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Deloittes Report Backs Arts Centre Proposal But Has Shortcomings

2024.05.19 11:22 StruddlePopsicle77 Deloittes Report Backs Arts Centre Proposal But Has Shortcomings

The Council released the 15 May Deloittes review of the Arts Centre's cash flow worries. The report raises more questions.

Excerpt:
Describing the risk as "real" in its financial review of 15 May, Deloittes has surmised that without a cash injection, the Arts Centre will go insolvent.
“Currently the Trust Board is working through an asset management planning process which will better define its future capital expenditure requirements but this is not currently known”.
Deloittes
On Friday, the Arts Centre said "The Deloitte reports vindicates the position of the Trust as presented in our Proposal for Funding and in our Submissions to Council".
On 2 May, in the council chamber, Arts Centre director Philip Aldridge and Board Chair Murray Dickinson had told councillors it “substantially” backed the Deloittes report.
As recalled, the Arts Centre has asked the Council to consider taking over its insurance policies, providing it with a rates remission or reduction or providing it with an annual operating grant of $1.83 to $2.5 million.
Until its 2023 audited accounts are released, the Deloittes report (released on Friday) could play a pivotal role in the councillors’ decision to provide a lifeline to the Arts Centre. However, the report comes with its shortcomings.
Deloittes has dismissed the Arts Centre's insurance and rates proposals as being no better economically than the provision of council heritage grants. But it forcasted the Arts Centre will become insolvent without outside assistance.
For more, go to -https://open.substack.com/pub/thewigram/p/deloittes-report-backs-arts-centre?r=1wegwa&utm\_campaign=post&utm\_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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2024.05.19 10:43 ryefieldglobal fire！ffie。next week

Translation into English:
The “King of Retail Investors” in the United States, Keith Gill, has just announced that Faraday Future’s target is $20-50. This time, the surge in Faraday Future’s stock is his plan.
The real showdown hasn’t started yet. On Monday and Tuesday, short sellers must close their positions. When the short squeeze starts next week, it will skyrocket at rocket speed, reaching at least $10 or possibly even $1,000. Options expire today, and positions must be closed on Monday.
So cherish your shares. You only have a few chances to fight in life; this might be enough.
In 2021, during the “Retail Investors vs. Wall Street” event, Gill fueled the retail frenzy over GameStop through continuous posts and predictions, attracting massive capital inflows into GameStop and ultimately destroying the short-selling hedge funds, with losses amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars for the funds.
On the 14th and 15th, Wall Street short sellers have already lost $2.4 billion. The turnover rate and trading speed show how many retail investors are involved. If the price really reaches $20, Wall Street’s losses could be even greater than last time. We look forward to witnessing a miracle.
Moreover, the most important thing is that there is currently an insufficient number of shares available for shorting. Short sellers basically cannot buy shares now, so the stock price cannot be driven down and will continue to rise in the coming days.

submitted by ryefieldglobal to roaringkittybackup [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 10:25 COCMrMoose Clash of Clans Rage City Recruiting

Rage City #2QCRR90QP We are a lvl 1 clan with very strong members (20/20) looking to fill the ranks with more! We War and are currently working on maxxing Clan games, once we hit lvl 2, Clan capital will also be a big thing! Donation ratio 1:2, If your heroes are down SHIELD RED, Obviously FULL Participation in clan games for max rewards! And most of all have fun! We are competitive yet love this game and would love to have those that share the same interest! We plan on being a great clan to be reckoned with, and I also have experience in not only a #2 clan for two years as a CO leader called Warrior #9RC0QCYU which were #2 on the west coast of the united states. My name in game is Alaska, (I am the leader) I enjoy this game very much and if you are reading this and interested please join, and in the submit request add REDDIT Just in case we are in war soo we know you arent a scout! I have IRL friends here and hope if you join you bring your homies as well! We are an adult clan! Clash on and hope to see you have a home in Rage City with us! 🇺🇸🥷🏼👍🏻

submitted by COCMrMoose to u/COCMrMoose [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 10:06 More_Vehicle6263 Multiple ways to make cash

Hi all,
Thanks for the invite to the group.
Below are all the locations I've signed up to which allow referrals and pay you in return for them.
I'll try to be as good at explaining where I can. For ease I have hidden referral links just incase the sites dont allow sharing in "public" forums such as this.
Banking apps: 1. Monzo Offer: Spend no minimum, make £5 Referral link Steps: - You’ll need to be a UK resident aged 16 or over with an open Monzo account of any kind. You have 30 days to: - download the Monzo app - apply for a current account or business account - add some money and pay for something using Monzo (no minimum amount) - The referral’s complete and we’ll both get £5

Zing Works similar to Revolut/Wise, foreign currency banking essentially. Offer: Spend £5 minimum, make £20 Referral link Steps:
You'll need to be a UK resident aged 18 or over with an open Zing account You have until 31st May to:
Sign up by following the link above to the referral landing page form and following the instructions.
Register using a mobile number
Download the Zing app and be successfully on-boarded as a customer for the first time using the same details as above.
Top up your Zing account
Spend £5 using virtual card, google/apple pay or order a card and spend that way too (but this might take too long to arrive)
once promotion has ended, within 30 working days we should receive £20 each. You can refer up to 20 people each to make £400 yourself, but has to be completed by above date.
Zilch Virtual banking app, cashback on spending at loads of retailers online and in store via google/apple pay. Offer: Spend no minimum, make £5 (to spend towards one of above retailers) Referral link Steps:
sign up
set up pay now option
set up pay anywhere
purchase/ spend something
receive £5 once transaction has registered.

Please note that this app has a credit facility, so make sure pay now option is set up so you dont affect your score incase you're prone to missing payments. Some point after registration Zilch may show up on your credit report, mine showed up after a few months. Cashback received varies but minimum is 0.5%.

Freetrade Stocks and shares platform Offer: Deposit minimum £50, receive 1 share between £10-£100. Referral link Steps:
sign up using the link
fill in the W-8BEN form
deposit £50, no need to spend it on purchasing shares. Unless you want to of course.
receive a free share valued between £10-£100

Please note your capital is at risk if purchasing shares. So if you want to play safe deposit minimum £50, dont spend and receive the free share to do as you wish with. If you want to try the platform, then by all means go for it. I just have to state your investment is at risk due to the nature of stocks and shares. If you decide to refer your friends, you get up to 10 referrals a month.
Cashback platforms: Some of the below can be combined with cashback or gift card places like Zilch (above) / Chase / Cheddar and Jam Donut (below) for example, to save and make even more money back.

Topcashback Cashback site where you can each money on every days online purchases Offer: Purchase using the platform and reach the £10 threshold for cashback. Referral link Steps:
sign up
use the site to find a retailer you shop with
purchase item
get cashback each time you do
build up £10+, that's yours to then cash out and spend as you wish via bank account/paypal/gift cards
Quidco Cashback site where you can make money on every day purchases Offer: Purchase using the platform and reach £5 threshold for cashback. Referral link Steps:
sign up
use the site to find a retailer you shop with
purchase item
get cashback each time you do
build up £5+, that's yours to then cash out and spend as you wish via bank account/paypal/gift cards
you'll get £15 once accomplished the above
Cheddar App that pay you money instantly for purchasing gift cards Offer: £5 for referring Referral link Steps:
sign up
link bank account
purchase gift cards
each cashback
withdraw once you reach £5 threshold
when you buy your first gift card, the referrer gets £5 also.
JamDoughnut App that pay you money instantly for purchasing gift cards Offer: £3 for using app for 1st time. Referral link Steps:
sign up using the link and input my code LA9G
link bank account
purchase gift cards
each cashback
when you cash out your funds for first time
Airtime Rewards App that pays you for spending in store or online, you can use the pot to go towards your phone bill (various ones available) or to gift to another members phone number instead. Offer: Sign up within 7 days and get £2 Referral link Steps:
sign up using the link and input my code if requested, LKMDEP7M
link a bank card you will spend with
use the linked card to make purchase various shops in store or online as per mentioned on airtime app within 7 days
we both get £2

This app is quite good to use, haven't really paid for my phone bill for over a good couple of years now.
Other cashback / reward offers: 1. E.On Next Sign up and get £50 credit on your bill Referral link T&Cs apply here

Community Fibre Sign up and get £50 Amazon gift card Referral link
Smarty Sign up and get £10 voucher for Amazon, John Lewis or Uber Referral link

submitted by More_Vehicle6263 to MakeMoneyInUK [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 09:20 zlaxy On this day 116 years ago, Nikolay Pilchikov, a scientist-physicist, developer of radio-controlled devices, died in Kharkov from a shot in the heart

On this day 116 years ago in Kharkov Nikolay Dmitrievich Pilchikov – scientist-physicist, inventor in the field of radio engineering, author of works on optics, terrestrial magnetism, electrical and radio engineering, radioactivity, X-rays, electrochemistry, geophysics, meteorology – was shot in the heart.
At about seven o’clock in the morning of 6 May 1908, a shot rang out in a ward of an expensive Kharkov hospital. Breaking open the door locked from the inside, the doctors saw its only patient – it seemed that his life had been cut short in his sleep. The man was lying in his bunk, as if he hadn’t woken up yet. And if not for the bloodstain on his chest, no one would have realised the tragedy. A revolver lay on the tea-table beside the bed. It was from this revolver that the bullet that had pierced the scientist’s heart had been fired. Could a man who was undergoing medical treatment have carefully placed the gun beside his tea glass and folded his arms across his chest after shooting himself at point-blank range? Nevertheless, the “cadaver book” records ruled the death a suicide.
For some reason forensic experts did not do dactyloscopy – the investigation was not puzzled by fingerprints on the black “bulldog”, which became the murder weapon. And the authoritative professor Nikolai Bokarius, whose name now bears the local Institute of Forensic Medicine, even described Pilchikova’s case in a textbook for lawyers and doctors as an example of temporary purposeful capacity of suicides with fatal gunshot wounds in the heart area. At that, the luminary recommended to take into account not only anatomical features of the injury, but also the functional state of the central nervous system. The picture was completed by the conclusion of pathologists, who found in the killed after the autopsy of the corpse modifications in the structure of the brain.
A purely “police” justification for not considering the murder version was the fact that the incident took place in a locked room on the first floor (as if this could be an obstacle to unauthorised entry).
And a week after the scientist’s death, on 13 May 1908, the head of the police department received a report from the head of the Kharkov security service about the unreliability of the “extreme leftist” Professor Pilchikov, who was known for his active participation in “criminal agitation activities of engineering students”. This was confirmed by a search of the scientist’s house, during which propaganda literature from the period of the first Russian revolution of 1905 was found.
What was Professor Pilchikov doing before he was “worked out” by the police? The scientific fate of Nikolai Dmitrievich was as unusual as his death was mysterious and the fate of outstanding discoveries inexplicable.
The scientist, whose life was cut short at the age of 51, was not only a physicist, but also a lyricist: he was no less talented in composing poetry, painting pictures and playing the violin. But he considered his life’s work to be his scientific career, which was unusually successful.
The son of a public and cultural figure, who was a friend of Taras Shevchenko, was born on 9 May 1857 in Poltava, and already during his studies in gymnasium showed remarkable abilities in exact sciences. Entering the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kharkiv University, he experimented in new at that time experiments in the field of sound recording, while still a student invented an electric phonograph.
After graduation, the graduate was left to work at the Department of Physics. His first scientific monograph was devoted to optical analysis. Later the scientist made a number of discoveries on the topics of scattered light polarisation and atmospheric ionisation, atmospheric electricity and geomagnetism, radioactivity and X-rays. Pilchikov was awarded the Silver Medal from the Russian Geographical Society for a series of studies of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, during which iron ore deposits near Prokhorovka were predicted.
After defending his thesis at the University of St. Petersburg, the master of physics was appointed privat-docent of the Kharkov University, and two years later he went to practice at a magnetic observatory in Paris, where he discovered flaws in the design of the seismograph and offered his mentors a way to correct them.
Soon the young professor of Kharkov University becomes famous outside Russia, becoming a regular at international scientific conferences and a member of the Toulouse Academy of Sciences.
Nikolay Pilchikov returned to Kharkov as a university professor, where he created a meteorological station that still exists today. To study the upper atmosphere, the professor developed a stratostat and then a high-altitude spacesuit to equip the pilot. The atmospheric optics researcher created his own seismograph and designed equipment to determine magnetic pressure.
Having moved for some time to Odessa (to work at the Imperial Novorossiysk University), in 1894 the scientist invented an original lamp for the study of X-rays, called “Pilchikov’s focus tube”. The optical and galvanic version of the study of electrolysis developed by him made it possible to obtain images on metal plates – so the inventor became the author of electrophotography or photogalvanography.
And on 25 March 1898, Nikolai Pilchikov demonstrated for the first time a device working with radio waves of a certain length and rejecting interference. During his experiments in Odessa he lit a lighthouse with the help of radio waves and moved a railway semaphore, blew up a yacht and made a cannon fire.
The scientist characterised his contribution to radio physics as follows: while Popov and Marconi were looking for a way to transmit a signal over the greatest possible distance, he was solving the problem of cutting off wireless power transmission from extraneous electrical waves. Thus appeared the first device with a protector – a security filter, allowing only the waves addressed to it to reach the mechanism and protecting the equipment from atmospheric and radio interference. The scientist not only designed and manufactured different types of the first protectors, but also tested them in practice.
With the help of his revolutionary device, Professor Pilchikov made it possible to create radio-controlled mine boats that could sink enemy ships without a crew and fire on enemy targets. In proposing the idea to the Russian military, the inventor characterised it as a way of detonating objects at a considerable distance without cables or other visible communication.
Applying for financial assistance from the military department, Pilchikov planned to spend 15,000 roubles on laboratory equipment, manufacture of devices and their testing with the support of the Sevastopol naval forces. For his part, the scientist undertook to keep the know-how in strict secrecy and not to publish any information about the development in scientific literature. As a result, this circumstance may have contributed to the fact that the scientist’s works disappeared and he himself may have been eliminated.
Military engineers discussed the professor’s petition for research funds with reference to foreign experience. Specialists compared Pilchikov’s achievements with the developments of foreign scientists experimenting with wireless telegraph, to whom the authorities did not refuse anything. For example, Preece was authorised for experiments by the postal department of England, Marconi obtained in 1897 large sums of money from the naval department of Italy, and the Berlin scientist Slaby received aeronautical parks, watercraft and troops of the Potsdam garrison from the Emperor of Germany. Pilchikov, on the other hand, had a much more extensive programme and was naturally expected to produce the most ambitious results.
On his return to Kharkov in 1902, the professor continued his research in the best-equipped physical laboratory of those times, the local University of Technology. He was also allocated a ship “Dnestr” and funds for marine experiments. On the ship in 1903 the scientist equipped a receiving radio station, and on the Chersonese lighthouse – transmitting.
Alas, neither the scheme of those protectors, nor the content of the experiments, nor their further fate are known today. In the archives we found only information about a letter of gratitude to Professor Pilchikov from the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. It was dated the beginning of September 1904. It is clear that in the midst of the war with Japan secret military developments could be of interest to both belligerents. Moreover, other external enemies were also interested in preventing Russia’s military advantage.
Professor Pilchikov’s research competed with American experiments in the Maritime Ministry under Tesla, who was also working on the task of wireless control of a minelayer from the shore. This is a case in science when “an idea is in the air” and the same discovery is independently made by scientists at different ends of the world.
It is believed that the first radio-controlled telemechanical system in the world was developed by Nikola Tesla – he patented and presented an unprecedented ship model in the summer of 1898, but came to the discovery the day before, in spring. And “Russian Tesla” Nikolai Pilchikov tested a similar invention in March of the same year, which was reported in a note in the “Odessa Review”, which for some reason remained unnoticed by the scientific community.
The “two Nicholas” had a lot in common, despite the fact that they lived and created on different continents. Scientists were almost the same age. Both had no family – neither wives nor close relatives. Both were undividedly attracted to physical science – the mysteries of radioactivity, X-rays and lightning. But to Pilchikov did not appear one day George Westinghouse with a million dollars for four dozen patents. And an understanding friend, as Tesla had in the person of Katharine Johnson, next to Nikolay Dmitrievich was not there either…
Being left without further state support, Pilchikov could not complete the work on his wireless protector. In 1905 he left to observe the solar eclipse in Algeria, from where he returned with failing health. Ill-health was aggravated by an acute feeling of loneliness.
1908 was a fateful year in the fate of the scientist. It was the best time of the year, the beginning of May, a time of intoxication with life and romantic dreams. But for Pilchikov, the “delight of nature” had no inspiring meaning: five days before his own birthday, he went to a psychoneurological clinic. And it happened under very mysterious circumstances.
According to police reports, the owner of a private hospital and a well-known doctor I. Y. Platonov received a call from an unknown man on 3 May with a request to hospitalise Nikolai Dmitrievich Pilchikov. It was asked to prepare a separate room where the patient would be alone.
When the professor appeared in the clinic, the doctors saw nothing critical in his condition. He was elegantly dressed, and in his hands held a suitcase with papers. Two days later, a shot rang out in the ward, and the papers were gone. Not a single piece of his war work was found among his household belongings. The blueprints of inventions of world importance, which the scientist had not even had time to patent, disappeared.
Wasn’t the murder then the final fat point in the planned operation? And didn’t the inventor-physicist take with him to the ward what the special services hunting for his military developments were tracking down?
Perhaps it was in the hospital that Nikolai Pilchikov, who had a premonition of trouble, tried to hide from his threatening pursuers? Or maybe they put him there so that it would be easier to realise what they had planned? And who were these mysterious killers?..
We will probably never get answers to these questions. But it is known how the brilliant ideas of the tragically departed scientist were put into practice.
In 1913, the first radio-controlled aeroplane took to the skies. Four years later, a German boat controlled from a plane blew up the quay in the English harbour of Newport. In the same year, 1917, a German ship was damaged by a British minelayer guided from a radio-controlled aeroplane. In 1925 the first mine without wires appeared. And in 1943 the Soviet troops destroyed the Nazi headquarters with General von Braun in Kharkov occupied by the enemy by controlled explosion from Voronezh.
Radio warfare has long been supplemented by radio defence, where the first role is played by devices like Pilchikov’s protectors. Thanks to radio defence, in 1944 the British were invulnerable to German fighters in the Libyan desert. Radio locks of increased complexity are used in satellite navigation and launching systems for space and military rockets. And all responsible radio electronic equipment is protected from interference by modern devices working on the principle of Professor Pilchikov’s protector – the “Russian Tesla”, who became a hindrance to someone himself…
Source: Vyacheslav Kapreljants

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2024.05.19 09:13 SnooDrawings8632 Understanding Roles and Responsibilities of each person in your case. How does the injured worker know where to get the correct information? What to do with contradictory information? What if the person you're supposed to talk to is unresponsive?

Besides the questions in the title I tired to elaborate a little and also each question(s) has two, a. and b. sections. Section a. is meant for sort of a broad understanding. Section b. is my personal, specific case example (active claim, CA ~10 months).
I'm sure who you'll see will depend on state law, your injury, among other things. Regardless of who you see, more importantly: How do we (the injured worker) know if who we've been assigned to is doing their job correctly or just having an off day, since we know it's not required to have good bedside manner, what are they required by definition AND law? That said:

1a. Despite case by case variations; who are personnel that everyone will see no matter what? What should you expect from them, and is there more they can do...but only if you know how to ask? I'm imagining a knowledgeable answer would be a long list of all the possible outcomes within the maximum allowed in WC, but probably more helpful is to address the most common. A small list may only include a companies HR, Claims adjustor, and an Occupational Health doctor for example. Then continuing the list after those essential people is there typically a usual process where if once your case goes for a certain amount of time or happens, you could expect to meet these job title? I'm hoping to help other people at least have an idea of what to expect out of said people.

1b. TLDR: Here's one of the biggest examples of not knowing who to talk to and whether that information is correct. I have not been given crucial test results from 3 months ago. Original test (Neuropathy) doc said to get my results from my doctor, who sends me to therapist, who sends me back to doctor, my adjustor says doctor, doctor sends me to "Specialist", turns out not specialist, who sends me back to my doctor...ummmm....WTF do I do at my next doctors visits in a few days??

1b (cont.) It has come to my attention that I'm completely unaware of exactly what a large majority of the people I've been assigned to see do. In fact, in what capacity do I "have to see them"? Can I request a swap, or how do I make a complaint? I have been MORE than patient, and I've given the benefit of the doubt for so long that I can no longer accept being passed along. I'm already back where I started, for the 3rd time. Uh...so, besides just wanting information for myself, I'd think the test results should help me heal. I've been denied more treatments (Appeal's denied too) where I'd think that those test results could play a crucial role. Where once I thought there has there been a miscommunication, now feels like I'm in an echo chamber, or worse. This is quite alarming as it also shines light into the fact that I am also unaware of how "my doctor" can best help me, if at all. "My doctor", the one I'm required to see at Occupational Health, (I'm told I not allowed to see my family doctor) doesn't seem to do anything other than fill out the "Return to work form". Is that correct? How would I know?? They seem to just write whatever I tell them. Similarly the same goes for what treatments I've gotten. Best I can tell, there is no indication they have reviewed any of the information from other doctors and therapists. It's now going on 3 months where I haven't been given test results.

Unfortunately it's not just my doctor who I'm not getting information from. "Generic Adjustor" Enters the chat. or maybe not, because to top off the confusion, I can't get ahold of my adjustor who so far been the one steering me into the .... direction. Unfortunately I believe I'm waking up too late. I've called multiple times a day for a week straight while leaving messages and follow up emails noting that I've called. They do respond to email, which usually consists of one line stating something like "call anytime, I'll be in the office all week".. Funny thing is I'm not sure what exactly they are even supposed to do or bare minimum required to do. Even when I get ahold of them, I'm questioning if I can even trust them. I'm not saying "it's conspiracy". However due to the most recent info I've gotten, I do think the run around could be very deliberate play. How do I know if they're simply bad at their job or leaving me in the dark. It sure feels like it's purposeful. This all came to a head when after reviewing our last few emails, I see a pattern where they only respond to some of the questions, and even have given verifiably incorrect, contradictory information. How do I check these facts? Should I talk to a supervisor? Is there a system to check and balance these things? Who do I talk to? It all came to a head when I opened mail to find: Request of QME with the reason being "Objection to Primary Treating Physician's determination regarding temporary disability, permanent disability, or the need for future medical care." Aggravating but I'm sure they followed the (rules I was unaware of) book. It's questions like this that have me really, really upset: What is even meant by "Objection to Primary Treating Physician's determination"? 1. Quick sidebar - is that decision made by the "my doctor" that I described earlier - or the "Provider"? > Meaning, those two terms have been used interchangeably, and I fear that, and why I used quotes for "my doctor" earlier, I'm wondering if this other name (who happens to be another doctor at the Occupational Health office) a person I have never met let alone seen is the one calling the shots. Either way I'm pretty worried. 2. Here is another example which shows only a part of the circle of "who do I talk to". Here is a quote from my adjustor 10 days after the letter had been officiated, but before I got it states "you have not seen a specialist, attended a QME, or have a clear treatment plan defined by your primary treating physician.". Am I wrong to have read that to believe I'd still be seeing a specialist? Doesn't it read that the information the specialist decides would be what determines the next step? Isn't it safe to say that by month 10 I'd have a treatment plan --of course unless your not privy to your own test results?
Ending note: There is so many more examples I could give which to me paint a picture of neglect. From what I can tell, I either already signed my rights away or it's just not worth the fight. I don't even want to fight, or believed there would be a reason for a disagreement due to my injury but since that bubble of disillusionment has popped, how can I reproach getting the best medical treatment. I was lead to believe that after seeing a specialist I would have the option to get a second opinion before the QME. I haven't even seen the first specialist (I was sent to an office with a specialist in it, but the person I saw was just a family practitioner).and since both my doctor and my adjutor are not helping ---Who the fuck do I talk to?

submitted by SnooDrawings8632 to WorkersComp [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 09:05 Alteredchaos 📢 Sunday News - with a focus on carers this week

Ministers apologise and return £7,000 in benefits to woman, 93, with dementia
Government ministers have formally apologised and repaid £7,000 to a 93-year-old woman whom they held responsible for running up benefits overpayment debts even though they were told she had dementia and was unable to manage her affairs.
The case, which the minister for disability, Mims Davies, admitted was “disturbing”, was brought to light by the Guardian as part of its investigation into carer's allowance overpayments.
The agreement to write off the debt of the 93-year-old, whom the Guardian has chosen not to name, comes as ministers have promised to try new ways of sharing information with carers to try to prevent them building up months and years of overpayments.
Read the full article on theguardian.com

DWP confirmed that it is developing an ‘enhanced notification strategy’ to alert carer’s allowance claimants to possible overpayments
Notifications designed to encourage claimants to report changes in income and so reduce the risk of being overpaid.
As part of its policy paper, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further, that was published earlier this week, the Department says (at paragraph 78) -

'In carer’s allowance we are progressing an enhanced notification strategy as part of our existing commitment to improve customer engagement, building on our existing communications with customers. As part of this notification strategy we are considering all forms of targeted contact to find the most effective and efficient solution, such as exploring the use of targeted text messages or emails to alert claimants and encourage them to contact the Department when the DWP is made aware of a potential overpayment.'

The Department added -

'The new strategy will help claimants understand when they may have received an earnings-related overpayment or are at risk of doing so, and will encourage claimants to contact the DWP to meet their obligation to inform the Department of changes in their income and other relevant circumstances. This will reduce the risk of those customers being overpaid.'

Note: having expressed concern that the DWP had 'done nothing' to stop carers building up huge overpayments of benefit despite knowing what people are earning, Work and Pensions Committee Chair Stephen Timms called on the National Audit Office to investigate problems with the carer's allowance system and, in particular, its failure to prevent or rectify overpayments.
Stephen Timms has also written to Secretary for State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride highlighting concerns about the DWP's lack of progress with overpayments since the previous committee's report in 2019. Mr Timms' letter repeats the committee's recommendation that the DWP increase the rate of carer's allowance and goes on to call for the DWP to review both the amount and the cliff-edge nature of the earnings limit and for the removal of the 21-hour study rule.
For more information, see Policy paper: Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further from gov.uk

Carers UK has welcomed the DWP's plans, noting this is the 'minimum' they've been calling for to tackle carers' overpayments. However, Director of Policy and Public Affairs Emily Holzhausen also highlights that implementing the strategy is 'urgent', asks that the whole issue be moved out of being branded benefits fraud, and that carer's allowance be reviewed as it should be 'modernised to reflect the realities of caring'.

DWP-commissioned research highlights how the carer’s allowance earnings threshold influences decisions about how many hours carers work
Report also makes clear that the Department was made aware three years ago that there was room to improve claimant understanding and possibly reduce mistakes leading to overpayments by improving its communications.
The research, Experiences of claiming and receiving carer’s allowance, explores how and why people claim carer's allowance; their caring roles; experiences of combining paid work and care; and how well claimants understand the rules associated with the benefit. While carried out in 2020/2021, the research has been published today against a backdrop of calls for the wholescale reform of carer's allowance as a result of evidence that claimants who have earned above the carer's allowance earnings limit have been left with large overpayments and, in some cases, prosecuted for fraud.
While the research found that many claimants in employment felt there was a practical limit to the hours they could work, with many saying it was only feasible to be working part-time due to their caring responsibilities, it also found that -

the earnings threshold appeared to influence decisions about how many hours some people worked. Even though claimants often denied that the threshold influenced their choices, they acknowledged being mindful to stay below the threshold. One claimant felt he had to refuse shifts at work that would take him over the threshold;
in another example, the earnings limit led a claimant to reduce her hours as her wages increased, and eventually she was working so few hours that her employer felt it was not worth employing her due to her limited availability; and
some claimants in paid work felt they might work more hours if not for the earnings threshold, and even suggested tapering the carer’s allowance earnings rule to encourage claimants to work more.

Published on the same day that the Work and Pensions Select Committee said that there has been insufficient progress in addressing the problems with carer's allowance that it highlighted five years ago, the research makes clear that the Department has been aware of the issues for some time. For example, it highlights confusion relating to the complexity of the earnings calculation, including how deductions such as childcare expenses and pension contributions are taken account of, and whether wages can be averaged if you earn more in a particular week.
In addition, with the Chair of the Select Committee Stephen Timms having said recently that the DWP has done nothing to stop carers building up huge overpayments despite knowing what people are earning, and the Committee having called on the National Audit Office to investigate the problems with the system, the research found that -

poor communication on the part of the DWP meant that not all of those that had been overpaid benefit were clear on the reason for the overpayment;
some said that while they were initially notified or questioned about an overpayment there was then no follow-up from the Department; and
when the overpayment was initially raised, several claimants felt that they were spoken to or treated by DWP as though they had intentionally committed fraud when the overpayment had been a misunderstanding.

As a result, the research says -

'... there is room to improve claimant understanding and possibly reduce mistakes leading to overpayments by improving communications around eligibility criteria. Since claimants did not engage with the detail of their benefit regularly, possibly only considering it once a year when they received their annual letter, more frequent communications may improve clarity of knowledge around carer’s allowance.'

Other key findings include that -

most claimants cared for close relatives, with two in five caring for a child (39 per cent), a quarter caring for a spouse or partner (25 per cent), and one in five (22 per cent) caring for a parent;
caring was a long-term and high-intensity commitment, with half of claimants (52 per cent) spending 65 or more hours caring per week and more than half (54 per cent) caring for between 5 and 20 years;
only 16 per cent of carer's allowance claimants were currently in paid work, tending to work part- time in lower paid jobs that they were able to fit around their caring responsibilities, with most (81 per cent) working 20 hours or less a week;
of those not currently in paid work, seven in ten (69 per cent) said this was due to their responsibilities as a carer, with other barriers including a lack of flexible working options, claimants’ own health and confidence issues; and
there was a lag between starting caring and claiming carer's allowance, with seven in ten claimants (70 per cent) caring for 5+ years, but only 3 in 10 (34 per cent) having claimed carer's allowance for that length of time.

For more information, see Experiences of claiming and receiving carer’s allowance from gov.uk

Almost 135,000 people currently have an outstanding carer's allowance debt, with more than £250 million owed in total, according to figures supplied by DWP Minister Paul Maynard
DWP Minister also confirms that women represent 68 per cent of those with an outstanding debt.
Responding to a written question in Parliament from Work and Pensions Committee Chair Stephen Timms, Mr Maynard said -

'As of 14 May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding carers allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251 million. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those who have an outstanding carers allowance debt may no longer be in receipt of the benefit.'

Mr Maynard added that -

'Women make up the majority of carer’s allowance claims, and this is reflected in the proportion of those with an outstanding carer’s allowance debt. As of 14 May 2024, there were 42,800 (32 per cent) males, 91,900 (68 per cent) females and 100 (less than 1 per cent) not identified, with an outstanding carer's allowance debt.'

The Minister also confirmed that, as of November 2023, there were more than 991,000 people in receipt of carer's allowance, consisting of around 271,000 (27 per cent) males and 720,000 (73 per cent) females.
Mr Maynard's written answer is available from parliament.uk

Total value of benefit overpayments in 2023/2024 increased to almost £10 billion, representing 3.7 per cent of benefit expenditure for the year
New DWP figures also show that official error underpayments remained at around £1 billion, and that people could have claimed more than £3 billion more 'if they had provided accurate information about their circumstances'.
In Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2023 to 2024 estimates, the DWP calculates how much money it overpaid or underpaid as a percentage of total benefit expenditure for the year (£266.2bn) - for benefits including universal credit, housing benefit, personal independence payment, employment and support allowance and pension credit - and how many claims were paid an incorrect amount.
Note: the statistics no longer include estimates of claimant error underpayments as these are now published separately, as confirmed in recent DWP guidance.
In relation to incorrect payment rates across all benefits for the financial year ending (FYE) 2024, the figures show that the total rate of benefit expenditure overpaid was 3.7 per cent (£9.7bn), compared with 3.6 per cent (£8.3bn) in 2022/2023. In addition, the total rate of benefit expenditure underpaid was 0.4 per cent (£1.1bn), compared with 0.5 per cent (£1.2bn) in FYE 2023.
Looking in more detail at the figures for individual benefits, the statistics include data showing that -

for universal credit, expenditure increased to £51.9bn in 2024 with an overpayment rate of 12.4 per cent (£6.5bn) and underpayment rate of 0.3 per cent (£180m), compared to expenditure of £43.4 bn, overpayments at 12.7 per cent (£5.5bn) and underpayments at 0.6 per cent (£240m) in FYE 2023;
for personal independence payment (PIP), the overpayment rate was at the lowest recorded level of 0.4 per cent (£90m), compared with 1.1 per cent (£200m) in FYE 2023. However, the underpayment rate went up to 0.4 per cent (£80m), from 0.3 per cent (£60m) the previous year;
for pension credit, the overpayment rate was 9.7 per cent (£520m) in FYE 2024, compared with 6.8 per cent (£330m) in the previous year, with underpayments remaining unchanged at 0.3 per cent (£50m) for both years; and
for housing benefit, almost £1bn (£980m) was overpaid in FYE 2024 (6.3 per cent of expenditure), compared with £860m (5.7 per cent) in 2023. Underpayments remained stable at 0.4 per cent of spending (£50m in FYE 2024 and £60m in FYE 2023).

In addition to the fraud and error statistics, the DWP has also issued Unfulfilled eligibility in the benefit system: Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024, in line with its decision to remove claimant underpayments from its main fraud and error estimates. The new statistics set out the percentage of benefit expenditure that could have been paid to people with unfulfilled eligibility 'if they had provided the correct information', and show key findings that include -

the unfulfilled eligibility rate for 2024 is 1.2 per cent of expenditure (£3.1bn), compared with 1.0 per cent (£2.3bn) in the previous year; and
universal credit, PIP and disability living allowance (DLA) account for around three-quarters of the total value of unfulfilled eligibility (at £730m, £870m and £750m respectively in FYE 2024).

The DWP highlighted that -

'PIP has the second highest unfulfilled eligibility rate [4 per cent] of all benefits and fairly high expenditure [£21.6bn], so due to this combination, PIP accounts for around one-quarter of total unfulfilled eligibility in FYE 2024. DLA has the highest unfulfilled eligibility rate [11.1 per cent] but relatively low expenditure [£6.8m], so even though its rate is higher than PIP, it accounts for a similar amount of total unfulfilled eligibility in FYE 2024. Universal credit has a lower unfulfilled eligibility rate than DLA and PIP [1.4 per cent] but its high expenditure means that it also accounts for a similar amount of total unfulfilled eligibility in FYE 2024.'

For more information, see Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2023 to 2024 estimates and Unfulfilled eligibility in the benefit system: financial year 2023 to 2024 estimates from gov.uk

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has set out the DWP's plans to scale up its 'fight against fraudsters'
New measures include using machine learning to detect and prevent fraudulent claims, as well as introducing a new Bill to enable benefit fraud to be treated like tax fraud.
Issuing a written statement in the House of Commons on 13th May, Mr Stride said -

'In the continued fight against fraud, today the Government will publish a new paper setting out the progress we have made in tackling fraud and error in the welfare system - Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further. The paper sets out the progress we have made in delivering the commitments in the Government's 2022 command paper Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System and it demonstrates where we are going further to protect taxpayers’ money from fraudsters.'

Highlighting that the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, currently before Parliament, will enable the Department to work with third parties such as banks to identify claims that signal potential fraud and error, Mr Stride says that the new measures being introduced include -

bringing forward a new Fraud Bill in the next parliament to treat benefit fraud like tax fraud, by providing for the ability to make arrests and conduct searches and seizures by warrant;
exploring a new civil penalty to punish fraudsters, potentially broadening the scope of cases that can receive a penalty when the courts are not prosecuting, and increasing the value of the civil penalty;
tripling the size of the Targeted Case Review programme to reach almost 6,000 staff with the aim of saving £6.6 billion by 2027/2028; and
making changes to universal credit including new partly automated checks on self-employed income, new online prompts for claimants to re-declare their circumstances (such as if they have moved in with a partner), and increasing checks on capital when people claim the benefit to ensure they are eligible.

Note: the Department confirms that final decisions on accepting or stopping a claim will, however, continue to be made by a member of DWP staff.
For more information, see DWP updates Fraud Plan from gov.uk
In response to the above article the Disability News Service reported that the government's fraud policy paper ignores coroner’s concerns over review of disabled woman’s universal credit claim. Read the DNS article on disabilitynewsservice.com

Less than half of legacy benefit claimants who were sent a migration notice between July 2022 and March 2024 have made a claim for universal credit, according to new figures from the DWP
However, new DWP statistics also show that 60 per cent of households that claimed universal credit have been awarded transitional protection.
In Completing the move to Universal Credit: statistics related to the move of households claiming Tax Credits and DWP benefits to Universal Credit: data to end of March 2024, the DWP sets out figures for the period since July 2022, noting that -

'In the period covered by this bulletin, the vast majority of migration notices have been sent to tax credit households whose likelihood of claiming universal credit and receiving transitional protection may be different from DWP legacy benefit claimants, the majority of whom had not yet been sent a migration notice in the period covered in this bulletin.'

The statistics include that -

a total of 824,050 individuals (in 540,070 households) were sent migration notices up to March 2024 - up by around 300,000 and 200,000 respectively compared to the totals for December 2023;
a total of 400,940 individuals (49 per cent of those sent migration notices), living in 275,980 households, have made a claim for universal credit;
of households that have claimed universal credit, 166,860 (60 per cent) have been awarded transitional protection;
a total of 238,990 individuals who were sent migration notices are still going through the managed migration process; and
a total of 184,120 individuals who were sent migration notices have had their legacy benefit claims closed.

Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024 is available from gov.uk
Note: the DWP has also published Universal Credit statistics, 29 April 2013 to 11 April 2024 which show that there were 6.7 million people on universal credit in April 2024 (300,000 more than the 6.4 million in January 2024) and that half of households on universal credit that received a payment in February 2024 included children.

Department for Communities also confirms that claimants in receipt of other legacy benefits will be issued with migration notices 'in the coming months'
The Department for Communities (DfC) has confirmed that the 'Move to UC' rollout in Northern Ireland has expanded this week to include people receiving tax credits along with housing benefit.
Announcing the expansion of the process, Deputy Secretary of Work and Health at the DfC Paddy Rooney said -

'We continue to take a measured and carefully managed approach to migrating legacy benefit recipients to universal credit. We have already successfully completed issuing migration notices to tax credit only recipients and we will continue to take every step possible to ensure that everyone receives the help and support they need during this next phase of Move to UC.'

The Department also confirmed that once it has issued migration notices to all those receiving tax credits with housing benefit, the following groups will be contacted in this order -

people claiming income support;
people claiming housing benefit only, and those claiming child tax credit with income-related employment and support allowance (ESA); and
people claiming income-based jobseeker's allowance.

In relation to the bringing forward of managed migration for ESA and ESA/housing benefit claimants in Great Britain, announced by the Prime Minister on 19 April 2024, the DfC says that it is working to assess the impact of this on the region. It also confirms that it will align with the DWP's aim to complete the migration of legacy benefit claimants to universal credit by March 2025.
For more information, see Tax credit with housing benefit recipients next to 'Move to UC' and Rollout of Universal Credit for Tax Credit and Legacy Benefit customers - screening from ni.gov.uk

57,000 adverse universal credit sanction decisions were made in January 2024, according to new DWP statistics
DWP statistics also highlight that around 95 per cent of decisions are as a result of failure to attend or participate in a mandatory interview.
In Benefit sanctions statistics to February 2024, the DWP reports on both the rate and duration of sanctions for universal credit claimants who are in conditionality regimes where they be applied.
Key findings include that -

in February 2024, 30.1 per cent of claimants were in conditionality regimes that were subject to sanctions and, of these, 6.52 per cent were sanctioned - down 0.64 percentage points from the previous quarter;
over the last year, 94.9 per cent of adverse sanction decisions were for failure to attend or participate in a mandatory interview; and
in February 2024, there were 20,000 completed sanctions in the 4 weeks to 13 weeks sanction duration band, 4,800 in the over 13 weeks to 26 weeks duration band, and 4,000 of over 26 weeks duration.

In addition, while the total number of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied has remained largely stable since May 2022 (currently at 1.95 million), the total number of adverse sanction decisions stood at 57,000 in January 2024, the highest since March 2022.
The DWP notes that -

'Comparisons with universal credit prior to February 2024 ... should not be made. This is because the data sources, methodology and rules of the benefits differ from those used for universal credit currently.'

However, it adds that, following the reinstated duration measures and rate methodology improvements, the data is now determined stable and fit for purpose and, as of May 2024, it is published under the 'Official Statistics' label as opposed to 'in development'.
For more information, see Benefit sanctions statistics to February 2024 from gov.uk

DWP has admitted missing multiple opportunities to record the 'vulnerability' of a disabled woman whose death was later linked by a coroner to failings at the heart of its UC system
The Disability News Service reported on the case of Nazerine (known as Naz) Anderson, from Melton Mowbray, who died of an overdose in June last year, after receiving a UC review notice.
According to a prevention of future deaths (PFD) report sent to the department by coroner Fiona Butler, the DWP missed six opportunities to record Anderson’s “vulnerability” on its IT system while it was reviewing her universal credit claim, and had failed to act on the mental distress she showed in phone calls about her claim. It also repeatedly failed to act on requests to direct its telephone calls and letters to her daughter.
The DWP admits multiple universal credit failures before disabled woman’s death article is available on disabilitynewsservice.com

Number of emergency food parcels distributed across the UK by the Trussell Trust has increased by 90 per cent over the past five years
Food charity reports that it distributed more than three million parcels last year, with more than a million of them going to children.
In Emergency food parcel distribution in the UK: April 2023 - March 2024, the Trust says that it distributed 3,121,404 food parcels, the most parcels that it has ever distributed in a financial year, representing a four per cent increase on last year's record-breaking numbers for 2022/2023 and a 94 per cent increase since 2018/2019.
The charity also highlights that the number of parcels provided to children has continued to rise, exceeding 1.1 million in 2023/2024, and that food bank support is provided disproportionately to children, compared to the proportion of children in the UK population. In addition, it notes that pension age households are increasingly likely to need to use a food bank, with food bank support for these households having more than quadrupled between 2018/2019 and 2023/2024 (an increase of 345 per cent), compared to an 81 per cent rise amongst households without someone of pension age.
Also sharing statistics on the reason for referral for an emergency food parcel - which include health, benefit issues, work hour changes, insecure housing, changes in personal circumstances, immigration status and domestic abuse, as well as income and debt levels - the Trussell Trust says -

'Across all households the most common reason for referral was due to issues with income and debt levels. The vital role of the social security system in driving these trends is clear from the fact that the majority (78 per cent) of people referred to food banks were reported to solely have income from the social security system, with a further 8 per cent having earned income as well as income from social security.'

Trussell Trust Chief Executive Emma Revie said -

'It’s 2024 and we’re facing historically high levels of food bank need. As a society, we cannot allow this to continue. We must not let food banks become the new norm ... A supportive social security system is the bedrock on which we end hunger for good. Building on this, we need much more effective employment and financial support for parents, carers and disabled people, and action to ensure everyone can have the security we all need to access opportunities and have hope for the future, through more secure and flexible jobs and investment in social housing. Food banks are not the answer. They will be there to support people as long as they are needed, but our political leaders must take bold action to build a future where everyone has enough money to afford the life’s essentials. The time to act is now.'

For more information, see End of Year Stats from trusselltrust.org

Employment Minister Jo Churchill has provided a House of Lords Select Committee with an undertaking that the administrative earnings threshold (AET) in universal credit will not be increased again without a 'sound evidence base'
However, Minister's evidence to Lords Committee fails to address its dissatisfaction with DWP's explanation for not publishing robust evidence to support previous increases in the threshold.
Further to the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee's report on new regulations that implemented a further increase in the AET from 13 May 2024 - that criticised the ‘inexplicable’ lack of data evaluating previous increases in the threshold in September 2022 and January 2023 - the Committee held a one-off evidence session yesterday to question the Minister and DWP officials.
Introducing the session, Committee Chair Lord Hunt acknowledged that the DWP had agreed to share its informal findings supporting its AET policy. However Lord Hunt added that -

'... similar, no doubt to the material that the Social Security Advisory Committee saw but correctly declined, if information is not available to the House and the public, then we feel unable to consider it either.'

The Committee then questioned the Minister about the Department's failure to publish evidence providing an assessment of the impact of increasing the AET either before or after implementing the change.
In response, Ms Churchill highlighted that the Department did publish a randomised controlled trial evaluation in 2018 providing the highest level of evidence on the impacts of increased in-work conditionality that Ministers have had sight of. When challenged that this evidence is somewhat outdated and 'a bit threadbare' - as it has been relied on for three increases in the AET - Ms Churchill indicated that Ministers also had early sight of unpublished research (a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) study) that compares the experiences of claimants who are just below and just above the AET.
When pressed on the expected publication dates for this and further evidence, Mr Churchill said -

'I have asked for [the RDD study] to be available as soon as it can be, and the date I was given was spring 2024 ... I would like it out the door as soon as possible, so you have more data ... RDD is the next piece, the next building block and then, the longitudinal study will come through in 2025.'

Concluding the session with a final question, Lord Hunt, speaking on behalf of the whole Committee, said -

'... we're looking for an undertaking from you, not to further expand the cohort until the Department can publish robust evidence of its effects. Are you able to give us that undertaking?

Ms Churchill responded -

'So are you alluding to us holding 15 hours or with this latest laying at 18? Because I could certainly say to you, I think with all confidence that at 18, we want to understand the iterations and make sure that we've got a sound evidence base from there.'

NB - the increase in the AET in January 2023 was based, for individuals, on the equivalent of them working 15 hours per week at the National Living Wage, and this week's increase to the equivalent of them working 18 hours per week.
Despite welcoming the Minister's reply, Lord Hunt went on to say -

'... we accept your undertaking, except we are still as dissatisfied as we were because you haven't provided, in the view of the Committee, sufficient explanation yet. We are awaiting this robust evidence, which I think that we now expect in June 2024.'

The evidence session Regulations to increase the Administrative Earnings Threshold (Legislative scrutiny) is available from parliament.tv

Work and Pensions Select Committee has called on the government to bring forward proposals to compensate women born in the 1950s who suffered as a result of the DWP's communication failures when their pension age was increased, and asks that it does so in the current parliamentary session
Committee chair highlights lengthy delay and urgency for affected women and calls on government to act on Parliamentary Ombudsman recommendations before summer recess.
Writing to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride, Committee Chair Stephen Timms requests government support for 'urgent action' following the Parliamentary Ombudsman's final report in March 2024 which recommended a remedy based on level 4 of its severity of injustice scale, putting awards at between £1,000 and £2,950.
Mr Timms says that the Committee does not seek to question the Ombudsman's proposal for compensation at level 4, but instead has focused on what a remedy may look like -

'The evidence we received indicated support for a rules-based system. This would be a system where payments would be adjusted within a range (based on the PHSO’s severity of injustice scale) to reflect the extent of change in the individual’s State Pension age and the notice of the change which the individual received. This would mean that the less notice you had of the change and the bigger the change in your SPA, the higher the payment you would receive. While not perfect, the advantages of such a system are that it would be: quick to administer; applying known data to a formula to determine the amount due; and relatively inexpensive (compared to a more bespoke system).'

The Committee's recommendation also includes some flexibility for individuals to make the case for further compensation in the event that they have experienced direct financial loss, for example where a woman whose divorce settlement was less than it would have been because it was based on the expectation that she would receive her state pension at 60.
Mr Timms also asks the government to consider -

'... the need for urgent action, given that the Ombudsman started to look at this issue in 2018 and that every 13 minutes a woman born in the 1950s dies ... Implementing a remedy will need parliamentary time, financial resources, and the data and technical systems only available to your department. It cannot happen without government support. We would ask you to bring forward proposals for a remedy by the summer recess.'

Mr Timms' letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is available from parliament.uk

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2024.05.19 08:58 SignificanceWild8259 T-20 b-schools of the country

Rating criterias are placements, faculty, industry reputation, brand perception, selection criteria ,fees and future potential. B-school rankings can differ from person to person. I would like to hear your points also. Come up with arguments why some particular b-school should be ranked higher. I would like to hear your views and would make the changes accordingly. I know people are frustrated by ratings but we have to hear views of different people to make an informed decision.

IIM Ahmedabad- Best b-school in India. Epitome of Indian academic excellency. It thrives in all the domains whether its marketing, consulting , finance and genman.
IIM Bengaluru - On par with IIM Ahmedabad. But skewed placements towards consulting.
IIM Calcutta- On par with IIM A and B. But skewed towards finance. No one will be able to shake the brand image of ABC, no matter how hard they work. Their position is cemented for next 25 years.
ISB hyderabad- It is also on par with IIM ABC, in some criterias it is even better than ABC. But I downrated it because of fees. It only selects students with 2 years of workex who are already successful. Bad at creating new successful students, that's why I deducted the marks. Fees is on upper side, higher fees delays many plans whether it is having kids, settling abroad and starting some new venture.
IIM Lucknow- Placements are great. The school rules the ganges plains. It has a huge upward potential because UP is growing at a unprecedented rate. If UP achieves the target of 1 tn dollar gdp in next 10 years, IIM Lucknow will provide the talent to fuel the growth further.
FMS Delhi- Right now, it is better than IIM lucknow. But I have few reservations towards it because of bad infrastructure and low funding from University of Delhi. Years of disinvestment have taken a toll on it. People are willing to pay 25 lakhs for IIM Lucknow rather than living in a bad campus. It got more marks due to best ROI. You can easily start a new venture after passing out as you don't have to pay the emi's.
XLRI Jamshedpur - Best school for HRM. All big brands are visiting the campus. Fees is on higher side and location disadvantage is there. It will lose few more spots in 10-15 years down the line, as new colleges will emerge in metro locations.
SP Jain, Mumbai- It is a great school at the center of financial capital of India. Great location , great leadership and one of the smartest cohort because of great shortlisting process. They know what kind of students will thrive in their environment.
JBIMS, Mumbai- Ceo factory of India. All big brands are visiting the campus. Fees is dope, you don't have to worry about loan. Only concern is poor infrastructure and low investment. They can't get a new campus as it is under University of Mumbai. It is plagued by same concers as FMS.
SJMSOM IIT Bombay - They are doing everything right a B-School can do. Strong placements, strong brand value and IIT backing will give it a huge push in future. They are expanding the batch strength every year and giving tough fight to each B-School of country. Only downside is its incompetency in consulting and finance domain.

11, 12. IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore(you can interchange the ranks)- They have slipped from the ranking in a course of 10 years. I can say they have huge downrisks due to high admit of lower percentile students. I don't know why they are compromising quality for the quality of the batch.

IIM Mumbai- People kept on asking that when would delhi, mumbai get its own IIM. Now, Mumbai has got one. It will keep attracting on best of best students because IIM tag coupled with Mumbai suffix is giving it a huge potential. In operations, it is already among best B-schools( Some people say it is best right after Sjmsom, some are saying that it is better than Sjmsom. But i am giving sjmsom an edge due to lower fees).
IIM Shillong- They have done a great deal in the last few years. People have even started to drop I in favour of S. Blacks is better than Blacki😁

15, 16. Mdi gurgaon, IIFT Delhi(You can interchange the ranks)- They used to be among top 10. Years of mismanagement have taken a toll on their ranking. Who is going to trust a management school whose own management is compromised.

Dms, Iit D- I will not be amazed if they jump 7-10 rankings in the coming years. They got the strongest backing in the country ie. Government of india and IIT delhi(check their annual reports and budget allocation). Heavy focus on technology and AI. Only downside is non-technical people are hesitant to join the school because they think that they will not be able to thrive in the techno-managerial roles( a very wrong prejudice).
TISS mumbai- Highly specialised. It is a strength and also a weakness. They should diversify to stay in the rankings. I am highly skeptical for their infrastructure and spending. Fees is a plus point here.

19,20. NMIMS, SIBM(you can interchange the rankings)- They are great bschools. But their image is compromised due to negative marketing of coaching institutes, inflated reports, higher batch size and higher fees. If you don't have better calls, go for them. They are surely worth it.
Note- I haven't included the sister campus like XLRI D and IIFT K. People would argue that they have coupled placements with the main campus. But i am not buying the argument, companies have biased towards sister campus even at the time of placements as well as post mba. Corporate HRs will keep on giving a inferior rating to the sister campuses.

submitted by SignificanceWild8259 to CATpreparation [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:57 MistaGalaxy I'm sorry but I just had to defend Kaizen the ML from (How to hide emperor's child)

DISCLAIMER : LONG RAMBLING (ngl, very tempted on that non judgement flair, im a coward)
I gonna said it guys, Kaizen is way too overhated a~~nd the hate towards him is unwarranted~~
also, this is strictly novel only, because tbh I don't like how the manhwa portrays Kaizen. and spoilers.
now truthfully does Astelle (FML) deserve a better ML (not Seibel, just a random village guy) or just stay single? yes lol
I come to this conclusion not because of Kaizen but rather I felt that Astelle would prefers the countryside life more than being an empress.
And now onto Kaizen. From the hate comments i had seen towards him, I conclude that people are just traumatized from Sovieshu's shenanigans and how the this story and the Remaried Empress have similar premise which I can see why people would lumped them all together.
And this story opening up with Kaizen divorcing Astelle after literally the day their wedding night \ahaha* do not help at all.
Ya okay, this part on why the fuck Kaizen choose the worst time to divorce Astelle is really something that I can't defend (the author prob just use it to ramp up the drama i guess lol)
But, i do can defend on why the divorce had to happened. For those uninformed, its a plot device that it is an obligation emperor and empress must consummate their marriage even though the couple can choose to use protection (??) and the plot twist comes in that dundundun Kaizen's dad is dead literally the next day thus Kaizen's emperor reigns began.
From the flashbacks, we can see that Kaizen from the young age have always being wary of any potential threats to the throne and ironically the girl (Astelle) he was betrothed to was the daughter of said threat. So the boi had been planning to get rid those threats once he got that emperor power which also includes Astelle unfortunately.
Now, that does means Kaizen despises Astelle? No. At worst, he just wary of her knowing full well she is just a puppet to her father. If he does despise her, he could just kill her on the spot the moment he becomes the emperor.
Kaizen in a way does see Astelle as someone who is in the same predicament and Astelle who never confessed her feelings make him assumed that her feelings toward him is the same as him.
Which lead to him doing to what I can say to worse thing he done to Astelle. A very angsty teenage boi ignoring and avoiding his fiancee for their entire childhood. So surprise 2X, he doesn't know much about Astelle despite basically growing up together. And of course, he gonna assume that Astelle like stereo typically any upper class lady stuff.
Now onward to post-divorce. He did tried to give compensation to Astelle after learning that she had been kick out by her OG family and of course Astelle heartbroken, understandably rejected it which make him assume that Astelle found a decent life elsewhere.
ok now i gonna list down things i appreciated about Kaizen after did i mentioned that i binged read this novel 3 times?

Bro is completely and painfully aware that Astelle do not like him. So yes, he's aware that divorcing literally after the wedding night is a total dick move. So he never does force or blackmail Astelle (the divorce was mutually agreed) but just took every chance to dragged out the trip so he can hopefully convinced Astelle to stay.

Heck, he even tried to give Astelle and her new family free mansion in the capital because he's aware that Astelle is near to zero chance would want to be an empress so at least he could watch over her. (so close, so far FR lol)

He's very straightforward. He would always confessed that he does feel jealousy when Astelle is having good time with any other man. And expressed disappointment when Astelle wouldn't understandably trust him.
He's not completely down bad for Astelle. While most of the story Kaizen would say yes to Astelle including when Astelle is planning to work together with her father aka the worst threat to Kaizen. Kaizen doesn't let Astelle completely clouded his judgment when she request her very sick maternal grandpa and her young nephew back to the poor countryside which yah doesn't really made sense in Kaizen's POV. And he did hilariously a petty revenge on Astelle by stealing away Theo (post-reveal) by convinced Theo to sleep at the Emperor's Palace instead for a night.

Also, I'm not joking 99% of Astelle and Kaizen's interactions ended up Astelle hilariously rejects any Kaizen's advances. (MLs despair and desperation after got rejected by FMLs just tickled me pink for some reason. Literally why i fuckin love these type of tropes lol) And much to our beloved FML dismay, just like her stubbornness. Kaizen stubbornly would not back down.
Now this arc got me emotional the most so i gonna ramble about it.
Onward to the post-"Theo is revealed to br Kaizen's son" arc, Astelle agreed to be the empress again due to some politics stuff that I didn't remember on the condition that Kaizen must agreed to divorce her after 3-5 years later with no strings attached. (like she's had enough lmao) then the maternal grandpa accidentally reveal Astelle's former crush to Kaizen that just give even more emotional dmg to Kaizen which just lead to him to say fuck this and allowed Astelle to leave anytime she wants (and gift her a castle and even the entire East region) with the promised that he would not remarried and Theo will succeed him as the emperor. then he got poisoned. DUNDUNDUN
Now, Astelle could have just took this fine opportunity to leave but of course she didn't and Kaizen while in and out of consciousness, said "i gonna die, huh? welp rn i wanna write my last will to give all of my authority to Astelle". Bro already accepted his fate ヽ(*。>Д<)o゜. and when Astelle said to please recover quickly for Theo and for her, Kaizen literally said, "Wait, you actually want to save me?" gahhhhhhhhh angsttt gyahhhhhhh
OK FINE, i be honest, i'm just here to let out my fangirl moments (no friends moment frfr) I do not expect this incoherent ramblings of a mess would change anyone's mind lol.
on my first read of the novel (back to the ex is my guilty troupe kek) , I literally do not care about Kaizen, thinking he just a whatever ML but after looking at the comments that just 90% shitting on him even multiple times comparing to the likes of GRADE A-HOLE, Sovieshu made me thinking, he's not that bad tho, convinced to re-read again the novel and again for good measure hehe. And the guy (as evidence from the mess of an essay) warmed up to me.
As you can see, i really do like this novel. (just shows what my standards are ehe)

top tier FML (I don't really care for children so sorry Theo)
small cast of characters and small world building, at least make me remember all of them upon my binge read.
Politics is understandable and doesn't felt it doesn't dragged out that much.
I don't why ppl kept thinking Seibel is the 2nd ML when bro is introduced much later part of the novel. so thankfully no fuckin love triangle.
Don't really care much about Astelle mom's past B-plot tho

8/10

submitted by MistaGalaxy to OtomeIsekai [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:53 Lordslug78 My elderly mother is affected with 2nd cancer within a year, needs help!

We live in the state of Kerala, India.
My mother aged 66, was diagnosed with oral cancer (SCC) in her tongue (she doesn't use tobacco) and it was surgically removed in September last year. We had to spend INR 200000 (2400 USD). We have been visiting the doctor every month since then for regular checkups.
In March this year, the PET scans revealed two suspicious lumps in her breast which was confirmed to be breast cancer following mammograms and Biopsy in April.
The surgery to fully remove her right breast is scheduled on 28th of this month. The cost of surgery would be INR 116000 (1400 USD). This is beyond my means as I'm the only earning member of my family, I make about INR 40k (USD 480) per month but I've still not recovered financially after the last surgery. The scans and Biopsy itself has cost me INR 50k (USD 600) so far. Since she's above 65 and already has a history of cancer diagnosis, I'm not able to get her enrolled into any insurance plans which I regret not taking earlier.
I have created a fund raiser on Ketto which is an online platform in India which helps in raising funds for medical purposes. They have verified the case and have approved the fund raiser for donations. I'm providing the link below which also has the necessary documents regarding the diagnosis uploaded so that you can verify the authenticity of my request.
https://www.ketto.org/fundraisemy-mother-is-fighting-for-her-life-and-we-need-your-support-to-save-her-914849
Since we're from India, gofundme doesn't support crowdfunding in India yet.
P.S - Ketto is a trustworthy platform. They have already verified my identity using the social security card in our country. They have also verified the medical documents by contacting the hospital before giving clearance to the campaign.
Please do visit the page and donate whatever you can. Please also share this with people you know.

submitted by Lordslug78 to gofundme [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:50 Ok_Jelly_3340 Knoxville Needs Change: Higher Wages and Affordable Housing Now

Facts:

30 states have a higher minimum wage than Tennessee's $7.25.
Tennessee last raised its minimum wage in 2009.
Since then, inflation has risen by about 36.6%.
A decent living wage for a single adult in Tennessee is about $13.25 per hour.

Rising Rents in Knoxville

Rapid Rent Increases: In 2022, rent growth in Knoxville was 9.6%, significantly higher than the national average of 2.3%. This trend has continued, with apartment rents increasing by around 6.06% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Forecasted Increases: The trend of rising rents is expected to continue, with forecasts indicating an additional 5% increase over the next year.
High Occupancy Rates: Despite these rent increases, Knoxville's rental market remains highly competitive with occupancy rates around 96.3%, which is higher than the national average of 94.7%.

Recent Home Price Increases in Knoxville

Median Home Price: The median home sales price in Knoxville rose to $350,000 in July 2023, representing an increase of around 7.9% compared to the previous year.
Affordability: As of November 2023, the median home sales price was $346,000, up by about 10.8% from the previous year.
Income Requirements: The income required to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home has risen dramatically, from around $59,000 at the start of 2022 to over $110,000 by August 2023.
Housing Inventory: Despite the rising prices, the total number of homes available in Knoxville is still around half of pre-pandemic levels, contributing to the increased competition and higher prices.

This information highlights the growing affordability issues in Knoxville, with home prices rising faster than incomes, making it challenging for many residents to purchase homes.

Steps to Raise the Minimum Wage

Step 1: Organize a Petition Drive

Form a Nonpartisan Group: Create or join a group focused solely on raising the minimum wage, without political affiliations. Use platforms like Zoom for virtual meetings, schedule regular meetings, and use social media and local forums to recruit members.
Research Requirements: For statewide initiatives, the number of signatures required is typically a percentage of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. Confirm the exact number with the Tennessee Secretary of State's office. For local initiatives in Knoxville, a charter amendment can be proposed if at least one registered voter files the petition with the county election commission for pre-approval (TCA 2-5-151).
- Tennessee Secretary of State: (615) 741-2819
Create the Petition: Draft a clear and concise petition for a minimum wage increase. Here is a sample:

Draft Petition:
Petition for Increasing the Minimum Wage in Tennessee
To the Tennessee General Assembly:
We, the undersigned residents of Tennessee, believe that the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is insufficient to meet the basic needs of individuals and families in our state. Given the significant rise in living costs and inflation since the last adjustment in 2009, we urgently call for an increase in the state minimum wage to a livable wage of $13.25 per hour. This adjustment will ensure that all working Tennesseans can afford necessities such as housing, food, healthcare, and transportation.
By signing this petition, we express our support for this necessary change and urge the Tennessee General Assembly to take immediate action.
Name Address Signature
Step 2: Collect Signatures

Host Community Events: Organize events like town hall meetings, local fairs, or farmers' markets to gather signatures.
Utilize Local Networks: Leverage small-town connections where everyone knows each other to spread the word and gather support.
Set Up Booths: Place booths in high-traffic areas like grocery stores, libraries, and community centers to collect signatures.
Door-to-Door Campaigning: Go door-to-door in your neighborhood to ask for signatures.

Step 3: Raise Awareness

Social Media Campaign: Use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to inform the community and encourage them to sign the petition.
Local Media: Reach out to local newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels to cover your campaign.
Flyers and Posters: Distribute flyers and put up posters in local businesses and public spaces.

Step 4: Submit the Petition

Verify Signatures: Ensure all collected signatures meet the requirements.
Submit to Authorities: Submit the petition to the appropriate state or local authority for validation.

Deadlines and Requirements

Submission Deadline: Typically, signatures must be submitted several months before the general election to allow time for verification. For 2024, check with the Tennessee Secretary of State for specific deadlines and the number of required signatures.

How Petitions Work

In general, for a petition to be effective and get an issue on the ballot or to influence local government action, more signatures are usually needed to demonstrate widespread community support. Here’s a brief overview of the process:

Single Signature Submission: In some cases, a single well-documented request or petition signed by one person can be submitted to local officials to initiate a discussion. However, this method is less likely to compel action without demonstrating broader community support.
Gathering Multiple Signatures: To increase the chances of the petition being taken seriously, gathering multiple signatures shows that the issue has significant support within the community. This can influence local officials to take action.
Specific Requirements: The exact number of signatures required can vary based on local laws and regulations. For example, getting an initiative on the ballot often requires a specific percentage of registered voters' signatures.

Example Scenario:

Submitting a Petition to the City Council: One person can submit a petition to the city council to raise an issue. However, gathering more signatures from residents increases the impact.
Ballot Initiatives: For ballot initiatives, there are usually legal requirements regarding the number of signatures needed. This varies by jurisdiction.

Strategies to Address Rising Rents

While controlling rent increases directly can be challenging, there are several strategies that can help stabilize the rental market and provide more affordable options:

Rent Control and Stabilization:
- Implement policies that limit how much rents can be increased annually.
Increased Tenant Protections:
- Strengthen tenant rights to provide more security and stability, such as "just cause" eviction protections.
Affordable Housing Development:
- Increase the supply of affordable housing through new developments and mixed-income housing projects.
Tax Incentives for Landlords:
- Offer tax breaks or incentives to landlords who keep rents affordable.
Community Land Trusts:
- Establish community land trusts to manage and develop affordable housing.
Rent Subsidy Programs:
- Expand rent subsidy programs to assist low-income tenants.

Petition Example for Rent Control and Tenant Protections

Petition for Rent Control and Tenant Protections
To the Knoxville City Council:
We, the undersigned, request that the Knoxville City Council take immediate action to address the rising cost of rent and protect tenants by implementing rent control measures and strengthening tenant protections. Specifically, we propose the following initiatives:

Rent Control: Implement rent control measures that limit annual rent increases to no more than a set percentage, tied to inflation.
Just Cause Eviction Protections: Establish "just cause" eviction protections to prevent arbitrary evictions and provide stability for tenants.
Tax Incentives for Affordable Rent: Offer tax breaks or incentives to landlords who commit to keeping rents affordable.
Encourage Long-Term Leases: Promote the use of long-term leases with fixed rent increases to provide stability for both tenants and landlords.

By implementing these measures, Knoxville can help ensure that housing remains affordable and accessible for all residents, promoting a stable and thriving community.
By signing this petition, we express our support for these initiatives and urge the Knoxville City Council to take immediate action to protect tenants and address the rising cost of rent.
Signature: _______________
Print Name: _______________
Address: _______________
Email: _______________

Other Strategies to Help Afford Homes

Local Level:

Affordable Housing Programs: Support and expand local programs that provide affordable housing options.
Down Payment Assistance: Advocate for city or county programs that help with down payments for first-time homebuyers.
Community Land Trusts: Promote local models where the community owns the land and leases it to homeowners, reducing the cost of purchasing a home.
Zoning Reforms: Push for zoning changes within Knoxville to allow for more diverse and affordable housing developments.
Financial Education: Provide resources locally to help individuals better manage their finances and improve their credit scores.
Rent-to-Own Programs: Implement or support local programs where tenants can rent properties with the option to buy after a certain period.
Increased Housing Supply: Encourage the construction of more housing units in Knoxville to meet demand.
Public-Private Partnerships: Foster collaborations between the city and private developers to create affordable housing projects.
Inclusionary Zoning: Require a portion of new developments in Knoxville to include affordable housing units.
Tax Incentives: Offer local tax credits or abatements to developers who build affordable housing or to homeowners for property improvements.
Tiny Homes and ADUs: Promote the development of tiny homes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in Knoxville as affordable housing options.
Housing Cooperatives: Support cooperative housing models locally where residents collectively own and manage their housing.
Employer-Assisted Housing: Encourage local employers to provide housing assistance or benefits to their employees.
Energy Efficiency Programs: Implement local programs to improve the energy efficiency of homes, reducing utility costs and overall housing expenses.
Foreclosure Prevention Programs: Provide local assistance and counseling to homeowners at risk of foreclosure to help them retain their homes.
Land Banks: Establish land banks at the city level to acquire, manage, and repurpose vacant and foreclosed properties for affordable housing development.

Steps for Local Action:

Petition for Ballot Initiatives: Registered voters can start petitions to get these issues on local ballots. This involves gathering a required number of signatures from the community.
Engage with Local Officials: Attend city council meetings, contact local representatives, and advocate for these programs and reforms.
Form or Join Advocacy Groups: Collaborate with local organizations focused on housing and community development to amplify your efforts.
Raise Public Awareness: Use social media, local news, and community events to inform and mobilize residents around these initiatives.
Vote: Encourage community members to vote for local leaders and initiatives that support affordable housing and related programs.

Example Petitions:

Petition for Comprehensive Affordable Housing Initiatives
To the Knoxville City Council:
We, the undersigned, request that the Knoxville City Council take comprehensive action to promote affordable housing through a combination of tax incentives, public-private partnerships, inclusionary zoning, expanded affordable housing programs, and the establishment of land banks.

Tax Incentives: Offer local tax credits or abatements to developers who build affordable housing or to homeowners for property improvements. These incentives will encourage the development and maintenance of affordable housing units, ensuring more options are available for low- and moderate-income families.
Public-Private Partnerships: Foster collaborations between the city and private developers to create affordable housing projects. By working together, the public and private sectors can pool resources, expertise, and funding to develop housing that meets the community's needs.
Inclusionary Zoning: Require a portion of new developments in Knoxville to include affordable housing units. Inclusionary zoning ensures that affordable housing is integrated into new developments, promoting economic diversity and increasing the availability of affordable homes.
Affordable Housing Programs: Support and expand local affordable housing programs to provide quality, affordable housing options for low- and moderate-income residents. Currently, many residents are struggling to find affordable housing, which impacts their quality of life and financial stability. By expanding these programs, we can ensure that more residents have access to safe, decent, and affordable housing.
Land Banks: Establish land banks at the city level to acquire, manage, and repurpose vacant and foreclosed properties for affordable housing development. Land banks can transform unused or abandoned properties into valuable assets for the community, providing opportunities for affordable housing development and revitalizing neighborhoods.

By implementing these strategies, Knoxville can create a more inclusive and sustainable housing market that supports the needs of all residents. This comprehensive approach will help address the current housing shortage and ensure long-term affordability in our community.
By signing this petition, we express our support for these initiatives and urge the Knoxville City Council to take immediate action to promote affordable housing through these measures.
Signature: _______________
Print Name: _______________
Address: _______________
Email: _______________
Down Payment Assistance
Petition for Down Payment Assistance Programs
To the Knoxville City Council:
We, the undersigned, urge the Knoxville City Council to advocate for and establish city or county programs that provide down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. Many residents find it challenging to save enough for a down payment, which is a significant barrier to achieving homeownership. By providing down payment assistance, we can help more residents transition from renting to owning their homes, promoting long-term financial stability and investment in our community.
By signing this petition, we express our support for the creation and implementation of down payment assistance programs to help first-time homebuyers in Knoxville.
Signature: _______________
Print Name: _______________
Address: _______________
Email: _______________

State or Federal Level:

Subsidized Housing Vouchers: Increase the availability and funding for housing vouchers that subsidize rent for low-income families.
Mortgage Credit Certificates (MCC): Promote MCC programs that provide tax credits to first-time homebuyers at the state or federal level.

Combining these approaches with efforts to raise wages can create a more comprehensive solution to housing affordability issues.

How New Jersey Did It:

Legislative Action: Passed in 2019, the law set a schedule for gradual increases to reach $15 by 2024.
Annual Adjustments: Provisions for annual increases based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Broad Support: Significant political backing from the governor and legislature.
Sector-Specific Plans: Different timelines and rates for small businesses, seasonal workers, and agricultural employees.
Economic Advocacy: Studies and advocacy highlighted the benefits, helping to build public and political support.

Tennessee's Business Environment and Minimum Wage:

Business-Friendly State: It's true Tennessee is known for being business-friendly, which can make raising the minimum wage challenging.
Jobs Over $12/Hour: While many jobs may pay over $12 an hour, not all workers have access to these opportunities, especially those with limited skills or education.

Steps to Take:

Educate and Advocate: Inform the community about the benefits of a higher minimum wage for both workers and the economy.
Highlight Success Stories: Share examples from other states like New Jersey that have successfully raised their minimum wages without harming businesses.
Promote Nonpartisan Support: Work with groups that focus on worker rights without political affiliations to gather broader support.

By focusing on education and nonpartisan advocacy, it's possible to create a more inclusive conversation around raising the minimum wage.

submitted by Ok_Jelly_3340 to Knoxville [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:40 Kindly_Good1457 The Sheriff Helped My Abuser Make Me Disappear

Back in 2012, I started the process of leaving my abusive ex husband. While his abuse was mostly verbal and emotional, during the divorce, he got physical.
I had filed for default in the divorce and this set him off. He called the bank and had my bank account frozen and then came to my house to take things. I went in the garage to try and stop him and he hit me in the face. I called the cops and he was arrested. I went down to the court house the next day and got a restraining order.
During this time, child support opened a case. This enraged him even more and he made contact via a third party, claiming I was psychotic. I documented the restraining order violation with a police report and went about my life.
A few weeks later, I was out with the kids on the 4th of July, when I got a call from the Sheriff’s Dept. My ex had called them and claimed I was suicidal. They looked and saw I had a restraining order against him so they were calling to check on me. I told them I was fine and I was out watching fireworks with my kids. They said to have a good night. I thought that was the end of it.
About a month later, I had taken an Ambien, but instead of laying down, I did the dishes. Then I couldn’t remember if I had taken my pill or not, so I took it again, not realizing I had already taken it. I was looking over old messages in my email and found an email from my ex. I felt bad about how things were between us. I texted him, “I’m not gonna bother you anymore. Let’s just try to be amicable from now on.” . I put my phone down and fell asleep.
A short while later, I saw flashlights in my bedroom window. I got up to find the Sheriff’s Dept at my door. I opened the door and they told me that my ex had called them and said I was suicidal. I told them I had a restraining order against him. They asked to come inside and I let them in. A fatal mistake.
I explained that things were very stressful between us and that I had texted him I wasn’t going to bother him anymore and requested that we try to be amicable. I showed them my phone. I told them that I had taken an Ambien and went to bed. They asked to see my pill bottle. I gave it to them. They counted the pills and that’s when it was discovered that I took 2 pills instead of 1. The Sheriff wanted to take me to the hospital to get checked out. I cooperated with them.
They called my ex to come and get the kids, but his phone was off. I had to give them his room mates number. I told the Sheriff, “If he really thought I was suicidal, why would he turn his phone off after calling you out here? He is just harassing me.” They got ahold of him, he came and got the kids and they drove me to the hospital.
The hospital counselor comes and talks to me. I explain that I have a restraining order against the person claiming that I’m suicidal. I took the extra Ambien by mistake. It was an accident. I’m not suicidal. I’m under the care of a therapist as my divorce is very stressful. She refuses to call my therapist and instead places me on a 5150 psych hold. Now I am terrified. I’m being locked away at the request of someone I have a restraining order against.
They put me in an ambulance and ship me two hours away to the looney bin. Because it is Saturday, I didn’t see the psychiatrist until Monday. I spent that two days in utter shock. My abuser made me disappear and he used the Sheriffs to help him do it.
Monday comes. I see the psychiatrist. I explain that I have a restraining order against the person claiming I’m suicidal. The Ambien thing was an accident. My therapist can verify everything. He tells me if my therapist backs my story, he will end the hold and send me home. He calls my therapist. My therapist demands that they release me immediately. Psych tells me he will work on getting me out of here.
I used the phone at the nurses station to check my voicemail. I have a vm from my ex’s attorney saying that my ex filed for sole custody of the kids and the hearing was tomorrow. That’s when it hit me. He had me locked away on a 5150 to get the kids in his possession to file for custody to get out of paying child support. I played the message for the nurse. They got my discharge done and got me out of there within an hour.
I showed up to court the next day. His attorney approached me and asked if I would be willing to sign custody over to my ex. I stared at him until he backed away from me. When they called our case, it turned out the filing fees weren’t paid so the court refused to hear the case. We were rescheduled to the next day.
I left the court house, got a letter from my therapist and copies of all police reports. I came back the next morning and provided everything to the judge. The judge refused to give my ex custody and referred us to mediation. He instructed my ex to return the kids to me immediately. My babies were home that night.
After this incident, I was afraid to pursue the restraining order. If he was able to weaponize the Sheriff’s Dept against me in my own home with a restraining order in place, I would never be safe in this town. I had to find a new plan. I had to find a way to leave town.
6 months later, after giving away everything I owned and moving out of my place, I showed up to the court house on a crisp spring morning where I was granted permission to leave the state of California with my babies. We walked out of the court house, got in the car and drove away. We reached Las Vegas by midnight. That wasn’t our final destination, just the first part of our journey. And that is the story of how I escaped my abuser.

submitted by Kindly_Good1457 to TwoHotTakes [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:36 Aelnorn Would you be so kind as to tear my situation apart?

I'm closer to retirement than not. Live frugally, invest everything I make which is about 1-2 every 2 weeks. My spending habits and credit card use are S+ tier and so is my credit score. I didn't think in the fire way until later in life so I know I'm mediocre here but I am perhaps looking for more risk to take on to speed things up. My life situation is very stable and I stand to inherit a lot of property including the one I live on now.
Breakdown:
560k in (unamed broker for security reasons) wealth management, concentrated in high growth. They buy and sell back there behind the trad IRA tax firewall which is nice and comfortable feeling for me as I see every trade they make. I watch them do 3-5% buys/sells all the time, they keep about 3-4k of cash in there. Much less than 1 percent in fees, which is easily worth it to me for peace of mind and researched constant decisions by them so I don't have to live in stress. Their holding look a lot like NASDAQ to me but it isn't exactly.
179k in unamed brokerage, my own mix. JEPQ, MM at ~5%, and AMLP. Currently mostly just stacking the MM and trying to build cash flow. I know it seems backward of conventional wisdom to keep such a taxable mix in taxable brokerage especially for the overwhelming majority here who are younger but I'm closer to the end of the line. This is how my main income stream will look once I am forced to take out of IRA. I like this mix as it keeps cash flow and over what I've observed seems to react well in different conditions. Plan is to equalize them all and just keep buying into the reds. AMLP might seem questionable to a lot of you, but I don't believe oil/natural gas is going anywhere in my lifetime, and this has the benefit of cashflow via pipeline rent vs. holding the actual commodity of oil. I can find few other funds that discorrelate from the market this way that seem reliable AND have cashflow. Furthermore it is the only qualified dividend to offset my other two completely taxable holdings (yeah yeah, JEPQ might do a return of capital once in a blue moon, it doesn't happen, didn't happen with JEPI either) as well as paying quarterly vs. the other two monthly to put my cashflow on a more broken up schedule.
Another 50k or so in a company 401k which is in a standard S&P ETF and unvested by 3.5 years.
I'm looking for every weakness you see in this, as well as perhaps more risk, or any suggestions. Thinking about swing trading still as I'm able to take on more risk, but I like little swing trades I see except maybe messing with QQQ in small amounts like 1k over some months.
"What are you doing, SCHD/VOO/VTAX and chill" I looked at SCHD a lot at the outset but it wasn't enough risk vs. return for me at the expensive levels it is and I'm unconvinced at a mostly hold I'm not going to sell either with lower divs, esp. when holding MM is now equal to their div. Furthermore, I believe the AI inherent in NASDAQ is going to eat lots of other market shares as we move into the future, making SCHD/Dow look more anemic by comparison year over year compared to NASDAQ. I don't feel particularly inclined to bleeding edge seek out AI etfs or anything new either, as NASDAQ/FAANG or whatever they're calling them now, Mag 7, already cover AI. A pure S&P fund won't do it for me because I don't believe in holding the bag on growth forever. I could run through a decade of S&P downturn where I needed to sell those years and get screwed. Instead I'll hold div funds and buy in during those times too, just like all times. A sell would only be for real emergency like medical.
I have developed this mindset where the value of money is relative to cash, representing inflation and government control, tech, represent the heart of commerce that drives the world, and oil and natural gas as they are the main source of power from which all industry flows, and my portfolio is designed to reflect this balance and play off a bit of hedging between them, or that is the ultimate goal anyway.
One reason I keep the wealth management guys is I view them as a pace car to check myself also.
I'm up 28 percent overall since I started this, between their 31 of pure growth back there behind IRA, vs my numbers plus my div cashflows in taxable. Maybe a bit better via the 401k I never look at since different annoying company forced broker.

submitted by Aelnorn to Fire [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:31 MedicMoth Greens 'State of the Planet' speech 2024 [FULL TRANSCRIPT]

Reposting here for posterity
Summary: Greens hits out at policies tailored for the wealthy, not the people; saying they are devoid of care and evidence. They said if they were delivering this year's budget, they would deliver the following by taxing wealth:

An income guarantee for everyone
Lift every family out of poverty
More support for students or people out of work
Extra help if you're sick or disabled
Payments for families so kids can thrive
More resourcing for the public service
Free dental care
Cheaper power bills
Solar panels and batteries for homes
Climate pollution reduction

Mā te oranga o te taiao, ka ora ai te iwi. Mō te takitini, kāore mo te torutoru anake. Ki te mana whenua o tēnei rohe, tū mai rā Ngāti Whātua, tēnā koutou. Ki a tātou e huihui mai nei, ko ngā moemoeā o te Pāti Kākāriki te take, nau mai, haere mai, whakatau mai.
Tenā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
Sixteen million dollars.
That’s how much the coalition parties raised to win last year’s election.
Ten million for National.
Four million for Act.
Just under two million for New Zealand First.
Sixteen million dollars.
From property developers and business tycoons who have built their wealth by exploiting our natural environment.
To companies who profit from digging up our whenua and overfishing our oceans - activities that cause significant harm to our precious ecosystems.
Sixteen million dollars helped to put this government into power.
And in a little less than two weeks, the coalition government will unveil its first budget.
It has clearly been difficult for them to put it together.
To the right, Act is trying to fire all the people who make our public services work, while in their own cooker corner New Zealand First hoards 1.2 billion dollars for hand-chosen pet projects.
The Coalition has found half a billion dollars for new defence spending, but cancelled projects to improve buses and trains in Auckland and Wellington.
They’re borrowing billions to cover the cost of cutting taxes for wealthy property investors, because they’ve realised that the promises they made during the election campaign were slapdash and expensive.
Meanwhile, people with the least face ever higher costs.
Bus fares have already gone up.
Rents continue to rise, while the government is giving tax breaks to landlords instead of investing in more public housing.
So on Budget Day, when we see what the coalition has been able to cobble together, I want you to remember: sixteen million dollars.
What’s in the Budget for the people who paid for National’s election campaign?
And what could have been in the budget instead if Aotearoa had a Government that prioritised people and planet?
Because I am not here for the relative few who donated those sixteen million dollars.
I am here for the many, including the 330,000 people who trusted the Green Party with their votes last year.
And I want to thank you all once again.
Your voices will continue to be heard.
You told us you wanted us to fight for an Aotearoa where everyone can get by, where our native wildlife and oceans thrive, where we take bold climate action, and where we honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
That is what we are doing. And we will be loud. And we will be staunch as always.
I am here for those who cannot sit by while the government tries to take the country backwards on the issues that matter most.
While the goal of a smoke-free generation goes up in smoke.
While new coal mines are dug into our precious conservation land, even as the Prime Minister claims to want to achieve climate change targets.
While the few with extraordinary wealth get what they want, at the expense of everyone else.
The Greens have always been, and will always be, the voice for a different kind of politics.
A politics centred in justice through honouring te Tiriti o Waitangi, not using it to drive a wedge in our communities.
A politics that celebrates the potential our country could live up to if it was grounded in manaakitanga and equity.
That acknowledges the richness of generations of tangata whenua and tangata tiriti working together to care for our whenua and collectively enjoying the fruits of mahitahi.
Where we protect Papatūānuku out of aroha for her, and respect that her wellbeing is also what keeps us alive.
Where we share what we have so everyone in Aotearoa can live a good life.
Everything the Greens won over the last two terms in government with Labour was hard fought. Governments must make tradeoffs. But Governments are defined by their choices.
And right now, the coalition is making theirs clear.
If the Greens were delivering this year’s budget, I’ll tell you what would be in it.
An income guarantee, so no matter what, everyone has what they need to live a decent life.
We could lift every family in Aotearoa out of poverty, and give people the peace of mind that they’ll be supported if they fall on tough times.
More support for students and people out of work, extra help if you’re sick or disabled, and simple payments for families so all kids can thrive.
Free dental care.
Successive governments have let basic dental healthcare get so expensive, that forty percent - forty percent! - of people avoid going to the dentist.
It’s just too expensive.
In Aotearoa, we could choose to resource our public health services - funded by taxes on wealth, so that everyone can be looked after when they need it.
And if the Greens were putting together the Budget, it would fund our plan to make your homes warmer while cutting down your power bills AND climate pollution.
Solar panels and batteries for homes to store the sun’s free energy, taking pressure off the power grid.
But this year, with the help of sixteen million dollars from some of the wealthiest people in Aotearoa, National, Act, and New Zealand First have the privilege of making those decisions.
And I say to them, what are you going to do with it?
You have the choice to end poverty.
Or to give tax breaks to landlords.
To give back more to people who earn their living, instead of tax breaks for people who own more houses than they need, and who already get untaxed capital gains.
You have the choice to invest in solar power, or open up new coal mines.
The choices people make when they have power show us what they are motivated by. These choices define the world they want to create.
So today I want to talk with you about what motivates the Green Party.
Ko te mana o Te Tiriti.
Ko te oranga o te Taiao.
Ko ngā tūmanako mō ngā tamariki.
We are motivated by generations of movements and leaders who have pushed for the sovereignty of tangata whenua guaranteed by te Tiriti o Waitangi.
A partnership on which this country was built, despite the continuous breaches by the Crown partner.
The Green Party is a Tiriti party.
Our leadership is a partnership between tangata whenua and tangata tiriti.
Our work seeks to honour the commitments made generations ago, to prosper together.
Our commitment to Tiriti justice is absolutely integral to everything the Greens do - just as it is integral to the future of Aotearoa.
Tino rangatiratanga is at the heart of healing relationships across communities and reconnecting all of us with our seas, our rivers, our bush, our mountains, and our whenua.
And central to our vision for a Tiriti-based future, is our commitment to restoring and protecting nature.
Because nature is in crisis.
Just out these doors, and below our feet, in the Hauraki Gulf, the impacts of commercial overfishing and the pollution washing into the water from the land, has brought the ecosystem to the brink.
North and west of here, great kauri are critically threatened.
To the south, unique animals found in no other country, are at risk from the bulldozers of mining companies, unless we protect them.
Four thousand different native species are at risk of extinction in Aotearoa.
Four thousand.
We can turn that around, but it takes commitment. It takes effort. It takes mahitahi. And it takes choices. Choices that put people and planet first, instead of a cynical politics that serves the short-term interests of wealthy donors.
If the government chooses not to prioritise restoring the health of the natural world in its first budget, that shows what they are motivated by, and it shows what kind of world they are prepared to leave to our tamariki.
It is our tamariki and mokopuna that motivate the Greens.
Not just the ones born tomorrow, but those after that, for seven generations down the line.
Sustainability doesn’t just mean sustainability for nature, but for people too. This planet is our home. We need it to thrive.
The Greens have always been deeply motivated by care for other people, for communities, for those with us today and for those who will come after us.
We are motivated by every single child who goes to bed hungry tonight.
We are motivated by every single adult who isn’t sure how they’ll pay the rent or mortgage next week.
As winter hits, we are motivated by every person who sits in the cold, staring at the heater, knowing they can’t afford to turn it on.
Our challenge to the coalition government is to prove that you are motivated by this too.
Choose to do something about it.
The solutions to many of the problems we face in Aotearoa are clear. This week I had the privilege of meeting with rangatahi, and hearing about the solutions they want to see in their communities. They are THE experts in their own experience - and they know they need to be empowered and given better opportunities; not marginalised, patronised, ignored, and punished.
But the coalition government doesn’t like those solutions, because they don’t fit its agenda. They prefer catch phrases like “social investment”, to real data and lived experience.
A Government which says it is motivated by evidence-based solutions has cut funding to the world class Growing up in New Zealand study, and continues to ignore the evidence it provides. Like the evidence that 40% of children live in the most deprived areas.
If this government was truly invested in improving social outcomes, it would affirm and resource the experts who know best and have proven the most.
And that includes empowering the people with the lived experience of the systems failing them and their whānau. It requires removing all the barriers to wellbeing such as poverty and homelessness. We need to support whole whānau, instead of focusing on ‘fixing’ an individual after they’ve already been broken by poverty and neglect, and expecting them to rise above circumstances of deprivation that we should have all worked together to prevent in the first place. We need the solutions to be grounded in community knowledge and care. I hope this government is open to sitting with kai rangahau Māori and families to learn more about what really needs to change.
When the Crown has repeatedly failed to be accountable for the harm it has caused to whānau Māori, it is clear that we need an authentic transfer of power and resources - with a partnership of a strong public and social services sector working together, with communities, hapū and iwi, and whānau.
I have seen what works to support people off a destructive path in life. To instead become the best of themselves. There is a mountain of evidence about approaches that work where all other attempts have failed - particularly where there is deep trauma.
These approaches, like Kaupapa Māori interventions, build the strength of whānau and community.
Now for far too long, successive governments have been stuck on catch phrase politics, devoid of evidence or genuine care.
Policies like bootcamps for the young, benefit sanctions for the already struggling, higher criminal penalties - a punitive, petty politics that makes life harder for those already
excluded, and does nothing to keep communities safe and well. This is divisive, stale, cruel and ineffective.
When I have met and listened to the very people at the forefront of this cruelty, the impact has been clear.
Such punitive and dehumanising measures have instead caused even further disconnection and hopelessness. The Greens know that meeting trauma with punishment isn’t going to work. I want rangatahi to hear us loud and clear. You matter. Your whānau matters. You deserve dignity, a community and a country that sees your strength.
At a basic level, I think we all agree that identifying the causes of persistent hardship, and supporting people to get out of those situations, is a good idea.
And we all agree that the measure of a government’s success is whether it achieves outcomes, not how much money it spends on trying.
But the Government isn’t actually doing this.
Two weeks ago the Minister of Finance said her government will “use hard evidence to invest in what works.”
On that same day, the Minister of Social Development announced that people on a benefit will face financial sanctions if they don’t attend work seminars.
Let me be clear, work seminars don’t help people find jobs they’re suited for - let alone create meaningful work with decent pay and conditions. The Ministry of Social Development has told the Minister there is no evidence for the government’s cruel approach. Sanctions do not make a difference for the number of people moving into paid work.
And the evidence against sanctions is extremely clear.
Financial sanctions for beneficiaries, who already don’t have enough income to pay for life’s essentials, simply push people into further hardship.
That affects their children, their whānau, and their whole communities.
Instead, people need tailored support into work that matches their skills and interests, with a guaranteed income while retraining.
At the same time, the Government needs to invest in creating sustainable jobs that transition our economy away from fossil fuels.
Jobs with decent pay, secure hours and support for people to balance caregiving responsibilities. Jobs that support wellbeing for whānau, instead of seeing workers as just a cog in a labour machine.
When the Government rolls out policies like benefit sanctions, they are making a choice to ignore the evidence about the effect of their actions.
And it is our job to expose that.
I cannot say it enough: we have everything we need in Aotearoa for everyone to live a decent life.
We know what people need to rise up out of persistent hardship.
A warm, dry, affordable, and accessible home.
Healthy kai on the table.
The freedom to go to the doctor or the dentist when they need to, without having to worry about the cost.
And next week, the Government has a choice whether to put people at the heart of the budget - or not. If they don’t, they are holding back the potential of our people and our communities to thrive.
And we will ask, exactly who are they governing for?
The Greens are here for the many, not just the few.
We carry decades of political leadership with us, starting from the late Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald, through to our newest co-leader Chloe Swarbrick.
We are here thanks to the thousands upon thousands of volunteers over the last three decades.
The many grassroots-led movements who we are honoured to have worked with for the kaupapa.
We draw our strength from knowing we are powered by the many. This gives us the strength to oppose a government whose sixteen million dollars of political donations got them where they are today.
Thanks to our people-powered campaign, we have our largest Caucus ever.
And it represents Aotearoa more than it ever has before.
Green politics is the alternative to this cynical, cruel coalition government.
And we are only just getting started.

submitted by MedicMoth to nzpolitics [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 08:10 nomorelandfills California rescuers clamoring for adoption of AB 2265, Animal Shelter Transparency Act cheerfully agree to remove the bit about mandatory spay/neuter before a dog or cat is released to foster. Also, the law is another gateway for release of dangerous dogs.

https://preview.redd.it/8wd5vanfrb1d1.png?width=536&format=png&auto=webp&s=4348ee55b7aa2fd3a7d70737d11ffd1979b19f61
To be honest, I didn't read the dangerous dog part as thoroughly as I should. I think I may be somewhat burnt out on the recklessness and coldness shown by rescuers to others in their willingness to prioritize dangerous or marginal ownerless dogs over beloved pets and over people.
The spay/neuter part, that just galls me. It should gall anyone. This crisis, this hellscape of pit bull overpopulation that exists clearly calls for sterilization of any shelter dog in California. Shrugging off that as a lesser priority than rehoming existing dogs blows the whole deal. Any animal rescue plan that removes, downgrades or fails to prioritize spay/neuter for pit bulls is worthless. It's just a smokescreen, a way to play with puppies and posture as saviors without doing anything to improve the situation. Status quo, nothing to see here, #adoptdontshop.
https://preview.redd.it/if3jg07kpb1d1.png?width=873&format=png&auto=webp&s=bde9e6f11f3311da914d8c76a66d3907e0118374
SUMMARY: Under existing law, it is the policy of the state that no adoptable animal should be euthanized if it can be adopted into a suitable home, as provided.
This bill declares it the policy of the state that no animal be euthanized by a public animal control agency, shelter, or a private entity that contracts with a public animal control agency or shelter for animal care and control services (collectively, “eligible agency”). This bill requires an eligible agency to post, 24 to 72 hours before a scheduled euthanasia of a dog or cat, a daily list of any cat or dog scheduled for euthanasia on its public website or social media page and to post a physical notice on the kennel of a dog or cat scheduled to be euthanized.
This bill requires a public animal control agency or shelter that seeks to adopt a policy, practice, or protocol that may conflict with Hayden’s Law to give notice regarding the policy, practice, or protocol, as specified, and requires the city or county to schedule a public hearing regarding the policy, practice, or protocol.
https://preview.redd.it/r6ett982nb1d1.png?width=701&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a4b03df0544234fd1c1a32dc1ad2396314d7a75
And the sheer chutzpah of this
https://preview.redd.it/6jzq88epob1d1.png?width=588&format=png&auto=webp&s=01830f3ea95e94084d4bd927d96ba33fc7732b24
Rescuers - we will advocate for violent dogs and fund their owners' fights to keep them from being designated dangerous and harass communities into being extremely afraid of even starting a dangerous dog investigation.
Also rescuers - our new legislation to require more marketing of unadoptable dogs won't include dangerous dogs! Silly! There's no risk to the public!
Although I will say I had no idea that rescuers knew of the existence of the word 'transparency' so good for them. Perhaps this knowledge could be turned inward sometimes?
The CityWatch article
ANIMAL WATCH - An increasing number of reported vicious and fatal dog attacks across California, as reported by the L.A. Times—and worldwide—are ignored by AB 2265 (2024) authored by Assembly Member Kevin McCarthy and introduced in the CA Assembly—and, instead, it prohibits euthanasia of any dangerous animals, including dogs impounded in shelters for violent behavior.
AB 2265, (which has so far been amended twice, the latest change being when it was introduced in the Assembly on 3/18/2024) wants California legislators to assure that NO dog (or other aggressive animal) in a shelter can be euthanized, other than if it is irremediably suffering, regardless of its violent or even deadly behavioral history. However, it is the goal and purpose of shelters to place as many animals as possible directly into homes with families.
This bill went far beyond the purpose of the 1998 Hayden bill which had the intent to restrict euthanasia of healthy and adoptable animals.
No one with knowledge of the devastating outcome of attacks by currently popular Pit Bulls, XL and XXL Bullys, now banned in the UK, Wales, Scotland and India, along with other aggressive breeds, nor anyone who has been the victim of any vicious dog attack, could plausibly agree that this risk should be encouraged or can be afforded by the State of California or any governmental jurisdiction.
So far, it appears other legislators are skeptical of this bill. The only positive change with which some CA animal control agencies and legislators have expressed mutual agreement is the increase in spay/neuter deposits for dogs and cats being raised to $200 to match the much higher rates for surgical sterilization in today’s economy.
A CLOSER LOOK AT AB 2265
In the past few weeks we have seen countries such as England, Wales, Scotland and India joining those which ban Pit Bull, XL and XXL Bullys and other dangerous dogs in order to stop the trafficking of dangerous breeds, provide safety for communities and stop the horrific attacks and deaths of innocent children and adults whose lives are ended by other people’s “protection dogs” or “rescued” pets with a known history of violent behavior.
AB 2265 – A RISK CALIFORNIA CANNOT TAKE
There is value in telling the truth about dog behavior and the greatest is in public and personal safety. What weird whim—other than personal aggrandizement or a strong campaign supporter—would cause Senator McCarthy to encourage ignoring violent past history and risk human and animal lives on a gamble that a dog with a known history of unprovoked aggression will suddenly act differently?
If we want canines to continue to be known as man’s (or woman’s) best friends, we need—just as we do with humans—to assure they have earned that trust by not misusing their innate strength and survival skills to harm those who trust and love them.
CHANGING THE STATE’S EUTHANASIA GOAL
This bill, AB 2265, introduced on February 8, 2024, drastically changes the State’s animal shelter euthanasia goal—from ending euthanasia of adoptable animals to ending euthanasia of any animal. That includes vicious dogs, wild and/or dangerous animals, prohibited animals and regulated animals.
This would create chaotic danger for adopters and pet owners and innocent residents/neighbors throughout California, while ALSO negatively and disastrously affecting the insurance and veterinary industries, according to experts.
The only exceptions in the bill that allow a dangerous animal to be euthanized are very narrow categories for medical and behavior issues:
1) those that are irremediably suffering, which is defined as those for which “severe, unremitting physical pain” cannot be relieved by any medical means without regard to cost or local availability of that level of care; and
2) Those that have been declared “vicious” under the State’s regulatory scheme, which few agencies use, and which assumes that a hearing was held after an owner contested that declaration.
According to Fast Track Democracy, “Existing law prohibits animals that are irremediably suffering from a serious illness or severe injury from being held for owner redemption or adoption. This bill would instead declare it the policy of the state that no animal be euthanized by a public animal control agency or shelter or a private entity that contracts with a public animal control agency or shelter for animal care and control services, except as provided.”
“Existing law prohibits a stray dog or cat impounded by a public or private shelter from being euthanized before 6 business days after the stray dog or cat is impounded, not including the day of impoundment, and requires that the stray dog or cat, except those irremediably suffering, be released to a nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization before the scheduled euthanasia of the stray dog or cat if requested by the organization, as specified.” The analysis summarizes the Bill (see Fast Track Democracy).
Existing law prohibits a stray dog or cat impounded by a public or private shelter from being euthanized before 6 business days after the stray dog or cat is impounded, not including the day of impoundment, and requires that the stray dog or cat, except those irremediably suffering, be released to a nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization before the scheduled euthanasia of the stray dog or cat if requested by the organization, as specified.
WARNINGS ABOUT THIS ‘NO KILL’ PLAN FOR DANGEROUS DOGS
A California animal-control specialist offered the following thoughts based on his personal and professional experience.
(The following is not to be taken as legal advice, but merely as guidance in further considering some issues that appear to not have been considered in pursuing these severe changes to animal sheltering under existing California laws and practices.)
“This Bill would absolutely eviscerate Food and Agricultural Code Section 31683, which allows counties and cities to have their own regulatory process for dangerous dogs, and it would force everyone to use the very-flawed State process.”
AND he summarized that:

This bill eliminates the limitation by the 1998 Hayden-Bill mandate and requires shelters to advertise for release even those dogs that have mauled or killed a person, and forces animal control agencies (government and humane societies with animal control contracts) to announce the pending euthanasia of any of these dogs to “rescues,” so they can take them, often placing them in unsuspecting homes.
Even if the bill does not require that owner-relinquished dogs that are too vicious for placement even with a rescue be released to anyone who asks for it, the mere requirement that they be advertised creates unnecessary conflict and invites protest and even litigation over the decision not to release them.
What is a “qualified” nonprofit animal rescue or adoption organization? The term “qualified” is not defined in the bill. In light of an appellate court interpretation of the Hayden mandate to release stray dogs facing euthanasia to a “qualified” rescue, it is vital to have that defined. If “qualified” means any corporation that has obtained its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status—which is what many will assume—then animal control will have no way to ensure that the most vicious dogs are not placed in “foster” in unsuspecting neighborhoods by people who have no idea how dangerous they are.
Why must it be a nonprofit organization? This bill defines an animal rescue organization to include for-profit corporations. So why are they excluded from this Bill? A nonprofit organization can pay a high number of “employees” very exorbitant salaries. A nonprofit business model is no guarantee that more of the organization’s budget will go to help animals than other business models.
This Bill targets only municipal shelters and humane societies that have government contracts to provide animal control services. Those are the only organizations that cannot fully control their intake, and on which there are mandates to admit animals. They are the very organizations that most need the ability to engage in euthanasia for legitimate health and safety reasons, and for which the greatest levels of leniency and understanding are justified. Yet, any other organization can euthanize healthy, adoptable animals with impunity.

Although there are many other factors considered in the analysis, this article is intended merely to present some of the dangers of creating laws and policies at any legislative level without having a thorough analysis and discussion with leaders in the field of animal control and sheltering. There is information at the end of this article if anyone wishes to read more of this analysis.
FUNDRAISING – THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR
There is no better way to reach the wallets of animal lovers than through their heart strings, and sadly millions of dollars are going into pockets of executives in organizations that do not directly care for or protect animals and, of course, nothing speaks louder than donations at the lobbying and legislative level.
But, the needs of homeless animals should not be creating slush funds for campaigns nor playing on the emotions of those who are continually confronted by TV commercials and mailers, saying that just a few more dollars will save them all.
There are also human lives and safety to be considered and this is a primary responsibility of animal shelters and humane societies. It is important that they are asked what will help them do this thankless and seemingly hopeless job.
Pets are too often obtained as a short-term experience with little commitment and then abandoned within or outside these facilities that do not benefit from the money that is raised by large organizations or politicians ostensibly to help them.
Instead, these promises set unreachable goals and promote “feel-good” programs that overburden their staffing and emotions, without asking what they need to do this very difficult job from a realistic perspective.
THE BEST INDICATOR OF AN ANIMAL’S FUTURE BEHAVIOR IS ITS PAST
Not all animals are adoptable, nor should they be placed in homes where they are likely to harm, or be harmed because certain behavior is endemic to the breed. The AKC thrives on the fact that bloodlines of dogs determine or influence their predictable behavior.
Why is it this is so clear that it causes millions of people to buy purebreds for certain reasons; yet, animal shelters are expected to take in dogs with documented histories of anti-social behavior and attacks and rehome them with promises they will be “good family members” just to keep them alive?
LISTEN BEFORE VOTING, SACRAMENTO
Legislators need to listen to experts in animal control—not self-appointed voices for animals—many of whom have never worked in a shelter, before even considering new legislation.
They also need to ask their own community, “Do you feel safe from dog attacks? And/or “have you been a victim of an attack or live in fear of neighborhood animals?” They may be surprised at the number of injuries that have been suffered but didn’t make the press and how many victims may have permanent, life-limiting, disabilities for which they were never compensated.
Assembly Member McCarthy needs to walk through animal shelters in his district and ask those who work there or have been long-term volunteers, and those who take the responsibility for determining policies and the endless, sad challenges of management, “what will help you help them?”
DON’T WAIT FOR AN IRREVERSIBLE TRAGEDY
California has been very liberal (or very foolish) in allowing dogs known to have a history of aggression to be removed from shelters for adoption, but lawsuits and tragic, injuries or deaths of innocent victims have imposed limitations as to what can be tolerated philosophically and financially.
The safety of the dog itself must also be a consideration. People understandably react violently to dog attacks, using any weapon to inflict sufficient injury to stop the dog and save their own or another’s life.
Euthanasia can be the most humane option when it is indicated or determined that the animal poses a consistent threat to humans or animals in general, or poses a recurrent uncontrollable risk to the public’s and its own safety.
(Author’s note: If anyone would like to see more of the informal critique of the proposed CA law AB 2265, quoted in part in this article, you can contact me through the editor of CityWatchLA: ([jim@citywatchla.com](mailto:jim@citywatchla.com).)
(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former Los Angeles City employee, an animal activist and a contributor to CityWatch.

submitted by nomorelandfills to PetRescueExposed [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 07:52 LoudounCountySummary Finance/Government Operations and Economic Development Committee - May 14, 2024 - AI Generated Summary

This summary was generated by an AI LLM from autogenerated meeting captions. As such, this output may contain factual errors.
https://loudoun.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=89&clip_id=7674

Conclusions Reached

The key conclusions that can be drawn from the transcript are:
There is a desire to establish a county-wide sanitary district program to provide refuse and recycling collection services in areas without homeowner's associations (HOAs). This would allow the county to leverage its purchasing power to negotiate better rates and service standards.
However, there is some debate around whether the county should subsidize the startup costs for this program or require it to be fully cost-recoverable from the residents in the sanitary districts.
The committee also recommended creating a county-wide streetlight program that would use capital improvement program (CIP) funding to install new streetlights in communities that petition for them, with the ongoing maintenance and electricity costs being added to the county's operating budget.
There were concerns raised about excluding HOA communities from being eligible for the streetlight program, and the committee amended the motion to include both non-HOA and HOA communities.
A countywide flood assessment and mitigation program was also approved to be included in the FY2026 budget request, building on previous efforts to address flooding issues in certain areas of the county.

Detailed Summary

00:11:56 - 00:12:10

The chair welcomed the committee and announced some adjustments to the agenda, including moving up item #12 (human services nonprofit grants) and the possibility of a dinner break.
The chair also announced that all three credit rating agencies have confirmed the county's triple-A bond rating.

00:12:10 - 00:13:52

The chair reviewed the 8 items proposed on the consent agenda.
Supervisor Koran Saines requested item #10 (utilization of federal and state asset forfeiture funds) be removed from the consent agenda.

00:13:52 - 00:14:51

The committee approved the remaining 9 consent agenda items in a 5-0 vote.
The committee then heard an informational update from the Department of Economic Development.

00:14:51 - 00:20:01

The new chair of the Economic Development Authority, Dr. Angela Wilson, introduced herself and discussed the authority's recent focus on strategic planning around entrepreneurship, housing, and economic development support.
Supervisor Briskman and the chair discussed issues some businesses have faced with permitting and zoning, as well as workforce challenges, particularly the difficulty retaining employees due to the high cost of living in Loudoun County.

00:20:01 - 00:30:41

The committee heard a presentation on the FY2025 human services and nonprofit grants program.
There was discussion around monitoring whether religious organizations that receive grants are not using the funds for proselytization, as well as ensuring the grants are reaching Loudoun County residents.
Supervisor Briskman raised concerns about the proposed subsidy of startup costs, arguing it would unfairly burden her constituents who are already paying higher taxes. The committee ultimately voted 3-2 to recommend the subsidy to the full board.

00:30:41 - 00:59:47

The committee heard a presentation on the proposed sanitary district refuse and recycling collection program.
Supervisor Umstattd expressed concerns about subsidizing the program, arguing it would unfairly burden her constituents who already pay for trash service through their town taxes.
The committee voted 2-2 on a motion to approve the subsidy, so the item will move forward to the full board without a recommendation.

00:59:47 - 03:02:00

The committee heard a presentation on a proposed county-wide streetlight program that would use CIP funding to install new streetlights in communities that petition for them.
Supervisor Randall raised concerns about excluding HOA communities from eligibility, and the committee amended the motion to include both non-HOA and HOA communities.
The committee voted 4-0-1 to recommend the streetlight program to the full board.
The committee also heard a presentation and approved a motion to implement a county-wide flood assessment and mitigation program, to be included in the FY2026 budget request.

submitted by LoudounCountySummary to LoudounCountySummary [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 07:33 No_Situation_8125 Please help with this pmp question on study hall

Sometimes I feel the answer on study hall is wrong. Why so? Like this question Please help analyse why SH hall answer is correct? Even ChatGPT picked my answer
Why is option C correct please ? I choose A.
Key Factors Considered by Visa Officers 1. Purpose of Visit: * Clearly state the purpose of the visit. If the purpose is to visit your friend and get married, provide details of the wedding plans and any arrangements made. 2. Proof of Ties to Home Country: * The fiancé must demonstrate strong ties to Nigeria that will compel him to return after his visit. This includes: * Employment: Provide a letter from his employer stating his position, salary, and approved leave. * Property: Evidence of property ownership or a lease agreement. * Family: Documentation showing family ties in Nigeria. * Financial Stability: Bank statements, savings, or investments that show financial stability. 3. Financial Support: * Show that he has sufficient funds to cover the cost of the trip, including travel, accommodation, and other expenses. This can be demonstrated through personal bank statements, a letter of financial support from your friend, or a combination of both. 4. Previous Travel History: * A history of travel to other countries and compliance with visa conditions can positively impact the application. 5. Invitation Letter: * A detailed invitation letter from your friend (the sponsor) in Canada, outlining the purpose of the visit, relationship details, and assurance that he will be accommodated and supported during his stay. A project team is working on backlog items within a four-week sprint. Suddenly, a critical team member announces that they will unexpectedly be absent for one week, leaving ongoing tasks incomplete. What would be the most appropriate action for the project manager to take in this situation? A. Support a knowledge transfer between the team member who will be away and the other project team members. B. Add a temporary resource to the team to help increase velocity and complete the items for this sprint. C. Remove a few items from the current sprint after getting the approval of the product owner. D. Increase the sprint duration so the team can complete all the planned items and present them to the product owner.
Answer from SH:Solution: C. Remove a few items from the current sprint after getting the approval of the product owner. Removing a few items from the current sprint, with the approval of the product owner, is the most appropriate action this situation. It allows the team to focus on completing the most critical and valuable tasks within the sprint's original time frame. The other options are incorrect because they are not as suitable for this scenario. Knowledge transfer takes time and may not be feasible given the sudden and unexpected nature of the team membe absence. Knowledge transfer is a good practice in general, butit may not be the most appropriate action for this spec situation. Adding a temporary resource to the team is not the most practical option and may not be efficient or cost-effective for such a short duration, and it could disrupt the team's workflow. ' Changing the sprint duration disrupts the sprint planning and review process and can lead to various issues, including reduced predictability and potential scope creep. This question and rationale were developed in reference to: The Agile Practice Guide (No Date) PMI/PMI/5.2.6 PLANNING FOR ITERATION-BASED AGILE/55 [Item]

submitted by No_Situation_8125 to pmp [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 06:10 letsjam88 Still have medicaid coverage, despite being over the income limit (NC)

I don't understand how I still have Medicaid coverage despite making over the income limit. I live in NC and never spoke to anyone about recertification. I've been receiving letters saying I have coverage, a doctor has been chosen for me, and a plan has been selected.
I qualified for Medicaid last year but never used it because I got a job used my job's health insurance plan.
I thought they went by my income, which they have, I filed taxes each year, and I made over the monthly income the entire time during the recertification period.
NC has this new EPASS account that I can't access because my account is broken. When I've called the number to get help, either no one picks up or they give me different phone numbers that circle back around to people who can't help me.
My initial case worker was not helpful and didn't answer my questions or provide guidance. The NC website isn't helpful, many pages I try to go do are either broken or have no information. And there's rarely a number that works or leads to anyone I can speak to. I was the phone once for 2 hours trying to get answers but go the run around.
My concern is if I'll be penalized for some reason. I never used the insurance once while I was on it. I didn't register a card or an account. The only thing I did once getting coverage was logging into the marketplace to choose one of the insurance companies they listed.

submitted by letsjam88 to Medicaid [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 06:07 Ill-Shame-6739 Semi-Internship Fail???

Hello, so for context I’m currently a sophomore in undergrad, and summer is quickly approaching so I reached out to a previous PI at a medical school I interned at last summer. He originally said that he’d have me back every summer of my undergrad, and even when I asked “If he was sure” that I could come back this upcoming summer he said, “Of course!”. Anyway, I left on great terms, and then when I reached out a few months ago to confirm he said he had accepted another intern overseas and took on multiple Ph.D. students, and could no longer fund me working in his lab. I had already created an hour-by-hour itinerary of what I had planned to do during the internship to maximize my time, and come out with an interesting presentation, and was super bummed. In the same email he had also sent me a link to two grants I could apply to that would fully fund me, both of which were nearly a month EXPIRED 😭(only found out after pouring my heart and soul into an application saying why I need the funds to work in his lab). How would y'all feel about this? I mentioned while replying that they had already expired and were no longer a viable option for me along with most grants closing for funding in early March, and I've felt ghosted ever since. *Fast forward a month I ended up getting an internship at the same medical school but not in research, I’d be on campus and definitely run into my old lab mates eventually since everyone eats lunch at the same place. Should I go visit my old lab and check in on him still? Or would it be weird? I want to maintain a good relationship since he did say he would write me a letter of rec but he hasn't emailed me back since and I don't know what he's thinking or if it would be too awkward. Any advice on my stupid little dilemma would be appreciated! Thank you! :)

submitted by Ill-Shame-6739 to mdphd [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 06:06 Distinct_Camera1602 R. Ghani SCAM

Hi
I am very much grateful to you for your swift response and I want to assure you that you will be gratefully rewarded for your concern. Though this mail might come to you as a surprise and the temptation to ignore it seriously could come into your mind. Please consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility as I seek your indulgence to solicit for your assistance concerning the content of my email because I know in my heart that you can be trusted. Please note that I found your contact email on Google email database while doing some search and you seem to be a reasonable person I can work with, because I needed a reliable and experienced person who can handle an investment worth $22 Million US Dollars.
INTRODUCTION: I am Mrs. Rula Ghani, born in 1948 and wife of the former Afghanistan President (Mr. Ashraf Ghani) whose throne/office was taken over by the Taliban on 15th August 2021 for political reasons. I am presently writing to you from the UAE where I and my husband have currently sought Asylum. I have been in emotional devastation after the assassination attempt on me and my husband in Afghanistan and because of the crisis in the Kabul city of Afghanistan. So, I am seeking your assistance in relocating the sum of $22,000,000 USD (Twenty-Two Million United State Dollars) from my foreign bank account in Jakarta, Indonesia to your Country so that the funds can be used for investment there in your Country and the funds can also be invested into your existing business if any.
I am trusting you with the sum of $22,000,000.00 USD (Twenty-Two Million United State Dollars) which will be transferred to you from my foreign Bank account in Jakarta, Indonesia. I am willing to share 60% / 40% of whatever profit that will be made from the investment. The funds can be invested into any profitable business of your choice and the investment has to be in your name since I will not be able to come there in person for now.
All I need is your absolute trust, commitment, honesty and confidentiality. Because you have to do all the transactions and the investment on my behalf since I am very far away. I advised that you kindly keep all our discussion and the transaction secret and confidential to ensure safe and uninterrupted transfer of funds. Be rest assured that the transaction is 100% legal because I and my husband had deposited the money in my foreign Bank account in Jakarta, Indonesia and the funds will be transferred to you legally on your readiness. I will instruct my bank to start the transfer process as soon as you are willing and ready.
Please note that whatever we are facing currently in Afghanistan are political matters and I know it was a plan from our political opponent. You may not understand this if you are not a politician. Anyway, I will enlighten you more on the political matter in future as I do not have much time to discuss politics at the moment.
Please think about the proposal very well and let me know your decision whether you are INTERESTED or NOT to enable me to proceed to the next step. If you are interested and agree to accept 60/40 sharing, kindly reply immediately so that I can provide you with more detail.
I am hoping to hear from you again and may God bless you for taking your time to read my letter.
Regards Mrs. Rula Ghani.

submitted by Distinct_Camera1602 to u/Distinct_Camera1602 [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 06:02 Ok_Accountant1541 Here are some things we can do since we own the float.

1. Active Voting Participation: Make sure to participate in all voting events. Retail investors should use their voting rights to influence decisions regarding corporate governance, executive compensation, and other strategic matters. This can help steer the company in directions that align with their interests as long-term shareholders. 2. Collective Action: By organizing collectively, retail investors can form a more unified front, making their collective voice harder to ignore. This can be facilitated through online platforms, investor forums, or social media groups where shareholders can discuss and align their views on various issues before voting. 3. Engagement in Shareholder Meetings: Attend shareholder meetings to gain insights into the company’s performance and strategies and to express concerns or support for management decisions directly. These meetings are also a great opportunity to ask tough questions and request transparency from the company’s leadership. 4. Advocacy for Transparency and Accountability: Push for greater transparency and accountability in how the company is managed. This includes advocating for clear disclosures about financial status, business strategies, and risk management practices. 5. Promoting Long-term Strategies: Support and advocate for strategies that promote sustainable, long-term growth over short-term gains. This can include investments in innovation, expansion into new markets, or initiatives that enhance the company’s competitive advantage. 6. Monitoring and Responding to Corporate Proposals: Keep informed about any corporate proposals that could affect shareholder value, such as mergers, acquisitions, or changes to the corporate structure, and be prepared to vote on them with an informed perspective.

Holders stand to gain substantially in several ways:

1. Direct Influence on Strategy and Governance: Investors with voting rights can directly influence corporate decisions that affect the company’s strategy and governance. By voting on key issues such as board composition, executive compensation, and strategic initiatives, shareholders can ensure that the company’s direction aligns with their interests, potentially increasing the company’s long-term value. 2. Enhancing Shareholder Value: By actively participating in governance, retail investors can help steer the company towards practices that enhance shareholder value. This might include advocating for cost-effective measures, exploring new market opportunities, or improving financial and operational efficiencies. 3. Risk Management: Investors involved in voting can push for better risk management practices, which can protect the company from volatile market conditions and unexpected financial downturns. This can stabilize the stock price and contribute to a more predictable and secure investment environment. 4. Accountability: With substantial voting rights, retail investors can hold management accountable for their actions. This can lead to more responsible management practices, transparency in operations, and better overall performance, discouraging actions that might adversely affect the company and its shareholders. 5. Long-term Planning: Investors can encourage the company to focus on long-term goals rather than short-term earnings. This could involve investing in research and development, pursuing sustainable practices, or retaining earnings to fund future growth instead of distributing high dividends. Long-term planning can result in sustainable growth, which could increase the company’s market value and, subsequently, the value of the shareholders’ investments. 6. Community Building: By rallying around common goals, shareholders can build a community focused on the company’s success. This can foster a more engaged and informed shareholder base, which can be crucial during critical corporate decisions requiring shareholder votes. 7. Financial Gains from Stability and Growth: As the company grows and stabilizes through the influence of committed and strategic retail shareholders, the value of their investments could increase. Moreover, a well-governed company is more likely to attract additional investors, potentially driving up the stock price.

Overall, controlling the voting rights allows us retail investors to play an active role in shaping the company’s future, potentially leading to significant financial and strategic gains if managed wisely.

submitted by Ok_Accountant1541 to FFIE [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 04:59 Character_Error_9923 Am I (28M) wrong for being uncomfortable that the woman I'm seeing (29F) is going to lunch with her ex (30sM)?

I've been seeing this woman, Kianna, for about 2 and a half months now. We haven't had the "what are we?" talk yet, but we're both exclusively seeing each other so we may as well be, it's just that the topic hasn't come up. I really really enjoy her company, we get along really well, we have fun together, and we have the same morals. I do see a future with her, but she has a bit of a complicated situation with her ex.
To be fair, she has been fully transparent about her history with her ex. Basically her ex lives on a large farm/acreage with his parents, he owns a little house on the property and his parents own one too, and Kianna's ex invested a lot of his own time and money into helping his parents so he will inherit it all when they pass.
Well Kianna moved in with him and lived with her ex for 3-4 years. They bought animals together (horses, donkeys, chickens, dogs) and she also funded some of the projects they did on the farm. According to Kianna things were really great until she discovered her ex had a huge gambling problem and was basically in debt up to his eye balls. They tried to work it out, but he kept going back and so she was forced to leave. Now because she isn't from a farm and her income wouldn't allow for her to take her animals while renting a property, she had to leave them all with her ex, and so they've kept in contact specifically for the animals.
Kianna was very transparent about the whole thing. She says she still sends over food orders for the animals, and if he forwards her invoices for the vet she will send him half the money of the bill. Basically she's trying to still look after her animals the best she can given the circumstances, but aside from that she has very little contact with him.
That is until a few days ago, he reached out and requested they go for lunch. Says it's about the animals. Kianna gives him a call because she was worried and her ex tells her that they need to sit down and figure out how to go about selling the horses and donkeys because he (or his parents?) are going to be selling part of their land and need them gone. He also says he needs her to see him anyways because some mail came in for her that she needs to come get.
Kianna immediately told me her plans, but I feel uncomfortable by it. I don't exactly know why. I don't have a bad gut feeling about it or anything, but it's just weird they have to go to lunch together. Kianna also said that if they are selling the horses and donkeys that she will go to the farm and see them one last time, as well as her dogs and chickens. I think that's fair, but I'm also conflicted.
Also to give you time frames: Kianna and I have been seeing each other for almost 3 months. Her and her ex broke up a little over a year ago.
TL;DR: The woman I have been seeing keeps in contact with her ex due to animals they share (dogs, horses, donkeys, and chickens). Her ex requested to see her for lunch to discuss the future of the animals. I'm uncomfortable with it but don't know why.

submitted by Character_Error_9923 to relationships [link] [comments]

http://activeproperty.pl/