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COUNTRIES THAT BAN OR RESTRICT VPN SERVICES: Iran, Belarus, Iraq, North Korea, Turkmenistan, China, Russia, Egypt, India, Myanmar, Oman... United Kingdom?

This is probably referring to this: https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/gadgets-tech/vpn-ban-uk-b2939311.html

An older post from Mulvad about their issues advertising in the UK: https://mullvad.net/en/and-then/uk

OC by @Armand1@lemmy.world

Made as a commission based on Death from Soul Eater, client's favourite anime

All solid oak with stained ash in the round pockets (First use for some of the free bits from my last post)

90 days for statutory rape. Out of a possible 17 years.

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/66083702

Japanese pharmaceutical companies are investing more in China, the world's second-largest market, aiming to tap the rapidly improving drug discovery capabilities of Chinese partners to find promising new candidates.

Astellas Pharma will open a research and development center -- the company's first in China -- in Beijing as soon as this year.

The company already has sales and clinical trial facilities in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as a production base in Shenyang. The Beijing R&D hub will handle drug discovery.

Daiichi Sankyo is investing about 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) to increase China production capacity by starting operations at a Shanghai pharmaceutical production facility in fiscal 2030.

Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eisai have partnered with Chinese biotech companies to expand their pools of drug candidates.

We go to the flea market every so often but now that it's hot we wanted some shade for the wagon our kid rides in.

If we have it just resting inside she either tosses it or it slides out. We thought maybe getting those big wagons with the canopy but then I remembered these little photography clamps.
Seems to work really well and would work on the stroller also

From Humane Indiana Wildlife

You're not seeing double, these Great Horned Owl siblings were admitted to the rehab center yesterday after they were BOTH found tangled in the same soccer net at a local school! The maintenance employee spotted our entangled pair and carefully removed them. They were brought to the center for exams as both had bruising due to being caught for an unknown amount of time.

Soccer and sports nets are a major hazard for owls and other birds of prey. Because owls hunt at night and are highly focused on tracking prey (like mice that gather near athletic fields), they often fail to see the netting and become hopelessly tangled. As the owl thrashes around to escape, the netting wraps tightly around its wings and legs, leading to severe fractures, dislocated joints, constricted blood flow, and torn feathers. Young, inexperienced Great Horned Owls are especially prone to these accidents as they learn to hunt on their own.

The easiest and most effective way to protect local owls is to remove sporting nets from the goals after practices and games, or simply tip the entire goal frame over so the netting lies flat on the ground.

From Wild Wings Inc

Barn Owls stand out with deep brown, almost black eyes instead of the bright yellow seen in many owl species. Eye color in owls may also relate to activity patterns, with some research showing a correlation between similar eye colors and similar hunting times, though it is not always consistent.

It isn't too often we get a close-up where we can see their eyes are not truly black!

This is the first time I've actually used the zoom (2x) on a mobile camera.

🔗

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/66082832

A Trump White House plan to give political appointees more power over federal grant money has sparked alarm among scientists, public health organizations, environmental groups, and others who fear that the proposal amounts to an attempt to subordinate critical funds to the whims of the president and his far-right allies.

More than 300 organizations signed a joint letter on Friday calling on White House budget director Russell Vought, the proposed rule's architect, to extend the public comment period that's set to end on July 13, warning that the "scope and impact of [the Office of Management and Budget's] rule is vast."

"The rule will impact the entirety of government grant-making across the United States," the groups warned. "OMB itself says the revisions suggested would relate to over $179 billion of funds to small entities."

Politico, which exclusively obtained the letter, noted that the "proposed rule has already garnered over 15,000 public comments, with many expressing alarm that the changes could undermine research across fields."

Under Vought's rule, federal agencies would be required to perform "pre-issuance reviews" of federal grants—funds appropriated by Congress—to ensure their distribution is consistent with "applicable law, federal agency priorities, and the national interest."

The rule lays out a number of standards that political appointees at federal agencies must screen for when deciding whether an organization can receive federal grant dollars. For instance, the rule would prohibit the distribution of federal grants to organizations that "promote anti-American values" or support "ideologies that deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans."

The New York Times reported that the consequences of Vought's rule "could fall hardest on health and science, a field in which [President Donald Trump] has pursued some of the steepest cuts in his second term."

"In exchange for federal assistance, researchers would face limits on the subjects that they can explore, the foreign labs with which they may collaborate and even the conferences at which they can appear," the Times noted. "Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the chief executive of the American Public Health Association, a professional organization and advocacy group, said the policy could 'devastate innovation, science, and research' in the United States."

"This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans."

Earlier this month, Lawyers for Good Government and the Environmental Protection Network said that "if finalized, the rule would put senior political appointees in charge of approving and canceling individual grants, while stripping recipients of due process rights" while attaching "ideological conditions to nearly every federal dollar, raising First Amendment and equal-protection concerns."

The two organizations published a fact sheet warning that the proposed rule has the potential to halt billions of dollars in funding that communities across the US depend on for "health, public education, scientific research, public safety, and economic development projects."

“This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans,” said Jillian Blanchard, senior vice president for climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government. “Conditioning funding for critical programs on ideology and viewpoint discrimination, while erasing basic due-process protections, violates freedoms of speech, equal protection, and eviscerates Congress’ power of the purse.”

Democratic lawmakers have also sounded the alarm about Vought's proposal. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that she has given her Republican colleagues two opportunities to denounce Vought's rule—and they declined both times.

"Vought continues to attempt to steal from communities across the country. Now, he is trying to set a new political test on grants for a wide swath of the federal government," said DeLauro. "The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the denial of lifesaving disaster relief, funding for research into cures, the closure of Head Start offices, and more. If you are not loyal enough, if you speak out against this administration, the president and his cronies will take away resources Congress provided."

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