Tag: year

Regenerative medicine sector on pace for exceptional year | 2020-08-18

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A first half of the year progress report from the international advocacy group Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), finds that the regenerative medicine and advanced therapy sector is in very good shape and has performed well in terms of both clinical development and fundraising despite the challenges posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

ARM found that about $10.7 billion has been generated globally by companies involved in the sector, a total that exceeds the amount raised in all of 2019 by a significant 120% margin.

In addition, for the first time since ARM began tracking the sector, the alliance determined that there are now more than 1,000 companies worldwide actively involved in cell and gene therapy as well as tissue engineering, a total that has grown about 2% since the beginning of the year.

Regionally, there has been a 2% growth in companies located in North America to 543, or

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private Zoom tutors spark controversy as virtual school year looms

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<span>Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Elyssa Katz, a Santa Monica mother of three, is growing a matchmaking service to connect families with tutors, or “Zutors”, as she calls them – a word she’s in the process of trademarking.

“The role of a Zutor is a tutor, a nanny, and an angel for a parent,” Katz told the Guardian, someone who can take over parental demands, help children with online homework and take them outside when it’s time for “recess”.

Katz’s clients range from the rich and famous, to everyday people who need childcare because they can’t look after their children while they have to work. Katz said she had gotten calls from parents as far away as the Hamptons.

For a matchmaking fee that can range from $700 to $1,000 (£549 to £785), Katz and her team will interview tutor candidates, run background and reference checks, then match them to the

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As the School Year Approaches, Education May Become the Pandemic’s Latest Casualty

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Children tumble off a yellow school bus, where every other seat is marked with caution tape. Wearing whimsical masks—one has whiskers, another rhinestones—they wait to get their temperatures checked before filing into the one-story school building. Inside Wesley Elementary in Middletown, Conn., plastic shields rise from desks, and cartoon posters exhort children to cover your cough. In the middle of a lesson, teacher Susan Velardi picks up her laptop and pans it so her students can see the screen. “Look,” she tells them, “I have a friend that’s joining us at home!”

There’s a new set of ground rules in Velardi’s classroom. “Your mask is on, and your mask stays like this. If we go outside if it’s nice, we have to sit apart,” she tells the students, who will enter third grade in the fall. When one tries to high-five her, she compromises with an “air high five.” Other

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Chesapeake teachers group advocates for all-virtual start to school year

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The association representing more than 1,000 Chesapeake teachers and school staff said Wednesday that it does not support any plan that calls for in-person instruction when school resumes.

The announcement by the Chesapeake Education Association calls for virtual instruction for all students during the first semester given an increase in numbers of coronavirus cases in the region, including Chesapeake. It comes days before the city school board is set to vote on a plan that would bring at least some students back to the classroom in September. The group said it does not support those plans until various concerns are addressed, including safety and sanitation in school buildings.

The education association is opposed to any version of in-person learning, including an option called the “on-campus continuum.” That includes one model of traditional, five day learning in the classroom. The option is contingent on rates of coronavirus infections — more cases

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Illinois Teachers Union Says School Year Should Start Online

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WESTMONT, IL — The union representing teachers in Illinois called for the school year to begin with remote learning. A return to in-person instruction is currently too risky, according to the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

In a statement issued Monday, the statewide teacher’s union provided a list of 10 safety measures that every school district and college needs for its members to feel safe returning to the classroom. Too many schools cannot achieve “critical safety benchmarks,” it said.

“We arrived at this position by having talked to our members extensively about how do we do this,” Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery said in the statement. “Our primary concern is keeping everybody safe — not only our members, but our students, their families and their communities. At this point our recommendation is that schools should return to online or remote learning for the beginning of the school year. It

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Arts students lurch toward freshman year of college in pandemic-induced upheaval

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Arianna Carson, who plans to study dance at SUNY Purchase in the fall, is photographed near her home in Rowland Heights on July 6, 2020. <span class="copyright">(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)</span>
Arianna Carson, who plans to study dance at SUNY Purchase in the fall, is photographed near her home in Rowland Heights on July 6, 2020. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

As a dance student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Arianna Carson’s meticulously scheduled days often began at 5:15 am.

After commuting downtown to school, the 18-year-old spent the day balancing academic and dance classes. In the evenings, she would rehearse even more at a dance studio in Whittier until 9:30 p.m. By the time she began homework, it was usually around midnight.

When the pandemic forced her to take classes online, she transitioned her dance training to her living room and backyard.

The jam-packed days were crafted around Carson’s dream to become a professional modern dancer. She is scheduled to start this fall at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance in New York, even though

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Will UConn play football this year? Public health experts unsure about fall sports during coronavirus pandemic

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Currently, UConn football players are on campus in Storrs. They have been tested for COVID-19. They have passed through a modified quarantine period during which they remained in small groups. They have completed strength and conditioning workouts. They have begun on-field activities.

But no one knows for sure whether they’ll actually get to play.

Amid a raging pandemic, public health experts both nationally and in Connecticut have raised eyebrows about the idea of college sports this fall. Some say the games will be safe as long as schools implement proper protocols. Others wonder whether sports, particularly on college campuses, are worth the risk.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and there is no way we can make the risk zero,” said Dr. Matthew Cartter, Connecticut’s state epidemiologist. “We have to ask ourselves as a society, are sports important that we’re willing to accept the risk that people involved in

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L.A. and San Diego school districts to start the year online

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The two largest school districts in California announced Monday that classes will be online-only at the start of the school year, citing “skyrocketing infection rates” of the coronavirus in their areas.

The Los Angeles and San Diego unified school districts, which issued a joint announcement, will begin online instruction in mid-August but will “continue planning for a return to in-person learning during the 2020-21 academic year, as soon as public health conditions allow.”

Los Angeles Unified, the country’s second-largest school district with roughly 700,000 students, will begin instruction Aug. 18; San Diego Unified, which serves more than 100,000 students, is set to start Aug. 31.

“There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish,” Austin Beutner, the school superintendent in Los Angeles, said in a video message posted online.

In the joint announcement, the school districts said the research around coronavirus-era school safety remains “incomplete,” and

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Olympics must go ahead next year as symbol of overcoming COVID-19, Tokyo governor says

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By Linda Sieg and Ami Miyazaki

TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, often floated as a future Japanese premier, said on Monday the Olympics must go ahead next year as a symbol of world unity in overcoming the novel coronavirus, even as her city grapples with stubborn spikes in cases.

Japan has not seen an explosive coronavirus outbreak as suffered in some other places but a recent increase in cases in Tokyo, which accounts for more than a third of its more than 20,000 total, has fanned worries about a second wave of infections.

The 2020 Olympics were scheduled to start this month but were postponed because of the coronavirus. Koike has pledged to win public support for the Games, although a media survey showed a majority think they should be cancelled or postponed again.

“I want to host them as a symbol of the world coming together to

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Here’s how to pick an online school next year

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South Florida school options are diminishing almost daily. The pressure is mounting on parents to figure out how to make sure their kids get a quality education next year.

Palm Beach County schools will likely offer online-only instruction when the school year starts Aug. 10. Miami-Dade schools are also planning virtual-only learning to open the school year Aug. 24. Broward will make a decision on how to open schools in the coming weeks.

So what else is out there? There are private schools, some of which already have announced they will reopen for in-person classes, and charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

Then there are the public online schools that have been around for years, including Florida Virtual School and county-run virtual schools.

Decisions must be made soon. Some county virtual schools want applications by next week, while Florida Virtual’s deadline is July 31.

Here’s a primer

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