STOCKHOLM, Sweden — For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world’s oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It’s a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world’s most venerable journals. ‘We think it’s a cultural disaster,” said Hans Holm, who served as the chief editor of Post-och Inrikes Tidningar for 20 years. “It is sad when you have worked with it for so long and it has been around for so long.” Queen Kristina used the publication to keep her subjects informed of the affairs of state, Holm said, and the first editions, which were more like pamphlets, were carried by courier and posted on note boards in cities and towns throughout the kingdom. Today, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, which means mail and domestic tidings, runs legal announcements by corporations, courts and certain government agencies – about 1,500 a day according to Olov Vikstrom, the current editor. The paper edition was certainly not some mass-market […]
NEW ORLEANS — In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time. Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region. The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow. In the chaotic period after two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, slammed the Gulf Coast in 2005 – Katrina making landfall in late August, followed by Rita in late September – federal officials scrambled to provide help in hard-hit areas such as submerged neighborhoods near the French Quarter. But an Associated Press analysis of government data obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act suggests the government might not have been careful enough with its checkbook as it gave out nearly $5.3 billion in aid to storm victims. The analysis found the government regularly gave money to more homes in some neighborhoods than the number of homes that actually existed. The pattern was repeated in nearly 100 […]
A new US study suggests there is a strong link between loneliness and Alzheimer’s in old age. The study is published in this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Risk of developing Alzheimer’s in old age has been linked to social isolation before, but not with perceived isolation, or loneliness. Social isolation is a measure of connectedness with one’s social environment. It can be assessed by measuring extent and quality of social contact and relationships. Loneliness on the other hand is a more subjective variable, it can only be assessed by asking people questions like how alone, empty or abandoned they feel. Social isolation can occur without loneliness, and loneliness can occur even when one has many social contacts. Many scientists think that increasing isolation can trigger loneliness, and there is evidence to suggest that the two covary in the same direction – that is that people with the fewest social contacts feel the most lonely. Social isolation and loneliness tend to increase with age. For example networks of family, friends and acquaintances tend to get smaller through retirement, death of family members and friends, ill health and loss of mobility. In […]
PRINCETON, N.J. — About 1 million books in Princeton University’s collection will be made available online through Google Inc.’s book-scanning project, the school announced Monday. The university library will work with the Google’s Book Search Library Project over the next six years to digitize books that are a part of the public domain and no longer under copyright, according to a school news release. ‘Generations of Princeton librarians have devoted themselves to building a remarkable collection of books in thousands of subjects and dozens of languages,’ Princeton librarian Karin Trainer said. ‘Joining the Google partnership allows us to share our collection with researchers worldwide.’ Princeton is the 12th institution to make its books available through Google Book Search, joining schools like Harvard University, University of Texas-Austin and Oxford University. Internet users will be able to use key words to search the full texts of the books, which can then be downloaded. ‘We will be working with Google in the next several months to choose the subject areas to be digitized and the timetable for the work,’ Trainer said, adding that library staff, faculty and students will be able to suggest what should be digitized. The […]
WASHINGTON — President George Bush is proposing to slash medical care for the poor and elderly to meet the soaring cost of the Iraq war. Mr Bush’s $2.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes $100bn extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70bn already allocated by Congress and $141.7bn next year. He is planning an 11.3% increase for the Pentagon. Spending on the Iraq war is destined to top the total cost of the 13-year war in Vietnam. The huge rise in military spending is paid for by a squeeze on domestic programmes, including $66bn in cuts over five years to Medicare, the healthcare scheme for the elderly, and $12bn from the Medicaid healthcare scheme for the poor. Mr Bush said: ‘Today we submit a budget to the United States Congress that shows we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes … Our priority is to protect the American people. And our priority is to make sure our troops have what it takes to do their jobs.’ Although Democrats control Congress and have promised careful scrutiny of the budget over the next few months, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
