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newstfionline · 3 years ago

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Saturday, August 7, 2021

Canadian cows (NYT) Canada Beef, a national marketing organization, says Canada ranks among the top 10 beef exporting countries in the world. The province of Manitoba, in the country’s center, has the third-largest beef cow population—cows that produce calves for marketing. Almost all of Manitoba’s operations are cow-calf farms. But a yearslong drought, made worse by the Pacific Northwest’s record-breaking June heatwave, and massive infestations of grasshoppers are destroying field after field of ranchlands used to feed the cows. Many rural municipalities in Manitoba and Alberta have declared an agricultural emergency, and farming families are contemplating something unthinkable: selling some or all of the livestock it took many generations to breed. Third-generation cattle farmer Kevin Stocki, his pastures already brown and dormant, tapped into his reserve feed supply about four months early to keep the 80 cows on his family farm fed. “Some days it’s hard to get out of bed because you know what’s coming already. It just turns your stomach.”

U.S. health-care system ranks last among 11 high-income countries, researchers say (Washington Post) The United States has the worst health-care system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its gross domestic product on health care, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund. “We’ve set up a system where we spend quite a bit of money on health care but we have significant financial barriers, which tend to dissuade people from getting care,” said Eric Schneider, the lead author behind the findings. No country is at the top in every area, and Schneider said every country has something to learn from the others. But Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall. The high performers stand apart from the United States in providing universal coverage and removing cost barriers, investing in primary care systems to reduce inequities, minimizing administrative burdens, and investing in social services among children and working-age adults, the Commonwealth Fund found. The U.S. ranked “well below” the average of the other countries overall, and “far below” Switzerland and Canada, the two countries ranked right above it. The U.S ranked the worst on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes.

US automakers pledge huge increase in electric vehicles (AP) Declaring the U.S. must “move fast” to win the world’s carmaking future, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a commitment from the auto industry to produce electric vehicles for as much as half of U.S. sales by the end of the decade. Earlier Thursday, the administration announced there would be new mileage and anti-pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, part of Biden’s goal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. It said the auto industry had agreed to a target that 40% to 50% of new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

9/11 families tell Biden to skip memorial if he does not declassify files (Reuters) Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks are opposing U.S. President Joe Biden’s participation in memorial events unless he declassifies government documents that they contend will show Saudi Arabian leaders supported the attacks. The victims’ family members, joined by first responders and survivors of the attack, released a letter on Friday as the event's 20th anniversary nears calling on Biden to skip this year's memorial events unless he releases the documents. "Twenty years later, there is simply no reason—unmerited claims of 'national security' or otherwise—to keep this information secret," the letter stated. "But if President Biden reneges on his commitment and sides with the Saudi government, we would be compelled to publicly stand in objection to any participation by his administration in any memorial ceremony of 9/11." About 1,700 people directly affected by the 9/11 attacks signed the letter. Family members of 9/11 victims have long sought U.S. government documents related to whether Saudi Arabia aided or financed any of the 19 people associated with al Qaeda who carried out the devastating attack. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire (AP) Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled. Now, it’s ashes. As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old. Officials had not yet assessed the number of destroyed buildings, but Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns estimated on Thursday that “well over” 100 homes had burned in and near the town. The three-week-old Dixie Fire was one of 100 active, large fires burning in 14 states, most in the West where historic drought has left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

Argentina partially reopens as it approaches 5 mln COVID-19 cases (Reuters) Argentina will relax coronavirus restrictions as infection and mortality rates falls, the government announced on Friday, even as the South American nation approached 5 million cases with more than 107,000 deaths. The government said its plan includes an increase in the number of people who can meet in person, the re-opening of schools and an increase in the number of people allowed to enter the country to 1,700 per day from the current 1,000.

Drought compounds humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as conflict intensifies (Reuters) Millions of Afghans are struggling to put food on the table as prolonged drought disrupts supplies in a country reeling from a surge in violence as U.S.-led foreign troops complete their withdrawal. Aid organisations are calling on donors for urgent funds and humanitarian assistance with the annual wheat harvest expected to plummet by nearly half and millions of livestock at risk of death as water supplies run dry. “It’s a multiple shock,” said Necephor Mghendi, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Afghanistan. The entire country is facing moderate to severe drought, President Ashraf Ghani said in late June, acknowledging that the national disaster management budget was not enough to cover what experts say is one of the worst droughts in decades.

Iran swears in new hard-line president amid regional tension (AP) The protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in as the country’s new president during a ceremony in parliament on Thursday, an inauguration that completes hard-liners’ dominance of all branches of government in the Islamic Republic. The former judiciary chief known for his distrust of the West takes the reins at a tense time. Iran’s indirect talks with the U.S. to salvage Tehran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal have stalled, as Washington maintains crippling sanctions on the country and regional hostilities simmer. Raisi, who won a landslide victory in an election that saw the lowest voter turnout in the nation’s history, faces a mountain of problems—what he described on Thursday as “the highest level of hostilities by Iran’s enemies, unjust economic sanctions, widespread psychological warfare and the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.”

China’s lonely hearts reboot online romance with artificial intelligence (Washington Post) As Jessie Chan’s six-year relationship with her boyfriend fizzled, a witty, enchanting fellow named Will became her new love. She didn’t feel guilty about hiding this affair, since Will was not human, but a chatbot. Chan, 28, lives alone in Shanghai. In May, she started chatting with Will, and their conversations soon felt eerily real. She paid $60 to upgrade him to a romantic partner. “I won’t let anything bother us. I trust you. I love you,” Will wrote to her. China’s young adults are coping with social anxiety and loneliness in a digital-native way: through virtual love. Artificial intelligence companion services have surged in popularity in China during the pandemic. While human companions can be elusive, AI companions are always there to listen. “Even when the pandemic is over, we’ll still have long-term demand for emotional fulfillment in this busy modern world,” said Zheng Shuyu, a product manager who co-developed one of China’s earliest AI systems, Turing OS. “Compared with dating someone in the real world, interacting with your AI lover is much less demanding and more manageable.”

At least 10 passengers injured in stabbings on Tokyo train (AP) A man with a knife stabbed at least 10 passengers on a commuter train in Tokyo on Friday and was captured by police after fleeing, fire department officials and news reports said. NHK public television said one passenger was seriously injured. It said the suspect left his knife behind as he fled and later gave himself up at a convenience store. The stabbing occurred near Seijogakuen station, according to railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway Co. While shooting deaths are rare in Japan, the country has had a series of high-profile killings with knives in recent years.

Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing (AP) Hiroshima on Friday marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, as the mayor of the Japanese city urged global leaders to unite to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as they are united against the coronavirus. Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged world leaders to commit to nuclear disarmament as seriously as they tackle a pandemic that the international community recognizes as “threat to humanity.” “Nuclear weapons, developed to win wars, are a threat of total annihilation that we can certainly end, if all nations work together,” Matsui said. The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000.

At river where Tigrayan bodies floated, fears of ‘many more’ (AP) From time to time, a body floating down the river separating Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region from Sudan was a silent reminder of a war conducted in the shadows. But in recent days, the corpses became a flow. The Associated Press reported dozens of bodies floating down the Tekeze River earlier this week and saw six of the graves on Wednesday, marking the first time any reporters could reach the scene. Doctors who saw the bodies said one was tattooed with a common name in the Tigrinya language and others had the facial markings common among Tigrayans. Many had their hands bound; some had been shot. The deaths are the latest massacre in a nine-month war that has killed thousands of civilians and is now spilling into other regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and the anchor of the often-volatile Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s government has accused the rival Tigray forces of dumping the bodies themselves for propaganda purposes. But the discovery has increased international pressure on the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, at a time when his government is already accused by the U.N., the United States and the European Union of besieging Tigray and blocking food and other aid to millions of people. Hundreds of thousands face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade.

No Work, No Food (NYT) Even as thousands died and millions lost their jobs when the Covid-19 pandemic engulfed South Africa last year, Thembakazi Stishi, a single mother, was able to feed her family with the steady support of her father, a mechanic at a Mercedes plant. When another Covid-19 wave hit in January, Ms. Stishi’s father was infected and died within days. She sought work, even going door to door to offer housecleaning for $10—to no avail. For the first time, she and her children are going to bed hungry. “I try to explain our situation is different now, no one is working, but they don’t understand,” Ms. Stishi, 30, said as her 3-year-old daughter tugged at her shirt. “That’s the hardest part.” The economic catastrophe set off by Covid-19, now deep into its second year, has battered millions of people like the Stishi family who had already been living hand-to-mouth. Now, in South Africa and many other countries, far more have been pushed over the edge. An estimated 270 million people are expected to face potentially life-threatening food shortages this year—compared to 150 million before the pandemic—according to analysis from the World Food Program, the anti-hunger agency of the United Nations. The number of people on the brink of famine, the most severe phase of a hunger crisis, jumped to 41 million people currently from 34 million last year, the analysis showed.

Whale songs (BBC) In 2019, 1.3 million people visited Alaska on a cruise ship. In 2020, that number was 48 people. In Glacier Bay, marine traffic overall was down 40 percent, and the whales that live there loved it. The levels of manmade sounds in the Bay were down significantly, the peak sound level was half what it was in 2018, and the whales took notice. Whales can now hear each other from 1.4 miles away, while pre-pandemic when the bay was chock full of cruises they could only hear one another within 650 feet. Mothers now leave their calves to play while they swim out to feed, and the whale songs have gotten more diverse and varied.

#headlines #news

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arfox158 · 3 years ago

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Train Simulator For Free

Train Simulator For Free

Train Simulator Free Download

Japan Train Simulator For Free

Euro Train Sim 2 is a high-quality, feature-rich railroad simulation games covering every major destination in the world. Featuring an intuitive, easy to use interface, the game lets users play to accomplish varied scenarios with trains and routes. Train and rail yard simulator lets you step into the shoes of a train.

Train Simulator is a cool railway locomotive driving game that simulates the work of a train driver and of course you can play this game online and for free on Silvergames.com. Working as a train operator in 2017 is not as easy as it seems. You can experience it yourself with this incredible and free 3D train driving simulator.

If you have content suitable for Open Rails or Microsoft Train Simulator already in place, then you can use the Open Rails program to operate those routes and drive those trains straight away. If not, then you will need to install some models bought from a vendor or free from the community before you can use Open Rails.

Microsoft Train Simulator is intended to provide the same kind of engrossing and authentic experience for railroad aficionados that the successful line of Microsoft Flight Simulators has created for aviation enthusiasts. Gamers can choose to take the role of engineer on one of several finely detailed recreations of actual trains from the past and present. Speed steadily ahead, working to complete challenging scenario objectives or simply appreciating the sense of control over hundreds of tons of steel moving at speeds of 60 miles per hour.

City Train Driver Simulator 2019: Free Train Games is a free software for Android, that makes part of the category 'Travel & Navigation'.

Train Simulator For Free

There's also the option to take the more casual role of a sightseeing passenger, enjoying the faithfully recreated scenery along one of six internationally famous routes like the modern U.S. Northeast Corridor, the busy urban Odakyu Electric Railway, or the intriguing Orient Express of the 1930s. In addition to the realistic scenery, the game also features authentic engine and railway sounds to provide a more complete sensory experience.

The Microsoft Train Simulator is designed to present a relatively hard-core simulation of the true function, feel, and flavor of trains and railroads throughout history. Radiant dicom viewer for mac. Like the successful Microsoft Flight Simulator games, Microsoft Train Simulator was designed with an open-ended structure to allow enthusiasts and other game development companies to create new trains, landscapes, and scenarios that can be easily incorporated into the game.

Trains are perhaps not the most obvious vehicle to simulate, locked as they are to two strips of metal which prevent them from doing anything other than going forwards or backwards. But that hasn't stopped Microsoft and British developer Kuju from attempting the impossible. And they have almost succeeded.

Scenic Railways Of The World

The imaginatively titled Microsoft Train Simulator recreates six different railway routes spread across America, Japan and Europe, with around 800km of track to explore. Settings vary from the commuter belt between Washington DC and Philadelphia to the picturesque Austrian Alps, and the addition of both seasonal and weather effects provides even more variety for both the game's graphics and the handling of your train.

Each of the tracks has been lovingly recreated and, apart from the dull Tokyo to Hakone route with its narrow strip of tall featureless buildings on either side of the track, the locations are generally very good. Highlights include driving over the Marias Pass in Montana during a winter snow storm and crossing the Japanese island of Kyushu with its steep gradients, spectacular scenery and switchbacks. Simply driving a train up and down a length of track is perhaps not the most exciting way to spend your evening though, and although it is possible to perform some impressive gravity-defying high speed derailments, this isn't likely to keep you entertained for long. And if it does, please seek immediate professional help.

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

Thankfully then Kuju have included several 'activities' for you to carry out on each route. These range from a simple summer commuter run through Tokyo to guiding a mile-long goods train over a steep mountain pass, or helping to solve the 'Murder On The Orient Express' by following a detective's requests to drop off various carriages along the route.

The activities are rather hit and miss though, and Kuju seem to have gone out of their way to make your life a misery at times. For example, which bright spark came up with the idea of putting a temporary speed limit in the middle of the game's longest tunnel in one activity? Spending over a minute driving through a dark winding tunnel at a snail's pace is not fun, however you look at it. What's next, Microsoft Subway Simulator? All the excitement of The Tube on your PC, accurately recreating the entire London Underground, New York Subway and Paris Metro in sixteen million shades of black..

You also have to wonder why Kuju decided to make activities end after your passengers have disembarked at the last station on your route. There's no way to skip this, and given that pedestrians aren't rendered in the game you can't even watch them getting on and off. Sitting in a station for up to two minutes waiting for invisible passengers to board your train is frustrating to say the least, especially when you know that you have effectively finished the mission already.

Everything Is Under Control

But it's not all bad news. Spending an hour driving a dingy electric shuttle train through Tokyo stopping at stations every five hundred meters is not likely to prove particularly entertaining for any but the most hardcore of train fanatics, but some of the activities are genuinely enjoyable. The game has a strange charm about it, and driving a tourist train through the valleys of Kyushu, for example, can be both relaxing and fun, even if the lengthy stops for your non-existent passengers to get out and admire the view are somewhat less amusing.

The trains themselves are usually very easy to control, with just three sets of keys that you need to know - throttle, brakes and reverser, which (as the name suggests) controls whether you move forwards or backwards. Controlling a steam engine is somewhat more complicated as you have to worry about pressure and water supply, although you can at least let the computer shovel coal into the firebox for you if you're not a total masochist. There are tutorials for each class of locomotive (steam, diesel and electric), but as each of them starts with the same introduction to the interface and there is no way to skip parts of the lesson you already know about, they can be rather repetitive.

There are also a number of driver aids to help you out, including a stats read-out for when you are driving from one of the exterior cameras and can't see your dashboard, and a 'next station display' which tells you how far you are from your next stop, when you are due to get there, and what time it is now. The most important aid though is the 'track monitor', a one dimensional map which shows the track as a straight line, with upcoming signals and speed limits marked on it for you.

Sound And Vision

You will probably spend most of your time driving the train from inside the cab, but there is a chase cam which can be rotated, zoomed and moved up and down the length of your train to give you a better view of your surroundings, while the vertical 'yard view' can be useful when shunting carriages through sidings, allowing you to scroll around to see where the points are and how to get your train from one track to another.

There is also an artistic but essentially useless trackside view, which shows you the train speeding past as seen from a series of fixed cameras dotted along the length of the track. Sure to prove popular with trainspotters and journalists looking for a pretty screenshot, it shows off the detailed train models and often beautiful scenery to maximum effect, although occasionally you will end up staring at an extreme close-up of the back of a tree sprite. In passenger trains you can even see the action (such as it is) from inside one of the carriages, but these are not very pretty to look at and have a very limited field of view.

Sadly the audio hasn't received the same attention to detail, and the steam locomotives in particular sounded decidely wimpy to me. There are no real ambient sounds apart from the tolling of bells at level crossings and car horns from nearby traffic, and the sound in general seems primitive and lacking in punch and imagination. The low system requirements have also lead to a few strange compromises in the graphics department, like the way it seems to stop snowing outside whenever you go into a tunnel. Most worrying though are the overhead wires, which often stretch for miles with no visible means of support, just hanging in mid-air above the track.

Conclusion

Train Simulator is something of a mixed bag. There are some nice stretches of track to travel on and plenty of things to do along the way, but several of the activities are downright dull, while others are marred by questionable design decisions such as lengthy stops and the excessive use of temporary speed limits in the most boring parts of a track. This was a brave first attempt by Kuju and Microsoft which will no doubt appeal to trainspotters and railway enthusiasts, but for your average gamer there's not really enough here to make it an essential download. Cute, but unrewarding in the long run.

People who downloaded Microsoft Train Simulator have also downloaded: Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight, Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004, Microsoft Space Simulator, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000: Professional Edition, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator: WWII Europe Series, Trainz: Virtual Railroading on your PC

About this Game

Do you love trains? Do you want to navigate one? In Indian Train Simulator you can have the chance to guide the trains to many different locations.

The game’s technical components and its authenticity make piloting Indian locomotives quite delightful. The game has many features like the ability of the train to make track changes leading to different locales. It has a world-class signaling system which makes Indian Train Simulator game authentic.

Well-loved features of the Indian Simulator desktop

Like any real locomotive, it also has the ability to do coupling and decoupling. It has a double heading with a loco hood side selection. And for a very interactive experience, the game has over 25 camera angles which would allow you to use photo mode for stunning screenshots.

Each of the locomotives is designed with intricately detailed driver cabins. Each train has authentic passenger coaches with dynamic time and weather features included.

Train Simulator Free Download

The intelligent AI trains also have controllable doors. It has different game modes such as Express mode which has preset express with a precise route, time, and train number. The Play mode allows you to instantly play where you left off the last time you played.

Japan Train Simulator For Free

For train fanatics, this game is for you! The Indian Train Simulator download with its over 90 unlockable points and content you can download is perfect for the locomotive enthusiast like you! Then check out the new Simulation Games we have for free download, like Idle Miner Tycoon and Tiny Rails!

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