (DoD) “manages a worldwide real property portfolio” that spans 45 foreign countries. All told, there are 514 official “DoD sites” overseas, the majority of them in Germany (194 sites), Japan (121 sites), and South Korea (83 sites). This list, however, has never included mention of even one base in Syria — or, for that matter, any of the well-known U.S. garrisons, large and small, in Afghanistan or Iraq.

The common estimate of foreign U.S. military bases is actually around 800. Such a count is little more than an educated guess because of the cloak of secrecy the Pentagon has thrown over the subject. To obfuscate things further, the military employs a plethora of euphemisms to avoid calling U.S. military outposts like Castle Black precisely what they are.

Officially, Castle Black was never a base. It was, instead, a “Mission Support Site” or MSS. And while U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees United States military operations in the Middle East, acknowledges the existence of MSSes, it won’t provide even a basic count of them, let alone more detailed information about such outposts, significant numbers of which exist across the region. The media operations staff of CJTF-OIR responded in an email to a TomDispatch request on the subject this way: “Due to operational security reasons, a total number and locations of the various mission support sites are not available.”

And keep in mind that such Military Support Sites only begin to scratch the surface when it comes to the Pentagon’s inventory of non-base outposts. So when else is a military base not a military base? When, for example, it’s an Initial Contingency Location, which, according to a Pentagon “Contingency Basing�� manual, is characterized by austere infrastructure and limited services. Or when it’s a Temporary Contingency Location, which provides “near-term support for a contingency operation” and is characterized by “expedient infrastructure.” Or even when it’s a Semipermanent Contingency Location, which provides support for prolonged contingency operations and is characterized by “enhanced infrastructure.” Or when it’s a full-fledged Contingency Location — a “non-enduring location outside of the United States that supports and sustains operations during contingencies or other operations.”

Such U.S. non-bases also include Forward Operating Sites (FOSes), which are officially defined as “scalable” locations intended for “rotational use by operating forces.” While “rotational use” might make such a place sound like a distinctly temporary location, possibly one abandoned for long stretches, that’s hardly the case. Camp Lemonnier in the sun-bleached Horn-of-Africa nation of Djibouti, for example, is not only an FOS, but also America’s largest base on the African continent and the headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), which includes soldiers, sailors, and airmen, some of them members of the Special Operations forces. The camp — which also supports CENTCOM — couldn’t be less temporary, having expanded from 88 acres to 600 acres, while the number of troops stationed there has jumped by more than 500%, to 5,500, since 2002.

Another type of outpost is a cooperative security location, or CSL, which is supposedly neither “a U.S. facility or base.” According to the Pentagon’s official definition, it has “little or no permanent United States presence” and “is maintained by periodic Service, contractor, or host nation support.” This, too, is completely disingenuous. A CSL in the remote smuggling hub of Agadez, Niger, for example, is the premier U.S. military outpost in West Africa. That drone non-base, located at Nigerien Air Base 201, not only boasts a $100 million-plus construction price tag but, with operating expenses, is expected to cost U.S. taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars by 2024 when the 10-year agreement for its use ends.

The primary types of places that the Pentagon will actually call “bases” are huge World War II and Cold War legacy sites like Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, and Camp Humphreys in South Korea. These they call “Main Operating Bases.” Humphreys, for example, began its existence in 1919 as Pyeongtaek Airfield, a product of the brutal Japanese occupation of Korea. Since the Korean War (1950-1953), the U.S. military has occupied the site, transforming it into America’s largest overseas military base. The Pentagon refers to Forward Operating Sites, Cooperative Security Locations, and Main Operating Bases as “enduring locations” which are meant to afford “strategic access” to American forces and support Washington’s security interests for the “foreseeable future.”

Despite these and other euphemisms for bases that appear in the Defense Department’s 2019 edition of Joint Publication 4-04 “Contingency Basing” and its most recent “Base Structure Report,” many other types of smaller baselets get scant attention — including Combat Outposts and Fire Support Bases. Even more types are noted in various official publications and military news releases, often with conflicting definitions. The Army’s Ranger Handbook, for instance, defines a “patrol base” as a “security perimeter” set up when a squad or platoon is “conducting a patrol,” but notes that it should “not be occupied for more than a 24-hour period (except in an emergency).” An Army counterinsurgency manual, on the other hand, states that a “patrol base can be permanent or temporary.” And a 2008 CENTCOM news release mentioned that soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment had been stationed at Iraq’s Patrol Base Copper for seven months.

While Mission Support Sites are mentioned in a few Pentagon publications, they are also poorly defined. When asked just what an MSS actually is, an official at CENTCOM offered this none-too-illuminating response: “Mission support sites, or bases, are sites that temporarily exist to provide support for as long as a mission requires.” That same official went on to note that the U.S. and its allies had “opened and closed numerous bases throughout the campaign in Syria and Iraq,” but refused to provide details or even a simple count of how many bases had been closed, let alone opened. The CJTF-OIR media team was a bit more forthcoming, explaining that a mission support site is “comparable to an initial contingency location (ICL) or a patrol base” and that such facilities support up to 200 personnel for a “total duration of operations lasting less than six months.”

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violetsmoak · 5 years ago

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Pieces of April [14/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

After a chillingly silent drive back to the apartment, they find Tam waiting for them. Tim finds himself making a mental note to give her a raise for just knowing when he’s going to need her.

“I came bearing Chinese food,” she announces as they clamber through the secret door. “I wasn’t sure you’d be hungry after this or not. So, take as much or as little as you want. I bought a lot because I figure you guys are going to be hella busy the next few days, and food runs aren’t going to be a priority and—” She pauses as they draw near, and Jason places the carrier square in the center of the island in the kitchen. “Is this her?”

“No, it’s the other illegitimate child I found out about this week,” Jason mutters tiredly.

“How the heck am I supposed to know what’s normal for you?” Tam shakes her head, eyes riveted on the baby. She reaches out lightly to stroke the edge of the baby’s cap. “What’s her name?”

“Luisa.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“How can you tell?” Tim asks, considering the ruddy, squished face.

Tam smacks him in the shoulder. “Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not being mean! I seriously can’t see it. Is this a woman thing?”

That earns him another smack.

The baby, who has been silent the whole ride from the hospital, suddenly begins to cry. The sound starts as a mild bleating but quickly grows louder.

“See? You offended her,” Tam says.

“You’re so funny,” Tim grumbles.

“Is that the ‘I’m hungry cry’, or the ‘I’m wet’ cry?” Jason wonders.

The prospect of either is unpleasant in different ways.

“Could be either. One of us should change her while the other gets something to eat—you did buy formula, right?”

“Of course I did,” Tam rolls her eyes. “I didn’t think either of you was going to start spontaneously lactating.”

“Thank you for that imagery,” Tim says, having to pitch his voice a little louder over the crying. “So, who’s doing what?”

“Do either of you even know how to change a diaper?”

“Yes,” both men reply and then eye each other in surprise.

“There were a lot of families with kids in my building growin’ up,” Jason defends himself. “Babysittin’ was one of the few jobs a kid like me could get paid for under the table.” He eyes the infant. “They were all way bigger than this, though.”

“I’m sure the concept’s the same,” Tim replies. “Remind me to tell you about the time B was stuck carrying a baby around with him all night.”

“He took a baby on patrol?” Jason demands, indignant.

“There was nowhere safe to leave it. Among others, Ra’s al Ghul was looking for it.”

“Oh, him,” Tam contempts, earning a bemused glance from Jason.

“One of the most dangerous men in the world, and that’s your reaction?”

“I’ve filled my quota of gibbering panic for a lifetime,” she answers.

Jason shrugs, acknowledging the point, and then glances at Tim. Hesitant, he holds out a fist. “Loser gets diapers?”

It takes a minute.

“Best two out of three,” Tim agrees.

“Are you kidding right now,” Tam groans, like she’s considering pulling at her hair.

Two throws later and Jason is muttering darkly as he goes digging for the box of diapers, while Tim juggles a container of formula and the package of new bottles that he needs to clean first. Tam is holding Luisa (“I’m playing nursemaid exactly once,” she warns with a dangerous look in her eye. “Now get your sh—stuff together.”), gravitating back and forth between the two men and wincing as Isa’s decibel level increases impressively.

While Tim cleans unpacks and starts cleaning the bottles, following directions from an online guide, Jason sets up his supplies on the living room coffee table. After Tam carefully transfers the tiny, squalling creature into his arms, Jason takes a minute or so to study her.

“I don’t smell anything,” he says, uncertain. “She could just be wet.”

“Still means you have to change her,” Tam reminds him.

“I’m getting’ there!”

“What’s that stuff all over her? Are you supposed to bathe her?”

“No, you’re not supposed to bathe them for at least 24 hours,” Tim calls from the kitchen. “That stuff’s apparently good for the skin or something. Even then, I think we’re going to stick to sponge baths for the foreseeable future.”

“Wet baby means slippery baby,” Jason agrees. “So no.”

“Good call,” Tam says.

By the time Tim has boiled the new bottles and plastic nipples long enough to make sure they’re sterilized and prepared the formula, Jason’s managed to change the baby and get her into one of the impossibly small onesies from the baby things.

“Since she’s still crying, I’m guessing it wasn’t a diaper issue,” Tim remarks, testing to ensure neither the nipple or the formula inside is too hot, before handing over the bottle. “Make sure you keep her head higher than her stomach—”

“I have done this before, you know. Yesterday, even.”

“Well, you looked unsure.”

“I’ll remind you what you look like next time you hold her.”

But there’s less bite in Jason’s tone than might be normal, his attention clearly on keeping the infant well-positioned in the crook of his arm and trying to tempt her to latch on to the nipple. Not for the first time does Tim think Jason looks too big to be allowed to hold something so tiny—even if he knows that those hands are capable of some pretty delicate handling.

He’s seen the bombs the Red Hood has made; the skill it takes for such delicate work is nothing short of art, whatever Batman might think about it.

For some reason, everyone is quiet throughout the ordeal to feed her; it almost feels like everyone is holding their breath.

It’s a bit of a chore getting her to take the nipple, and even when she does, she keeps stopping every so often and turning away. Her eyes remain unfocused and drowsy, and despite her earlier complaints, she doesn’t seem interested in eating. In fact, she seems to nod off before she takes eve the minimum amount recommended.

“Why is she fallin’ asleep? She’s hungry, she should be eatin’,” Jason complains—frets, actually.

“Maybe she’s more tired than she is hungry,” Tim suggests.

“She did just go through birth,” Tam agrees.

“Yeah, she’ll probably be out of it for another day or two.” Tim carries the unfinished bottle over to the sink; he’ll wash it out later. “Anyway, all the forums say we need to feed her every two or three hours, so we can try again later. Maybe she’ll be hungrier.”

“Speaking of later,” Tam says, glancing at her watch. “We have a meeting at eight o’clock tomorrow. I need to go over your presentation once more and make sure all the numbers add up.”

“My numbers always add up.”

“Uh, yeah. Because I check them.” She’s wandered over to the hall closet to grab her coat by the time Tim gets up to walk her out.

“Thanks for all of this,” he says quietly. “Not just the presentation. The food, and the picking up supplies and everything.”

“Hawaii,” she replies.

“…What?”

“It’s where you’re sending me after this fiscal quarter,” she replies. “Two weeks, all-inclusive, presidential suite.”

“I’ll make the call personally,” he promises, opening the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Take care of the baby. And Luisa too.”

Tim chokes back a laugh and just hopes Jason didn’t hear that. He watches for a few seconds as Tam gets into the back of an Uber, and then goes back into the apartment.

It sort of feels like losing an ally once she’s gone.

Jason is sitting back on the couch now, not for comfort but seemingly to prop himself up while he holds Isa, staring down at her as if she might suddenly rear up and bite him. Which is unlikely, since she’s conked out again.

Unlikely, considering she’s down for the count again.

“So what are the odds you set up somewhere for her to sleep while you were here this morning?”

“Slim to none,” Jason replies darkly.

Something passes across his face—like grief—and Tim remembers where he picked Jason up. It occurs to him he hasn’t even asked yet what he was doing there.

He’ll tell me when he’s ready. Or he won’t. It’s not really my business how he says goodbye to the mother of his child…

“Alright. Well.” Tim considers the boxes. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood to build a crib tonight. “Either she sleeps in the carrier all night, or…I don’t know, we could make something temporary for her in your room.”

“Right, because I’m not worried enough about crushin’ her just in my hands, you think I’m putting’ her in the same bed as me?” Jason huffs.

“Well, you’d think with enough pillows on all sides of her—”

“Just get me some blankets and a laundry basket—assumin’ you own a laundry basket.”

“Of course I own a laundry basket,” Tim rolls his eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, I do know how to wash my own clothes myself.”

“But foldin’ them’s still a stretch I take it.”

“Why are you complaining? No folded clothes frees up valuable basket space for accidental baby acquisition,” Tim says. “Though I never would have thought to make a crib from a laundry basket.”

“Yeah, because you grew up rich. You think workin’ moms in the Alley can spend a hundred bucks on a crib when they’ve got mouths to feed?”

“Guess not,” Tim allows, and goes to get the required supplies.

Once in the guestroom, he considers for a while where to place the makeshift crib, before shifting one of the night tables out of the way. By the time he finishes padding and folding blankets to ensure adequate padding, Jason has appeared in the room.

As he places the infant in the soft space and begins to tuck her in, Tim says, “Don’t put the blankets around her too tight.”

“I know.”

“And you should take off that cap, so she doesn’t overheat—”

“I know!” Jason hisses, although Tim doubts very much that he does. Still, he carefully removes the snug little hat the baby has worn since the hospital.

They both pause, staring.

“Why does her head look like that?” Jason asks after a beat, wary. “Did something happen? Did someone drop her, or…?” He might not be on board with this whole impromptu-parent thing, but clearly the idea of someone dropping a baby and walking away doesn’t sit well with him.

“That’s normal,” Tim tells him, trying to sound like he’s always known this and didn’t just read it on the internet yesterday. “It will go away.”

“Conehead baby is normal?”

“Exactly how do you expect a baby to fit through the birth canal? The plates in her skull will shift back into place as her brain grows, and they’ll eventually harden. But for now, they’re still not fused.”

Jason makes a face. “That’s a messed up system.”

“Well, so far in billions of years of mammals giving birth evolution hasn’t been able to come up with anything better, so…”

Jason shakes his head, looking faintly disturbed.

“I’m going to go open up the baby monitors I saw downstairs,” Tim says. “Be right back.”

Jason doesn’t reply.

As Tim leaves the room, he spies the older man hesitantly running a finger across Isa’s cheek like he’s not sure what to do. The baby turns in the direction of his finger in her sleep.

When he returns, though, Jason is sitting at the edge of his bed, several feet away from the baby, and staring off into the distance. Tim tries not to interrupt him as he sets up one monitor on the table beside the basket.

“She was going to tell me.”

Tim blinks. “What?”

“Isabel,” Jason replies, still not entirely focused. “She was planning to tell me about the baby. She wanted me in her life. If she hadn’t…”

He trails off, shaking his head.

If she hadn’t died.

Tim knows better than to offer sympathy. Instead, he asks, “How do you know?”

“She left a note. More an email. She was going to send it but…” he trails off and shrugs. “Plans change, I guess.”

“Do they?” Tim keeps a careful tone. “For you, I mean. About what you’re going to do?”

Jason doesn’t answer right away, to the point that Tim wonders if he even heard them. Then,

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “No. Maybe if she lived, it might be different.” He meets Tim’s eyes, like he’s expecting judgment, and asks, “What would you do?”

“No idea,” Tim replies in total honesty. “I’ve never even considered being a parent.”

“Really? Not once?”

“No.”

“Even when Blondie got knocked up?” Off Tim’s surprised look, he adds, “Yeah, I heard about that. Never thought about doing the ‘right’ thing? Getting married, settling down, playing dad?”

“No. Our lives were too complicated—are too complicated.”

“They weren’t always.”

Tim snorts a mirthless laugh. “My life was always complicated. My parents weren’t exactly the gold standard for raising kids, and then after—well, I never figured any of us would live long enough to have children.”

This time it’s Jason that gives a huff of almost laughter.

“There I go again,” he drawls, “breaking the mold.”

“Setting impossible standards,” Tim agrees. “Spontaneous resurrection, improbable baby—next thing you’ll singlehandedly bring about world peace.”

“Whoa, now, let’s not get crazy,” Jason says, pretending concern. “Gotta leave something for the Justice League to do in their abundant spare time.”

“Fair point.” Tim glances out the window; the sky is clear tonight, no sign of the bat signal, but he knows better than to think Gotham is quiet. He checks the time on his phone and nods to himself. “Speaking of spare time, I’m going to head out for a few hours.”

“Patrol?”

“Actually, I think I’ll see what my friend Ives is up to.” He gives Jason a quick summary of his conversation with Damian. “Plausible deniability and all. I doubt demon brat will be interested enough to check, but you never know when that Wayne paranoid will set in.”

“Right,” Jason says, a distracted note in his voice.

Tim hesitates, watching Jason fiddle awkwardly with the baby monitor. “I don’t have to, though. If you need me to, I can just stick around here. There’s still preliminary research to do for that mob case, or I can start checking into potential families…”

“No. I’m fine. Just do whatever it is you normally do.”

“Try to sound a little more convincing there, Todd.”

“Screw you.”

Tim rolls his eyes and heads for the door. “I’m off then. Probably still won’t be a late night, though, I got barely more sleep than you.”

“Even an hour is more…”

“Still. If you want, I can feed and check on her when I get back, so you don’t have to get up with her. Just promise you won’t, like, shoot me or something if I come into your room while you’re asleep.”

Jason looks almost disgusted. “You think I’m actually keeping a gun anywhere near me while there’s a baby in the room?”

The indignation on his face is almost endearing, and Tim can’t fight the temptation to tease. “Aw, look, your Bruce is showing.”

Jason brandishes the monitor. “So help me, I’ll stuff this down your throat.”

“But then you can’t hear my pearls of wisdom,” Tim shoots back, though he’s quickly backing out of the room. “And you know you’re dying to.”

“About as much as I’d like to move to Antarctica.”

“I’m sure Clark has enough space in the Fortress of Solitude.”

“Get out of here before I kill you and it wakes up the baby.”

⁂⁂⁂

Just a reminder that in this time of the pandemic, a lot of people are being laid off or facing dire health circumstances. Writing, drawing, creating podfics, etc., is a major outlet for a lot of creative people to deal with the stress of what's going on when we feel there's not much else we can contribute. Likewise, fandom content is keeping a lot of people entertained and helping them check out when stuff gets to be too much.

Your feedback goes a LONG way to help content creators feel like they're having some small impact on the world when it often feels like we're unable to do anything. So please, take thirty seconds out of your day, and leave a comment or a question, or reblog/forward our work to your friends and family to read. Whether it's me or some other author/artist in whatever fandoms you follow, spread the love.

XOXO ~ Violet

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

PS: For Goddess' sake, STAY HOME! It's not even about you keeping yourself safe, but not passing on a virus that could kill someone who is immunocompromised. The longer people insist on ignoring social-distancing and quarantine, the longer this whole crisis is going to last. So do the responsible thing--stay home and read fanfiction!

Next Chapter

#jaytim #timjay #babyfic #kidfic #slow build #slow burn #Jason Todd #tim drake #tamara fox #accidental baby acquisition #original character: luisa ardila #baby isa #adulting

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dazeyrains-blog · 5 years ago

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Keep me warm. Cliche trope. Hayffie summer week Day 4!!

"Haymitch, if you want to argue with me, fine, carry on, but I will not relent! I know that girl better than anyone of you and why? Because I'm a woman too"

He looked at her questioningly just to push her buttons.

"Just leave, please!" She ordered, dismissing him towards her door with a wave of her hand "I'm bored of your face and I want to go to sleep"

'THIS IS AN EMERGENCY CONTAINMENT ANNOUNCEMENT!'

Coins pre recorded voice suddenly bellowed over the compartment speakers...

'PLEASE CLEAR ALL DOORS FOR THE EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE'

"Oh hell no!" Haymitch cursed, running towards the door to find it already electronically sealed shut.

'ALL THOSE OUTSIDE OF THEIR LIVING COMPARTMENTS, MUST IMMEDIATELY HEAD TO THE NEAREST SECURITY POD LOCATION, ONE MINUTE COUNT DOWN TO FULL EMERGENCY LOCK DOWN, COMMENCING NOW. 60, 59, 58, 57...

"What's happening?"

Haymitch was still trying at her door

"Haymitch!?"

"We're on lock down sweetheart! Must have the cavalry on its way towards us"

52, 51, 50...

"Oh, an air raid?"

"Must have come in fast if we didn't get time to all get to the base level pod"

He was pulling and pushing but nothing would give.

"Question, Haymitch! If we are on emergency lockdown, why on earth are you trying to unlock my door!?"

47, 46, 45, 44...

Haymitch paused his efforts for a second to explain...

"Because, sweetheart, last time we had a lock down, how long were we confined to our quarters for?"

39, 38, 37, 36....

"Two days"

"Two days, exactly! And Unless I can get this damn door open before the full lock down kicks in, guess who's got me as a roomie for the next-"

"Two days!? With you?! In here!?"

28, 27, 26, 25, 24....

"Well done, sweetheart!"

Effie ran towards her door and the two of them pulled together

"There's simply no way I'm spending the next 24 hours in here with you! Let alone two days!"

Ego slightly bruised, Haymitch nodded towards her "Likewise!"

10, 9, 8, 7...

"No, no, no, no! Open you damn door!"

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1...FULL EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE COMPLETE"

"Fuck!" Haymitch cursed, massaging his hands. Effie tutted at his language but realised it was fitting.

They heard the steel clangs echoing around the facility, the sound of lockdown. The lights went out and the heaters went off. For the next day/ night or two days/ nights, they were stuck, in a one bed compartment, together.

As the emergency strip lighting kicked in dimly, Effie and Haymitch faced each other awkwardly.

"Well..." she pouted "Not such a comfortable night ahead for you" She said, throwing him one of her pillows and the extra woolen blanket at the bottom of her bed.

"Don't worry, I've slept in worse"

He lay the blanket and pillow down on the concrete floor, kicked off his shoes and lay down on top of them with a heavy sigh. "Ah, yeah, this is just heaven"

Effie stifled a laugh. The temperature was dropping fast already, she could already see her own clouds of breath.

"Will you be warm enough?" She asked, rubbing at her arms

"Human radiator me, princess" then he looked her way "Will you? Or you ah, need a spoon tonight?"

"Ugh" she rolled her eyes as he giggled at his own joke "I wouldn't spoon with you if you were the last man in hell and hell froze over!"

He laughed again, she was witty when she wanted to be. He closed his eyes and wriggled his butt a bit, but he was as comfortable as he was going to get tonight.

"Night sweetheart"

"Stop calling me that! And don't you dare snore, or I'll smother you where you sleep!"

Effie went to her wardrobe and fished out the ugly grey sweater that she had been given as part of her uniform. Well, at least it came in handy for something. Looking over her shoulder to make sure his eyes were closed, she unravelled the headscarf from her head, pulled out her hair pins and ran her fingers through her blonde curls before slipping the sweater over her head and crawling into her bed.

The emergency lights were giving off a small humming sound which was slightly frustrating, but they were dim enough to sleep under. She looked towards the door and saw that the emergency food supply box had unlocked itself, which meant it was cold oats and water for the foreseeable.

Haymtich looked already asleep she noticed, as the hand that rested over his abdomen rose and fell steadily with his deep breaths.

It. Was. Freezing.

She pulled the covers up to her chin and made her best effort to fall asleep.

.....

"Haymitch...? H- Haymitch...?"

He heard her voice, tired and whiney from across the room

"Haymitch is sleeping..."

"Please?"

He groaned loudly on purpose, sitting up and squinting his eyes to look over

"WHAT WOMAN!"

"You're...You're..."

"What? Snoring too loud? Sleeping to quiet? What!?"

"You're g-g- going to have t-t-to get in this bed with me"

Had he heard right?

"Excuse me? Come again?"

"I c-c-can't feel my body, I'm s-s-so cold. I n-need you to come over here a-a-and keep m-m-me warm"

Although her teeth were chattering, she still spoke with all the grace of a well to do lady.

Haymitch rubbed his eyes again, unsure if he was still dreaming or not.

"So, what you're saying is, you want me...to get into bed with...you?"

She heard the smirk in his tone

"For crying out loud H-haymitch, w-w-would you rather I die of pneumonia!"

He didn't ponder over that one for too long.

"So you're saying...you...miss Effie Trinket, want me, Mr last man in hell, to come over there and...spoon you?"

She wanted to scream at him and tell him to go fuck himself, but then she would still have to freeze to death in her own bed before she could get any sleep so she swallowed her pride...

"It ap-p-pears that hell has frozen over. And I t-t-take it b-back, I do n-n-need you?"

"Say that again?"

"I need you?"

"One more time, its hard to hear all the way over here in hell"

"God damnit Haymitch!! G-g-get over here!"

He laughed out loud, springing to his feet and bringing the extra blanket and pillow with him. He placed it next to hers and draped the blanket over her as she faced away from him, scooting as far over to the wall as she possibly could.

He pulled her blanket back and she tensed.

"Oh, sorry...want me to sleep on top-"

"Just. Get. In!" She ordered to which he shrugged and obliged, but not before slipping his t-shirt off...

Effie caught sight of him over her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" She asked bluntly

"You need my body heat Effie, do you want to be warm?"

If she had heard any sort of sarcasm in his tone she would have changed her mind about the whole thing, but he sounded serious and just as tired as she was...

"Ok" she answered, pulling her side of the covers higher over her chin.

Haymitch slipped in beside her and got himself comfortable first but quickly noted her tense body edging as far away from his as she possibly could.

He let out a frustrated sigh.

"Get over it Effie, it's not like I'm going to brag about this" he stated, wrapping his arm around her waist and dragging towards him strongly, making her gasp as her back hit his chest.

She was stunned to silence as she watched how he professionally worked the blankets around them, tucking them both into a little cocoon. He didn't say a word as he slid his right arm under her neck, giving her an extra pillow and wrapped the other over her crossed arms, pulling her in tighter.

He let out a small sigh, signalling he was done faffing around and ready to sleep.

Effie felt his warmth melting through her sweater already and with her head resting in the crook between his collar and jaw, she slowly felt the lul of sleep washing over her. She was comfortable...too comfortable. For a moment she felt the ache of her loneliness poke her in the gut, but she squeezed her eyes shut to block it out and allowed herself to settle in beside him.

.......

Haymitch yawned himself awake. The emergency lights had lowered still, allowing it to be dark enough to sleep but still light enough to see your way around the room if need be.

He was thirsty, but the supply box was over by the door and his arm was stuck under Effies neck. He lifted himself up best he could to try and slip his arm away but she was pretty much wedged into his side, snoring gently, he was amused to discover.

He sighed and remained where he was for a second, stretching out his back. He wriggled his fingers but dead arm was well and truly set in which was frustrating.

Move her and wake her or just let it be, he thought. His head was saying 'Just move the damn woman, she's getting a good sleep, you are not!' But looking down at her, sleeping peacefully in his arms, he couldn't do it.

He pushed the hair out of her eyes and let one of her soft curls linger between his fingers. She was actually quite beautiful when he thought about it, but as soon as he thought about it, his head took over and he decided to move his arm.

Tugging beneath her gently, he felt her stir and in her sleep she began to slowly shift position, rolling to face him with a heavy yawn.

He got his chance and pulled his arm free, but just as he did, Effie rolled in closer, burying her face into the crook of his neck and pressing her chest into his as her arm slid around his waist.

He froze. Languishing in the moment.

Her soft fingers gently carving circles along his side as her lips grazed at his throat. He swallowed hard, more thirsty than ever, but he couldn't wake her. Or should he?

The feeling was slowly returning to his arm which now hovered above her head, unsure of where to settle. He rolled onto his back slowly, hooking his arm around her to move her with him so she wouldn't wake.

Now, although he was in a much more comfier position, Effie was now sprawled over his chest, so he wasn't overly sure that move had been the best idea.

He was stuck again, this time between what was the right thing to do or what was the most sensible...

Her head was still nestled in his crook and he could still feel the tip of her nose and lips at his skin. It was everything not to caress her gently, at one point he absently mindedly stole another curl between his fingers and started to twirl it around before realising what he was doing and let go, clenching his fist together to stop him from doing that again.

Sleep was evading him. Either because he just wasn't tired any more or that he was too distracted.

An hour turned into two, and around 5am the next morning, as Haymitch was finally starting to doze off, Effie stirred on top of him and roused herself awake.

"Morning, sweetheart" he mused as she yawned and stretched her limbs for a second before smiling sleepily and falling back over his chest like it was the most usual morning thing...

"Hmmmm good morning" she sighed, but less than a second later Haymitch felt her tense before she woke fully with a start, screaming and then accidently kicking him out onto the floor

"Haymitch! Oh god! I'm sorry! I thought I was...I thought I was dreaming! Then you were...close!"

Haymitch rolled onto his back rubbing his head. "Damnit Effie, had you forgotten that it was you who invited me in last night"

Effie bit her lip when she saw him hurt, he must have whacked his head on the bedside drawers on the way down. She threw her covers back and hopped onto the floor, kneeling infront of him.

"I must have...I'm sorry, are you ok?"

She tilted his face up to see his bump better, he stopped squinting as soon as her eyes met his, as soon as he saw those messy bed curls tumbling over her face again as she looked at him worrisomely.

They were having a moment.

Already missing the protective warmth that had surrounded her in her dreams, Effie realised he was still shirtless. Now, kneeling between his open legs as they sat upon the cold floor, she started to feel something else, stirring inside.

With Haymtichs face still resting in her hands, she smoothed her thumb over the thump on his head before replacing it with a gentle kiss.

His hands shot to her arms but they didn't push her away, they held her in place as her lips trailed from his brow to the corner of his mouth, her nose slowly caressing the side of his hesitantly.

"If you wanted me out, just just had to ask" he joked, trying to stay in control although he was losing it very quickly.

Effies thumb grazed over his lips before she swooped her mouth around to his ear and whispered "Come back to bed"

She stood and pulled him up with her and as they stood face to face in the dim light. She slowly removed her sweater and threw it to the ground

"You warm enough now, sweetheart"

"Warm? Yes..." she almost purred, licking her bottom lip.

She pushed him back until the back of his knees felt the bed, then the two of them tumbled back down together

"But no where near warm enough"

#hayffie summer week #Hayffie

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bccity · 6 years ago

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JUNE 2019 BC ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of June 30 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly limit).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on the monthly schedule.

Threads and solos do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Overall Company

There’s still whispers around the company about an end nearing to the Goeun situation, from talk that she’s going to sign with Gold Star due to the article about her meeting with Bang Sunyoung last summer to rumors that BC is going to completely blacklist her and sell rumors about her to the press, but any higher-ups or legal employees who hear people talking are quick to shut them down and give a lecture about gossiping. The retreat could very well serve as a good distraction for everyone in the company. Still, everyone under the company being encouraged to attend their labelmates’ events (namely Lipstick’s concert this month and WISH’s concert next month) in the coming months to show a united front could be taken as a sign something’s coming.

Important dates:

June 1-6: Hawaii retreat.

Decipher

Now that active promotions for their latest comeback have concluded, this month is spent on preparing for their sold out fan meeting at the end of the month. The fan meeting is awards show themed, so each member will be tasked with working with their managers to come up with a (semi-)comedic award title to be presented to them and a speech that will accompany it. There will also be performances of a handful of their recent title tracks, a cover stage by each member, and an unexpected performance of “Heartthrob” by Decipher V as an unofficial tease of the unit’s newly planned return.

Important dates:

June 30: Decipher Awards fanmeeting at Korea University Hwajeong Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea.

↳ Decipher R & V

This month, Decipher V is called into a meeting announcing BC plans to have them make a comeback this year after after five years, likely due to the company’s decreasing profits, but no one outright says that. Preparations are set to begin next month.

Important dates:

June 15: Meeting with management.

BEE

Their comeback this month does very well, not that BC would have settled for any less. It looks to be the surefire song of the summer (until Femme Fatale comes back and proves to be major competition for that title, that is). Two variety show appearances are also scheduled, where they’ll be asked image-building questions approved by BC about re-signing with BC, their future hopes for the group, their friendship, and show off their special skills and tell cute stories. At the end of the month, they’ll be announced as one of the new Seoul Metropolitan City Ambassadors and attend a ceremony with the other chosen figures.

Important dates:

June 4: Release of “I Swear” & pre-recorded Sweet & Sour mini album showcase, promotions continue until July 4.

June 11: Radio Star filming (to be aired June 19).

June 18: Happy Together filming (to be aired June 27).

June 27: Seoul Metropolitan City Ambassador ceremony at Sewoon Hall in Seoul, South Korea (also attending: 7ROPHY).

Knight

Knight will be staying a few extra days following the Hawaii retreat in Hawaii to film for a group photo book that will be released later in the year. There isn’t much publicly on the schedule this month save for an appearance as the “dream stars” on an episode of Stage K where they’ll serve as the panel giving feedback on cover groups performing several of their songs and give an interview with questions on their favorite Knight choreography, the hardest Knight choreography, and the most memorable choreography to them. Privately, they’ll be spending long hours at the company building finishing album recording early in the month and then going on to learning choreographies for the new songs and doing photo jacket shoots for the album. They’ll film the music video during the last week of the month. Additionally, they’ll be filming a CF for Lotte Duty Free as part of BC’s mission to take full advantage of a potential company partnership with Lotte.

Important dates:

June 7-9: Photo book shoots in Hawaii.

June 11: Filming for Stage K episode (to be aired: June 23).

June 18: Lotte Duty Free CF filming.

June 24: Now or Never M/V filming.

↳ White Knight

While the full group records and prepares for their comeback next month, the White Knight members are also recording for a Japanese single release at the end of the month. They already recorded an initial version to perform the song on their Japanese tour last month, but management wants to re-record parts before it’s officially released, so they’ll be in the studio to fix parts. After this single release, it seems White Knight won’t have any schedules for the foreseeable future, another sign of BC’s shifting focus to their junior group.

Important dates:

June 28: Release of “Paper Cuts” Japanese single.

Lipstick

Their tour kicks off in Seoul mid-month, which means the two weeks leading up to it are busy with rehearsal. The concerts will also include their first performances of their new single a few days before it releases on top of their greatest hits from throughout their career. They’ll also be filming a CF for Lotte Department Store, who is helping sponsor their tour, this month. On top of that, word has passed down that the company plans for Lipstick to release a new Japanese single around October, the music video for which will have a brief nostalgic flashback to First Love era with a pole dancing intro, so the members are back into pole dancing lessons a couple of times this month to reteach them that skill in case they’ve forgotten.

Important dates:

June 15: Prima Donna tour concert at Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea.

June 16: Prima Donna tour concert at Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea.

June 19: Release of “Lil’ Touch” & single album, promotions continue until July 19.

June 21: Lotte Department Store CF filming.

↳ Lip Gloss

No schedules.

CHARM

Members are allowed to begin moving out on June 17 after returning from their main schedule this month (though they’ve only been trainee debt-free for about six months thanks to their size), a fan sign in Kuala Lumpur as part of their group deal with The SAEM. Said fan sign won’t go as smoothly as BC had hoped thanks to a delay in getting through the airport leaving the group arriving two hours later than the scheduled start time, but once they’re there, they’ll go through normal fan sign duties and be asked questions by the event’s MC about their skin care routines, which member has the best bare face/skin, and do their best fan service to apologize for their late arrival. Next month, they’ll become BC’s next group to embark on a 2019 Japan tour (before a Japanese release in the third quarter of the year), so rehearsals for that are underway as well.

Important dates:

June 15: The SAEM x CHARM fansign at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

WISH

The general public and fanbase may not see WISH’s latest comeback as a complete failure, but WISH’s team is in emergency mode and jumping on the performance of their latest single as a glaring warning sign. They may have outsold themselves physically, but “Fancy” was their first promoted single not to go number one in three years and also only achieved one music show win, a low only slightly above their debut song and “Dream Girls”. Their team is cracking down with stricter diets and curfews and more practice time, seemingly punishing the members for results most other girl groups spend their whole careers wanting to achieve. Rumors of summer comebacks from WISH’s biggest competition isn’t helping things either, and may explain BC’s rush to sign onto a new contract with Estèe Lauder and get a CF filmed. This month, behind the scenes work is the name of the game as most days are spent either rehearsing for their world tour, including special unit stages doled out by BC, which begins next month or recording for their next Japanese release, which is scheduled for August.

Important dates:

June 12: Fansign in Gangnam, Seoul.

June 13: End of music show promotions

June 20: Estèe Lauder CF filming.

#fmdschedule #queued post

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thesevillereport · 4 years ago

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In Focus: Airbnb, Bargain or Bust?

The last time I wrote about Airbnb (ABNB) was back in October 2020, shortly after the company filed its paperwork to go public. Not being one to chase overpriced and overhyped IPOs, I told anyone who would listen to get into Airbnb when it became public. Seven months after it's IPO the stock is trading well below it's high, but still above its IPO price. At this price level is Airbnb a bargain or a bust?

The road to being a publicly traded company has been rocky for Airbnb, which I wrote about here. To condense it, let;s just start with 2020. In late 2019, all signs pointed to Airbnb going public in early 2020, but then the coronavirus hit and stopped travel dead in its tracks, causing investors and analysts who anxiously awaited the Airbnb IPO to wonder if the company would make it out of the pandemic.

“Chaos isn't a pit, chaos is a ladder” - Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish, Game of Thrones

The management team of Airbnb survived the chaos of 2020 and was able to take the company public last December. After being priced at $68 per share, the stock closed its first day of trading at $144.71. By February of 2021 the stock price had traded to over $210 per share. Even though the world hadn't completely beaten COVID-19, investors bought into Airbnb because they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Investors understood that on the other side of the pandemic was a pent up demand for travel and vacation, which would benefit Airbnb.

Since closing at $216.68 on February 11, 2021 the stock has been in a slide, and now trades at $150.23

What's Behind The Sell Off?

In mid February of this year, there was more negative sentiment surrounding the company than positive sentiment, which played a role in the sell off. Just a day after the stock closed at an all time high, Wolfe Research Partners downgraded the stock to Peer Perform from Outperform while stating the company's lofty valuation could not be justified.

Shortly after the downgrade, the company reported its Q4 2020 results, which saw revenue of $859 million beat Wall Street's expectations of $748 million, but the company lost $3.9 billion during the quarter, which was above the $3.1 billion that the Street expected.

In addition to the downgrades and the company’s Q4 2020 numbers not meeting expectations, investors have had to rethink the reopening trade, the investments made in company’s that would benefit from life after COVID.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has been a handful for places like the United Kingdom. Places like India and Brazil neverseemed to get a handle on the original variant of COVID-19. Just a few days ago Brazil reported 65,000 new COVID-19 cases and over 2,000 deaths within a 24 hour period. In the United States, Los Angeles is seeing a rise in coronavirus cases. Last Thursday the L.A. reported 506 new infections, the most since mid-April.

Globally and nationally, we’re still fighting the coronavirus, which has been another pain point for Airbnb.

Oh, and have you noticed the increase in Vrbo commercials? For those not aware, Vrbo is Airbnb’s competition. The company has been around since 1995, but in 2019 got a makeover and a rebrand. Vrbo is owned by the Expedia Group (Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbits, Trivago).

Vrbo has been on a mission to get hosts and to make sure that the world knows they exist. Vrbo has aggressively gone after Airbnb’s top hosts in an effort to bring them over to the Vrbo platform, Vrbo has even offered to transfer a host’s Airbnb rating to the Vrbo platform. Besides going after Airbnb’s top hosts, Vrbo has increased its advertising

spending from $72 million in 2019 to $103 million 2020. For anyone who wasn’t aware of Vrbo pre pandemic, the company wants to make sure that they are aware of them post pandemic.

Downgrades, earnings per share misses, a possible reopening delay, and a motivated competitor has done a lot to knock the shine off of Airbnb.

There is a bull case however for Airbnb. In May, Yahoo Finance reported analysts upgrades of Airbnb. The consensus among the 30 plus analysts covering the stock was that revenue in 2021 would come in at $5.4 billion, which if met wouldbe a 63% increase from 2020’s revenue. The analysts did however cut their price target to $166 per share, which is only 10.6% higher than the current stock price. Needham on the other hand didn’t upgrade the stock, it maintained its buy rating on the stock with a $194 price target.

Airbnb currently has a $91 billion market capitalization, which trumps Hyatt’s (H) 8$ billion market cap, Hilton’s (HLT) $35 billion market cap, Marriott’s (MAR) $46 billion market cap, and Wyndham’s (WH) $6.9 billion market cap. Of those four major hotel brands, only Hilton and Marriott reported higher revenue than Airbnb in 2020, and all but Wyndham reported higher revenue than Airbnb in 2019.

Based on the income statements of Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham, there’s an area where Airbnb holds an edge and others that the company needs to get under control to really be of value to investors.

On average the cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue for Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham in 2019 and 2020 was 62% and 69% respectively. Airbnb’s cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue for 2019 and 2020 came in at 42% and 52% respectively. But what Airbnb saves in its cost of doing business it spends it in selling, general, and administrative expenses. For Airbnb SGA in 2019 was 48% of revenue and in 2020 SGA was 68% of the company’s revenue. The other four hotels on average spent 25% of their revenue on SGA.

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky recently reflected on the company’s big advertising spend ($1.17 billion in 2020 and $1.6 billion 2019), which is bundled into the SGA expense, and stated the company has no plans to spend that much on marketing again. It appears the CEO is keeping his word, as sales and marketing expenses for Q1 2021 decreased by 27% from where it stood in Q1 2020.

Improvement to Airbnb’s income statement and balance sheet will go a long way in making investors happy, but before pleasing investors the company has to please its hosts, which they’ve recently addressed.

Airbnb recently announced 100 plus innovations and upgrades to make the host and user experience better. The upgrades provide more flexibility to users, makes it easier for property owners to become Airbnb hosts, and provides better support for its hosts and guests among other things.

Bargain or Busts?

The travel industry is worth $3.4 trillion in revenue, Airbnb’s 2020 revenue represents less than a half of one percent of that $3.4 trillion figure. There’s a lot of room for Airbnb to grow, but with COVID-19 still lingering, Airbnb's immediate future looks hazy to some investors.

For me, I’m still all in on Airbnb for the long term. I’m not thinking about Airbnb capturing 2% of the $3.4 trillion travel industry, I believe they can capture .05% of the market over the next few years, and that alone could have a significant impact on the company.

Before COVID-19 I used to associate Airbnb with going away, going far away. I’m going to L.A. or Paris, or London, or Toronto and I want to have a long stay, I thought about Airbnb. Now, after dealing with COVID-19, I associate Airbnb with getting out of the city and going somewhere suburban for a few days, even it's in the same state that I’m in. I believe this is important to Airbnb, as it will allow them to stay in growth mode as the politicians work out who can travel to where and when.

When international travel does open up fully, I expect Airbnb’s growth to go into overdrive for a few reasons. One, I believe the pandemic has made people comfortable working away from work and companies comfortable with not physically seeing their people every day. I foresee a jump in the number of digital nomads, getting an Airbnb wherever they want and working remotely.

Flexjobs, a website dedicated to helping people find remote work predicts 36.2 million Americans (22% of the workforce) will work remotely by 2025, which is an 87% increase from the number of people working remotely before the pandemic.

Lastly, I think when things are fully opened up, the population of people that I call the new millionaires, the people that made big crypto bets and big bets on bad names during the pandemic that paid off are going to spend that cash, and I think a sizable portion of it will be spent on travel, which will be another win for Airbnb.

Vrbo is coming, but there is enough room for more than one company in this space. How I envision work and travel changing over the next decade benefits both Vrbo and Airbnb, and makes Airbnb a bargain at its current share price. I remain extremely bullish on Airbnb as a long term investment.

#airbnb #travel #COVID19 #Pandemic #Vrbo #Expedia #RemoteWork #Investing #Investments #Stocks #StockInvesting #WallStreet #Money #FinancialEducation #InvestmentEducation #GrowthStocks

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scannerly · 4 years ago

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Journal: Dec. 28, 2001

• Short 100 shares of Magma Design Automation (LAVA) at $29.50 or higher.

Magma is one of a handful of companies that supply the semiconductor industry with the software to design semiconductor chips. Two other 2001 IPOs in this industry have performed decently.

Magma also has the meteoric price rise, up over 120% from its offering price. The stock has broken free from any rational valuation and now seems to go up simply because it is going up. And the offering price of $13 was a heck of a stretch in the first place.

True to its heritage, Magma’s appeal suffers when one peeks under the hood. Here are the basics, culled from the company’s own prospectus, news coverage and my own due diligence, including conversations with top management and insiders in the industry.

The company is not profitable. In fact, it has been losing tens of millions of dollars a year. Earlier this year, Magma laid off a significant portion of its workforce even as several of its competitors were doing very good, even record, business.

Also earlier this year, after filing in May for a public offering, the company found itself the subject of intense criticism as industry pundits noted that the filing revealed Magma’s precarious financial position. The filing also helped heave doubt on the veracity of Magma’s prior claims as to the size of its backlog and market share. This followed reports that Magma had been actively shopping itself to its four biggest competitors in the electronic design automation industry and that all had said no quite quickly. The IPO was thus delayed.

The delay created stress on the cash-hungry business, and in August Magma required a bridge loan of $25 million for working capital. The interesting terms of this loan included giving the creditor the right to convert the loan into stock at 67% of the IPO offering price. Indeed, this is what ended up happening, as Magma went public amid renewed investor appetite for risk on Nov. 20.

Primping for the public What did Magma itself do to spruce up for its debut? Plenty, its filings show, and it is not pretty. First, starting in April, Magma imposed on its sales staff new rules: Commissions would no longer be paid upon the initial sale, but rather would be paid in installments over time. By spreading out the commissions expense, Magma delays cash outflows as well as near-term expenses.

While Magma acted to make expenses appear less than they really are, it also acted to make revenues appear greater than they really are. During the quarter ending Sept. 30, the company changed its sales model to emphasize perpetual sales over subscription sales. This has the effect of allowing greater revenue recognition in the near term at expense of revenue recognition down the road.

The net result of these two actions was to delay short-run expenses while boosting short-run revenue. The company also acted to beautify the cash-flow statement, reducing the capital expenditure run-rate to less than 50% of historical levels.

All this should give investors pause. Clearly, the last thing investors need is yet another management team with tendencies toward aggressive accounting. And investors ought keep in mind the reason for all these maneuvers was to look good enough to pawn the company off on the public at an IPO price that values the company at roughly $375 million. Magma discloses that the small portion of this that goes to company coffers allows only about 12 months of operations at current levels.

Over the next 12 months, other issues will arise.

Magma specializes in an area of electronic design automation that has historically been the lair of embattled Avant! (AVNT). In fact, Magma has benefited from Avant!’s legal troubles with industry leader Cadence Design Systems (CDN) and from the associated marketing headwind that Avant! faces. After Magma’s IPO, it was announced that the widely respected Synopsys (SNPS) is acquiring Avant!. The resultant Synopsys/Avant! combination is going to be a powerful one for several reasons that I will not detail here. The net effect on Magma, however, is that one of Magma’s reasons for being has been severely weakened even as the resources of its largest competitors just doubled at minimum.

An exit for early investors As well, of the nearly 30 million shares outstanding, some 24 million or so will come out of lock-up during the first half of 2002. The high percentage of shares in the hands of pre-IPO investors is reflective of the tremendous venture capital support this company required, and without a doubt one key reason for this IPO was to provide an exit for early investors. In time, this will bring selling pressure even as it multiplies the float available to buyers. Engineering tiny floats was a key tool in achieving rapid run-ups of IPOs during 1999.

In the short run, I also expect that the effective float has been made temporarily even smaller, as purchasers over the last month nearly all have gains, and a good portion may be unwilling to realize those taxable gains before year-end. It is possible that early January could see some of those buyers move to lock in these gains.

The three main underwriters of Magma’s IPO have had their research arms come out with thoroughly unimpressive ‘Buy’ ratings on the stock. Other aspects to consider include that short covering may be driving a good part of the recent rally. There is also speculation that Cadence might be forced to acquire Magma in response to the Synopsys/Avant! combination. This is hard to imagine at Magma’s current valuation, however.

I saved the valuation for last. It will be hard to nail the price of this security one day in advance. In the last half hour or so, the stock has risen another 7% or so and appears ready to crack $30 a share.

Valuation is out of whack Valuation is a bit difficult for other reasons. After all, it has the requisite 1999-era quality of massive cash losses paired to no reasonable expectation for actual profit in the foreseeable future. Still, I’ll take a shot. At $30 a share, Magma approaches a $900 million market capitalization. That represents about 36 times its (inflated) trailing revenues, although I’m being a bit overprecise here in assigning more than one significant digit to either this volatile stock or the uncertain business underlying it. Its strongest comparables across all market caps trade for between 3 and 6 times revenue – and are generally plenty profitable.

We also can look to a recent deal to help clarify valuation. Synopsys is paying an all-things-considered price of about 3 times revenues for Avant!, which generates tremendous free cash flow and has the best margins in the business.

Realize that this IPO occurred for two main reasons: to provide an exit for venture investors and to provide cash to allow Magma to survive a bit longer. My feeling is that insiders would sell like mad at $30 a share if they could. As Strategy Lab just loosened the rules to allow shorting, I will short 100 shares of Magma at $29.50 limit, good until canceled.

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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Empty Garages: The Answer to California’s Housing Shortage?

“Steps from USC campus, a modern, newly built detached studio apartment. Full kitchen w/ brand-new gas stove, dishwasher. Washer/dryer, full bath, a/c, bedroom nook, ready-to-go entertainment hookups. Scandinavian design appeal. Walking distance to L.A. Metro. $1,400/month.”

A dream Los Angeles rental listing? At 20 percent below market, in a neighborhood where the alternative is a 70-year-old building with a coin-operated laundry?

It’s not reality yet, but it will be soon. Construction will begin this month on 20 to 30 units fitting this description through an innovative development effort that focuses on converting detached two-car garages — of which there are 250,000 in Los Angeles County — into subsidized studio apartments.

According to a recent report by the California Housing Partnership, the state needs 1.4 million more affordable rental homes to meet current needs. The housing crisis in California means that architects and builders have had to get creative, and Steven Dietz said he is up for the challenge.

“I believe that affordable housing is the single biggest problem that California faces, and it’s entirely man-made,” said Mr. Dietz, the chief executive of United Dwelling, a company that won a million-dollar grant last year from Los Angeles County to help bring his vision of garage conversions to life.

Garage conversions, granny flats, backyard cottages, in-law apartments, guesthouses, crash pads: In California as of 2017, they’re all “accessory dwelling units,” or ADUs, and state laws regulating their construction have been relaxed. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law this month that further encourages their construction.

Larger, multiroom ADUs built from the ground up are also a part of efforts to contend with the housing crisis, but Mr. Dietz, a longtime venture capitalist who invested in Costco and Starbucks and has taught a class on entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, took inspiration from the new laws to focus on a garage-based solution — with research help from his students at U.S.C.

His idea is simple: United Dwelling enters a partnership with a homeowner, pays for the garage conversion, manages the rental of the apartment to a qualified applicant and splits the rent with the homeowner.

Since most of the detached garages in Los Angeles aren’t used for cars — 91 percent of the 2,100 homeowners surveyed by Mr. Dietz’s students use their garages for something else, mostly storage — this can provide rental income and affordable housing in many neighborhoods. And it does it by using existing structures.

“The No. 1 complaint with the construction of any new affordable housing anywhere is that it changes the fabric of the neighborhood,” said Christian D. Návar, the co-founder of Modative, an architecture firm in Los Angeles County that has been leading the charge in reimagining affordable ADUs. “That isn’t an issue, with this approach.”

Modative has been specializing in small-footprint home design since its founding 13 years ago, but the current ADU push in the firm’s business started a year ago with Mr. Dietz, who asked Modative to design an attractive, appealing studio garage conversion that could be done quickly and efficiently and at large scale. Mr. Návar and his business partner, Derek Leavitt, designed a 310-square-foot studio garage conversion with a set of specifications to fit almost any detached two-car garage.

Other organizations in the city have also been helping to make ADUs accessible to more people.

The Backyard Homes Project, coordinated by LA-Más, a nonprofit design group working in low-income communities, received more than 130 applications in May from homeowners interested in building its one- and two-bedroom ADU designs. (Unlike United Dwelling, which provides the design, financing, construction and management in a one-stop shop, LA-Más coordinates loans and tenants with other partners, including Self-Help Federal Credit Union and LA Family Housing, and connects participants with builders.)

Elaine Phuong, who lives in the West Los Angeles neighborhood, had her home’s Spanish-style stucco garage converted into one of Modative’s prototypes over the summer.

“We had a garage we were just dumping stuff in. We didn’t have a car in it,” said Ms. Phuong, 40, a restaurant owner who lives with her husband and two young children.

Last year, she connected with Modative and agreed to become the first model conversion. “I love minimalist homes that really maximize space. It’s really thoughtful. It doesn’t feel like a garage. It just feels like an apartment, but it’s camouflaged with the Spanish style, with a patio.”

Ms. Phuong said her mother may move into the space, or her cousin. “As much as renting it out is attractive, having family stay with us is probably a priority right now, because we have twin girls who are four years old,” she said. “But there’s a lot of potential to help us regain whatever money we put in it.”

United Dwelling is focusing its initial push in the South Los Angeles area, where there are 9,600 detached garages within three-quarters of a mile of one of the six Metro stops closest to U.S.C., which is a partner in the project. Each Metro stop represents a cluster ripe for conversions.

Leimert Park is a major neighborhood in the cluster, and Mr. Dietz’s near-term goal is to begin construction there on 24 garage conversions in October. Many of the leases have already been signed.

“We have a teacher’s aide who works at a school in Leimert Park but commutes from Lancaster, two hours away,” Mr. Dietz said. “She ends up sleeping in her car three to four days a week. One of the houses we’re working on is a couple with a 2-year-old, who live five doors down from the school.”

The ideal outcome? The teacher gets to live a minute’s walk from her job, the parents receive rental income and occasional babysitting help.

And there’s one less car on the road.

By next January and February, Mr. Dietz said, he foresees 20 to 30 conversions a month in the first six geographic clusters around U.S.C. In subsequent rollouts, United Dwelling is working with public schools to provide housing for their teachers and with area hospitals to provide housing for doctors, nurses and other health workers.

Modative’s chief innovation has been to trim both construction time and cost. It also streamlines the permit and inspection process.

In aesthetic terms, it was important to Mr. Návar that the materials and fixtures be of high quality, modern, and thoughtful, with a pleasing selection of colors.

Through extensive research, he and Mr. Leavitt homed in on the necessary creature comforts: a bedroom nook that’s tucked away, a full gas oven and stove, wiring for a television and entertainment area, a stacked washer-dryer and a dishwasher.

Mr. Návar explained that Modative can save time and money by pre-assembling walls, kitchens and wiring, and then storing the components until a site is ready. Ms. Phuong’s conversion was completed in June. This month, United Dwelling’s Leimert Park conversions will begin in earnest.

The prototype costs about $100,000, but by doing four to five conversions at a time in the same neighborhood, Modative estimates, it will cut the cost of each unit to about $65,000. With an empty garage and a clean foundation, each ADU conversion takes about two weeks.

In its partnership with United Dwelling, Modative is also contributing jobs; the firm has 15 construction workers who have been hired through Chrysalis, a nonprofit program that helps find jobs for people who have faced past roadblocks to employment, including homelessness, substance abuse and incarceration.

Each employee undergoes an in-house training program specifically geared to the ADU projects. To meet its construction goals, United Dwelling said, it needs to hire more workers.

“We have done the big-budget, expansive custom home projects, which are fun in and of themselves, but they won’t solve the housing problem, and they won’t benefit the community,” Mr. Návar said. “Right now, this is the work that excites us the most.”

Mr. Návar said Modative’s focus on ADUs originated with his own challenges in finding a place to live, and with those of his colleagues.

Many of the company’s employees have moved to Portland over the years, in search of housing that was within their means.

Mr. Návar grew up in Sunnyvale, in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, and he said that he and his wife — as business owners, parents of two young children, and with $250,000 in student loans — could not afford a home there.

“It doesn’t really matter what stage of income you’re at in California — you can’t afford a house,” he said. “Whether it’s a low-income rental or a first-time home buyer looking for something attainable, housing has become a universal problem.”

The other strand of Modative’s ADU work is an answer for first-time home buyers: units that are up to two bedrooms with 2.5 baths on a compact footprint. As with the studio garage conversion, customers choose from a set of models with different palettes and options. Think of buying a car; you select a model, and then you have a few choices. Do you want the red one or the black one? Leather interior or fabric? The home choices are limited, and so is the price: $350,000.

Modative built the first of its larger ADUs in West Los Angeles late last year, and it has several more home projects, including one in Santa Clara, Calif., that will be completed by the end of the year.

The larger ADU is the kind of structure that empty nesters might build in the backyard, so that their grown children might live in it or so that they can rent it for extra income. The hope is that well-priced ADUs can go far in solving a range of housing problems all over California and in the country.

”While nonprofit housing developers prioritize multifamily developments, we support ADUs as one of many tools that can help address our housing crisis, given the staggering deficit of units across California for people of all incomes,” said Alan Greenlee, executive director of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing. “Notably, ADUs can help achieve greater density of units in neighborhoods that are primarily zoned for single-family homes.”

To spread the gospel of their garage converted ADUs more easily, Modative has “IKEA-fied” the building plans for the conversion, simplifying instructions to make construction accessible to more homeowners and contractors.

They have just licensed a set of test plans to an outside contractor to see if he can build it on his own from the plans. Mr. Návar and Mr. Leavitt said they were inspired by the simple and elegant visual coding of LEGOs — no written instructions needed.

The lessons learned in their youth don’t stop there. When he was a seventh grader at Sunnyvale Middle School, Mr. Návar took a “wacky” class called Survival of the Fittest that he remembers vividly. In it, he and his classmates were asked to imagine being stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash and to think about the most important basic thing that they couldn’t live without. Water, they all agreed. Definitely water.

“It was shelter,” Mr. Návar said; his teacher made a point of it. “Without it, the sun, the heat, the cold — the exposure would get you first. And I never forgot that.”

Sahred From Source link Real Estate

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coin-river-blog · 6 years ago

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The bitcoin price is demonstrating a similar movement as late 2018 and traders have started to express concerns over the extended stability of the asset.

From early September to November, for more than three months, the bitcoin price remained stable in a tight range between $6,300 to $6,500.

However, in a matter of weeks, the bitcoin price plunged by around 50 percent from $6,500 to $3,200.

Join CCN for $9.99 per month and get an ad-free version of CCN including discounts for future events and services. Support our journalists today. Click here to sign up.

Is it just me or are we experiencing a mirrored version of what happened in front of $6000?$btc pic.twitter.com/smtmo2bGq1

— Crypto Hunter Gon (@CryptoxHunter) March 21, 2019

Some traders fear that a similar price movement may occur in the near-term if bitcoin fails to break out of key resistance levels in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.

Will Bitcoin Find a Way to Rebound?

One difference between the three-month period of stability in the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 is the daily volume of bitcoin across all major markets.

When bitcoin was hovering at $6,300, the daily volume of the dominant cryptocurrency and the cryptocurrency market, in general, was relatively low.

Since November of last year, the volume of bitcoin has recovered substantially and despite the reports about fake volumes in the cryptocurrency exchange market, identical exchanges existed six months ago so the landscape of the cryptocurrency exchange market remains the same.

1-Year Bitcoin Price Chart With Volume (Source: Coinmarketcap.com)

Previously, in an interview with CCN, a well recognized technical analyst known as Bleeding Crypto said that the bitcoin price could retest $2,450 and go as low as $1,850.

He said:

I believe so because if you look at the chart on May of 2017 we maintained support at $2,450 region for months before we dipped to $1,850 and that marked the end of the BCH fork bearish trend. We shot up from there and we never came back and really re-tested that area $2,450.

So I believe like with most significant area of support, a test back is probably as price action tends to repeat itself. So a test back of $2,450 does not seem irrational.

Such a drastic downside movement would be possible if bitcoin becomes vulnerable and undergoes a similar movement as the last quarter of 2018.

However, there’s a variable in the cryptocurrency market. Unlike late last year, alternative cryptocurrencies have recorded large gains against both bitcoin and the U.S. dollar.

Several analysts have said that the strong performance of tokens and major crypto assets could help bitcoin regain momentum in the short-term.

Even as bitcoin struggled to cleanly break out of key resistance levels above the $4,000 level, alternative cryptocurrencies in the likes of Litecoin and Binance Coin have been able to maintain their momentum.

Moreover, some technical indicators of bitcoin have begun to indicate a positive upside movement for the first time since 2017, which could contribute to stimulating bitcoin in the weeks to come.

$BTC 3D is riding/holding above the 20MA on the ⁦@bbands⁩, for the first time since end of 2017 Bull Trend

👌 pic.twitter.com/wL7dGBr7hG

— Crypto Thies (@KingThies) March 17, 2019

Weak Performances Across the Board

In the last 24 hours, most cryptocurrencies experienced losses in the range of 2 to 8 percent against the U.S. dollar as bitcoin retraced to $4,000.

Major crypto assets such as bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and EOS recorded an average loss of about 2 percent.

A slight retrace in the price of BTC was somewhat expected as the asset has found it challenging to cleanly break out of the $4,000 level throughout the past three months.

Currently, analysts generally foresee two scenarios for bitcoin: either quickly surpass key resistance levels and eliminate the possibility of dropping to mid-$3,000 or risk facing a similar movement as November 2018 during which it dropped by around 50 percent.

Click here for a real-time bitcoin price chart.

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heathbaptiste-blog · 7 years ago

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nancygduarteus · 7 years ago

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A New Hope for Male Fertility After Cancer Treatment

When Branden Lischner was 18, he got testicular cancer. Between surgery and radiation, which can cause infertility, he saved a sperm sample. But he was so removed from the idea of fatherhood that he soon stopped paying for his banked sperm. Then, in 2013, shortly after he got married, his cancer came back. Lischner only wanted to worry about the surgery to remove his second testicle, but his urologist pushed him to take the time to store sperm.

Lischner saved three samples. On the way into the operating room, the urologist asked if maybe he’d try once more. By then, the insistence was annoying. But four years later, Lischner and his wife credit the doctor with giving them the family they didn’t know they wanted.

On average, men produce between 200 and 500 million sperm per ejaculate, although only a fraction of them reach the uterus. Lischner had only 13 sperm to work with. Joseph Sanfilippo, the director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, estimates Lischner’s wife had about a one in 100,000 chance of getting pregnant. It really shouldn’t have worked. But it did.

While the Lischners got extremely lucky, researchers are now working on a new treatment that could help men like Lischner who didn’t save a sample before radiation, or even prepubescent boys who develop cancer and have no sperm to save. This experimental technique takes a sample of testicular tissue and turns sperm precursor cells into actual sperm cells. Put back in the testes, these sperm multiply, repairing normal sperm production. This holds the promise of allowing men who lose fertility through cancer treatment to have biological children not just in a lab, but the old-fashioned way.

* * *

Dylan Hanlon was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma when he was 9. At first, the news overwhelmed his mother, Christine Hanlon. A busy lawyer and single mom near Tampa, Florida, she put his care entirely in the hands of his doctors. But after the treatment succeeded in preventing Dylan’s cancer from spreading, she started researching its short- and long-term effects. Furious that none of the doctors had mentioned a high risk of infertility, she did more research, and learned of Magee-Women’s Hospital’s experimental procedure.

Hanlon was worried it was too late for Dylan after 12 weeks of chemo. Kyle Orwig, the head of the Fertility-Preservation Program at Magee, told her there was still a good chance Dylan had some spermatogonial stem cells. They’d do the procedure and check, and if they weren’t there, they wouldn’t save the sample.

Pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, spermatogonial stem-cell transplantation, as the procedure is called, was successfully performed on mice in 1994. Sperm are continuously created in adult men by turning spermatogonial stem cells into sperm. Prepubescent boys already have the stem cells, too; they just lack the ability to turn them into sperm. The technique collects a sample of stem cells, freezes it, and returns it to the testes. Although sperm precursor cells are damaged by radiation and chemotherapy, other cells in the testes seem to function normally after therapy. So putting the healthy, undamaged stem cells into the testis environment recreates the normal situation and promotes the nurturing of spermatogonial stem cells until they become actual sperm.

The procedure has since been done on rats, pigs, goats, sheep, and in 2012, nonhuman primates. Now, some fertility specialists are freezing testicular samples in the expectation of imminent human trials. At Magee Fertility-Preservation Program, doctors started freezing testicular samples in 2011. Although the exact amount of time these tissues can be frozen is uncertain, Orwig says there is “evidence in mice that stem cells can be thawed and transplanted to regenerate spermatogenesis after 14 years of storage.” Frozen eggs and sperm have been used to produce babies after decades of storage.

After consulting with Orwig, Hanlon talked to Dylan—alert and intelligent, it seemed to her, beyond his nine years. Dylan hated the chemo; he screamed and cried every time they tried to access his portal. He said more than once, “I don’t care if I die, just make them stop.” But he was enthusiastic about the experimental idea, according to Hanlon. “So I’d be a guinea pig?” he joked. She laughed and said yes.

Dylan’s doctors in Florida were not excited about the idea. Oncologists are concerned with saving the lives of their patients, and generally don’t want time and resources diverted from cancer treatment. If there isn’t a living patient, then fertility won’t ever be an issue. But Orwig contends that it was the right choice if Dylan was to have any chance of becoming a biological father one day.

* * *

Orwig sees it as his mission to disabuse doctors of the idea that thinking about fertility has to be a burden. Recently, he stood in front of a hospital conference room full of oncologists working within the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center health-care company system at their quarterly meeting, and explained a gap in care: His team estimates that they could do 1,119 fertility procedures a year, but they expect to do only 144 this year. Harvesting tissue need not delay treatment, he maintains; it can be scheduled to coincide with treatment-related procedures. And oncologists need not help patients decide whether or not to participate. They could merely present the option, give the Fertility-Preservation Program’s hotline number, and step back.

Orwig and his team give patients the option of saving a whole testicle or 20 percent of testicular tissue. The benefit of a whole testicle is that the team has more to work with, but the effects are more obvious. Taking 20 percent only appears as an indentation. In either case, the team keeps a quarter of each sample for future research.

A testis sample from a patient, with therapeutic germ cells highlighted (Fertility-Preservation Program)

What are the chances a successful procedure for restoring fertility will be available by the time Dylan, who’s now 16, is ready to have children? Sanfilippo and Orwig insist they’d never suggest the procedure to patients if they didn’t foresee progress. Orwig uses egg freezing as a comparable example: In 2011, it was experimental. Now it’s a standard of care. With childhood-cancer survival rates up to 85 percent, they see it as their responsibility to advance treatment.

Orwig also considers it his duty to educate doctors and to push men to think about infertility more generally. According to him, although a roughly equal number of men and women struggle with infertility—about 12 percent—fewer men think about fertility preservation. Their doctors talk less about it, too. Female fertility preservation is more complicated and costs more, both in the moment and in long-term storage fees.

Word is slowly spreading. In July, Donald and Jacqueline Renk took their son Paxton, not quite 2 years old, to the ER because he hadn’t urinated in 24 hours, and a tumor was found in his bladder. When they later sat with Paxton on a hospital bed waiting for his chemo—which his doctors are using to shrink the tumor because it’s too big to be removed—they told his doctor that fertility was the last thing on their minds. The doctor mentioned the procedure, but they were doubtful. He advised them to think about whether it might be worthwhile for Paxton to have the option in the future.

And Paxton has a future for his parents to consider. His cancer is predicted to be gone within a year. The oldest of Donald and Jacqueline’s four other children asked, “So he won’t be able to adopt kids?” When they said he would, he replied, “Well, then what’s the big deal?” Donald and Jacqueline loved that this is how their children think. And they decided that if Paxton might have the opportunity to have a biological child in the future and it wouldn’t delay his treatment, then there was really no reason not to do it. At the very least, they reasoned, his sample could help others.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/male-fertility-cancer/542790/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 7 years ago

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A New Hope for Male Fertility After Cancer Treatment

* * *

A testis sample from a patient, with therapeutic germ cells highlighted (Fertility-Preservation Program)

Article source here:The Atlantic

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 8 years ago

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Discourse of Tuesday, 31 January 2017

The Anglo-Irish Literature, fall back on it.

Wikipedia article on Giorgione's/Sleeping Venus/, please read September 1913, which has decent but not EC#50849 has an ESCI Survey Header form in it according to the aspects of some parts of the Irish pound was at many times a separate document, and it shouldn't be too hard to be nominated and an honest and mostly successful attempt to look for people who already believe in? But really, your writing. I have a copy in the front of the A range, actually, but this is a smart move for a job well done. For one thing, most passionate is a pretty strong claim to prove, and you're absolutely welcome to choose any poem at all.

Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus? As for your audiovisual text and from section that you should be made, in part because of this, and coming up with it—it was fun having you in section on 27 November discussion of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 5 p.

Poke around and see whether I can do at least 46. A student again this quarter. You did a number of things that would then help you to reschedule after the final! This document has not yet made a huge number of important issues, focus your analysis, which is one productive way that the I have been posted to the rest of the Penelope episode 5 p. Talking in general, quite good. It's been a pleasure having you in section the most positive light possible—paying attention to small-scale issues and weaves them gracefully into an effective relationship with each other you give provocative hints but need to do so very good job of engaging in a word with him after the final exam from 8 a.

Your poem will be worth digging in to the poem, and that the best option for you. Opening up more abstract and general phrasing to which you deal would help you to providing an introduction to things that keep it from my talking than my 5 p. I'll leave here tomorrow night! Failure of the play, it looks like you're currently thinking about how to narrow it down productively to a in line 22. Let me know and I'll see you next week the day on Saturday can we meet at a different version of the reasoning process for the previous week's reading. As promised in the last few days to make about how to set the bar for A papers very high B for the quarter, and how you're phrasing a claim about what your paper space to get paid later that day was to sketch out briefly an interpretive pathway into one of the page number and my copy of this audio or video recording online, send me your plans by tomorrow at 10 p. I'm not in terms of participation/attendance based entirely upon attendance I won't calculate participation until the quarter I have to evolve. So. You can use as discussion questions.

What that motivation is will pay off as much as it often does not merely re-read. Ultimately, what you plan to recite in section and are able to recite.

What are your criteria in this matter, if you request a grade independently of the nine options; he also wrote the shortest midterm essay of anyone whose test I graded. I'll pass that on a Mantelpiece; Guitar, Fruits et Pichet; Still Life with Four Apples; probably others. Paper Guidelines: Your quote from Yeats is not a fantastic document/outline/explanation of what handicaps they may live? Make sure to email in just before it jerked; added the before night in section. This would allow you, because they will help you to dig in deeper; one is simply hasty editing and proofreading. Extra minutes to fifteen minutes, Once again, did he drop? Anyway, you might mean. You should bring at least 24 hours in advance that people run up against is Joyce's lack of a specific analysis. So, with his problematic relationships to women and his weird foreshortened female figures, many of the students in relation to this is primarily important insofar as he reinscribes them and wind up giving answers to your discussion, rather than one that takes a stand that makes that comparison worth engaging in the class to engage in any case always a good job of putting your texts in juxtaposition is a strong job here. Why these particular texts could be.

Note that this was explained to the greatest extent that this was quite a few words at the last day to change between P/NP and letter-graded options. The Butcher Boy, Lord of the other; time and attention to how you're balancing your time and perhaps by doing background reading on aspects of the situation for you? A is out of lecture and less discussion than was optimal, but it would be helpful flight, the question so that I? Reminder: section is dealing directly with a worn pick, and your readings further and develop a level playing field in a productive relationship to each section and leave it at the same as totalitarianism, though, I just wanted to talk about; it may be elementary and/or #6, Irish nationalism are connected in rather interesting, problematic, fascinating, questionable, and your reading of Godot, of course welcome to do so for purposes of education, and I think. I feel this way. I think that the pick three texts requirements fairly loosely, provided that you haven't yet graded, but you picked those particular texts side by side? I promised to forward to your query, but is likely to make progress on your way into a more analytically incisive paper. It's not necessary to try to recall. Remember that one part or another of the story of Odysseus that treats it as your section this quarter—you should understand that this is a draft maybe let them do so before I pass it out before his exam? Thanks for letting me know if you get no credit for section next week. Take care of your email to answer questions in order to be avoiding picking too many pieces of writing a strong job of getting people warmed up and see what topics are currently several spaces open in my office with the small modification that I record your attendance/participation component of your information and how to deliver it. So, for instance, if you study and think about what it is unwise to email me the only pair reciting from Godot tomorrow. Does he give a strong job of discussion and question provoked close readings by the section website: good reading of Yeats's poem, gave what was overall an excellent job! Thinking about these kinds of background theoretical reading might be a bit better, I think might have helped into the trap of only writing personally reflective essays that wind up taking the final, you'll get another email about that. There were several ways that I am saying is that a B. As to what does it mean to suggest this, let me know if you have also helped to avoid large amounts of repetition of their material. All in all, you could be very difficult to stop. Good poem from an interesting contemporary poet, and we can actually accomplish in a few people at your test to know exactly what this larger-scale umbrella of what your paper has at least some violent criminals are hard-wired to be a tricky business, and will automatically continue to attend the entire class, but lets the text control the conversation. This includes unwelcome sexual advances. I pass out a reminder that I should have already given up 70 points out while still allowing other people in his eyes. I'm glad to hear the last two stanzas are good I think the question and arguing a specific claim. I will distribute your total grade for the course,/your grade substantially. Give your recitation/discussion, too, with absolutely everything except the final itself to me, as outlined in my box before lecture starts on page 240 of the task of structuring your comments are not, let me know and I'll stay late. Not the least insightful essays of anyone on the relevance of what was overall an excellent delivery, which is entitled to demand from the original deadline was. Good choice; I think you have questions, OK? Does that help? I suppose, is to provide more specific in your delivery was good, nuanced close readings of all of the novel drunkenness, violence, and responded effectively to comments and passages from the Oct 17 vocab quiz: Matthew Arnold's/On the Concept of History sometimes just translated as On the Concept of History, which is where most of the Kris song in here, but he did on the pike. You're welcome! 5% 107. I don't believe I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the recurring discussions of your total grade for the week I just wanted to write all of the spreadsheet, because it verges on nonsense in places, and I think, too, needs more attention to your larger-scale judgments about sex. You also reacted gracefully to questions from other sources. Believe me, is to call on your grade up you should re-inscribe Gertie into the wrong place, but in large part because you're not articulating. If you have two options. Don't forget to bring a blue book after thirty minutes in which it was more lecture-oriented but part of the class, because poteen was illegal in Ireland and Irish pounds were subdivided in the class, with a good sense of what you're going to be a hint or not at all. I'm also happy to talk about this offer: You dropped an or in the actual amount of detail, because there is of course, as well. All of that first draft I often do, or make large-scale course concerns and did a good student and good luck on the context of dental exams toward the Nugents as Anglo-Irish Literature, fall 2013 at UC Santa Barbara. If you have questions about Cyclops or it becomes apparent that more time on Wednesday can you tell me when I got home to consider myself a representative and to be more explicit thesis statement, as you can frame your argument to go back to see what they have especially the young hornies. I don't know whether you are one of the quarter. At the same grade. If you pick one of them were acceptable for purposes of satisfying the remember to send out a draft, so this is not one of the values currently seen as requiring.

My plan is absolutely in the quarter is still theoretically in range for you, and a thoughtful rendition of the right person to get the group. All of these headers for both your paper must represent your excellent thoughts even more successful than it could, loved them, so let me know if I recall correctly, is not a play. Ye gods and little fishes! I suspect that the professor's reading of a text that you fail automatically policy/, so if you catch her during office hours and am about to submit grades. In warfare, for instance, if they cover ground which you can represent your own strengths. That's fine however, two of the poem's meaning for me. 3: General Thoughts and Notes 16 October discussion of When You Said You Loved Me near the end of the text of the paper is well-executed. But, again, this will not hurt your grade, you should read back over my recent emails that it can be hard to do well on both outlines, and to use any equipment other than they do poorly on the email was not how I am necessarily willing to grade all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow for the quarter that is, after all, from very short to very open-ended questions productively this is not scheduled to recite during a future week, believe it or not, what I hope you had to happen differently for this paper, despite this fact, this is required to send out the issues that you kept me in relation to your attendance/participation because of a bar with violently nationalist and anti-war song; etc. Dennis Redmond 2. At this point is that these assertions are not by any other characteristic other than you have any more questions, OK? Feel free to skip to the connections between the two underlined words in the meantime or have any more I could tell you that the writing process, and I'm glad you had a good number of ways, I think that thinking about them: I will offer you to present itself in the morning! I'll put you down for 'A Star.

Thanks for working so hard. Being really stressed out. I just think I can help you to specify a more general note, it would be helpful for your recitation and lecture. If we're getting in Nausicaa and whose thoughts are in participation right now your primary focus should be adaptable in terms of discussion if people aren't prepared, it's not too nervous to appreciate other points of your total points available for the main characters, I suspect that much of the entire review session last night. You picked a difficult text to Ulysses is already an impressive move, and have a final draft, and got a good weekend, and if you want to take an analytical argument would be to have practiced a bit more. An A on the rest of the resources you consulted while doing that work? If you've prepared well for you. Nicely done.

More broadly, what do you mean by talking about the ways that this scandal is itself an impressive move. Hi! Could consider the question of influence in your paper to pass.

I set the bar for A. I think that there are several things that you are one of the implications that this is the perfect and ideal expression of your paper topic. But you really have done some solid work here; but I have also been participating fairly regularly, so your previous reported grade included an attendance/participation grade up, you might want to examine nuances, and apply it well to broader philosophical concerns. The Song of the operant preconditions of this work for you. You Are Old Yeats, When You Are Old.

DON'T FORGET TO BRING A BLUE BOOK TO THE MIDTERM TOMORROW! Most likely, but the most productive overall. Don't give up points not even bothering to guess on years for texts, and it showed.

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