Portugal’s Golden Visa program (video)

 

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Venice will be wheelchair-friendly

 

Venice's bridges make it insurmountable for many visitors with mobility issues

(CNN) — Its 403 bridges, canals and pretty cobbled streets have made Venice one of the world's most beautiful cities. But it is near impossible for wheelchair users to navigate.

Now though, all that will change. Venice authorities will make the city's main sights accessible to all, with a wheelchair-friendly route from the city's main entry point to the iconic St. Mark's Square.

To kick off the project, the council has announced the construction of six ramps at heavily trafficked parts of the city: four on the route to St. Mark's, and two at other crucial points for locals. The scheme will cost €900,000 ($1.6 million).

Francesca Zaccariotto, councilor for public works, says the aim is "to build at least one route that will allow people of all ages to go at least from Piazzale Roma - the gateway to the Italian mainland - to St. Mark's without barriers."

The new route will not only be wheelchair accessible. "We have widened the plan so that everyone can do it without problems, including blind people, which wasn't in the original plan," said Zaccariotto."We are making steps easier to climb and adding non-slippery surfaces."

Venice is a tricky city to update, she said, because of strict rules around changing its cultural heritage. But, she said, the aim is to become "an example of accessibility for people with mobility issues. It will be a huge message to other places which fail to address access -- they will be left with no excuse."

From CNN (edited)

Photo credit: Marco Piraccini/Mondadori Portfolio

Courtesy Comune di Venezia

 

Venice will charge tourists

 

Venice plans to charge visitors for access and set entrance quotas from the summer of 2022, according to newspaper Stampa.

The Italian city, one of the world’s top tourist destinations, will also require prospective visitors to reserve access in advance, according.

Turnstiles will be installed at the main access points of the city’s historical center.

This year, with travel slowly resuming, the restrictions are back on the agenda, as global tourism hotspots try to restrain mass arrivals and improve the quality of the experience for both visitors and residents.

Last month, Italy banned large cruise ships from the Venice lagoon to protect the site from over-tourism. This might be just a first step in the plan to reinvent and regulate mass tourism.

Entry into Venice will cost anything from 3 euros ($3.5) to 10 euros, depending on the season and on how many tourists are expected on that day. Locals, relatives of residents, and tourists who have booked in a Venice hotel will be exempt from the entry fee. 

Charging visitors remains controversial. City councillor Marco Gasparinetti said it will turn Venice into a “theme park,” and proposes to restrict access only for particularly crowded areas, like San Marco square.

 

From Bloomberg (edited)

What 5G will make possible (video)

 

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UK red public phone booths

A traditional red telephone box stands in the village of Priston near Bath, in Somerset, England

Ofcom, the U.K.'s phone regulator, will keep thousands of the nation's famous red public phone booths in service, despite a sharp drop in calls from the boxes.

The U.K. currently has around 21,000 public call boxes that are still vital in case of emergencies and in areas where cellphone users can't get a reliable signal.

Under the regulator's new criteria, a call box will need to be used at least 52 times over a 12-month period to stay in service. Anyway, if a kiosk is in an area identified as an accident or suicide hotspot, it can't be removed.

"Some of the call boxes we plan to protect are used to make relatively low numbers of calls," said Selina Chadha, Ofcom's director of connectivity. "But if one of those calls is from a distressed child, an accident victim or someone contemplating suicide, that public phone line can be a lifeline at a time of great need."

Ofcom will take a phone booth out of operation only if its service area is covered by the U.K.'s four mobile networks.

Local communities can adopt a red phone kiosk under a plan that lets governments or organizations buy the call box for just £1. According to Ofcom, "more than 6,000 kiosks have been converted to a range of different uses, such as community libraries, or to house life-saving public defibrillators."

Red call boxes that meet the new protection criteria will have to update its analog telephone network. With the old phone system set to be turned off by the end of 2025, red call boxes that survive the cut will have to be upgraded to Internet Protocol standards.

A red phone box in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, was converted into a village library.

Photo Credit:Daniel R Jones/Getty Images

From NPR (edited)

Paella - an icon of the Mediterranean diet

 

Paella, one of Spain’s best-known dishes has been given protected cultural status on the grounds that it celebrates the “art of unity and sharing”.

On Tuesday, the government of Valencia – the region where paella originated – declared the dish an item of cultural significance, detailing its history and virtues in an eight-page announcement in the official gazette.

“Paella is an icon of the Mediterranean diet, because of both its ingredients and its characteristics as a representation of Valencian culture. All the ingredients used in its preparation – such as fish, meat, vegetables, the justly famous and healthy olive oil and the complete grain that is rice – are part of the Mediterranean diet.”

Its protein, vegetables and carbohydrates, it added, “make paella one of gastronomy’s most balanced dishes”.

The regional government said the new status will help promote study and research into the dish and will safeguard “the survival of this cultural item and ensure it is passed on to future generations”.

The declaration noted that paella must be protected from the “distortions that could result from mass tourism”. It also included a series of helpful do’s and don’ts.

Heat sources are important: make sure your fire’s not too smoky and check the heat is distributed evenly.

Perhaps the most important rule of all: never stir the rice while it is cooking. Any spatula incursions will release too much starch from the rice and leave you with a sticky paella.

The government pointed out that the dish is “the symbol of a Sunday family lunch … and represents a feeling of identity and continuity that we need to protect, maintain, and pass on”.

 “Tradition dictates that a paella should be eaten with a spoon (in the past they were wooden), although it’s true today that that custom has changed and each diner may choose for themselves.”

The dish was developed over the course of several centuries after the Arabs brought rice to Spain and the saffron trade began to flourish.

“The first reference to paella – or ‘Valencian rice’ – is to be found in an 18th-century recipe manuscript, which explains how it should be prepared and notes that the rice should end up dry.”

From The Guardian (edited)

 

Paella - reasons for its protected status (audio)

 

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Portugal 'game changer' remote work law

 

Remote workers in Portugal will see a healthier work-life balance under new labor laws approved by the country's parliament.

The new rules approved on Friday are a response to the explosion of home working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Portugal's ruling Socialist Party said.

Under the new rules, employers can now face fines for contacting workers outside of their normal working hours. But the amendments to Portugal's labor laws have limits: they will not apply to companies with fewer than ten employees.

Employers must not monitor their employees while they work at home.

However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs.

Companies must also now contribute to expenses that workers have incurred as a result of switching to remote working. This can include bills for electricity or internet, but not water. Employers can write off these costs as a business expense.

The new rules are also good news for parents of young children. They now have the right to work from home without having to arrange it in advance with their employers, up until their child turns eight years old.

Portugal was the first European country to alter its remote working rules as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in January this year. The temporary rules made remote working a mandatory option - with a few exceptions - and obliged employers to provide the necessary tools for getting the job done at home.

But while remote working during the pandemic brought new flexibility to many employees, issues such as unequal access to IT equipment showed the need for the government to step in, Portugal's Minister of Labor and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, told the Web Summit conference in Lisbon last week.

"Telework can be a 'game changer' if we profit from the advantages and reduce the disadvantages".

Building a healthy remote working culture will also bring other benefits to Portugal, in the form of foreign remote workers seeking a change of scenery.

"We consider Portugal one of the best places in the world for these digital nomads and remote workers to choose to live in, we want to attract them to Portugal," Mendes Godinho told the Web Summit audience.

 

From Euronews (edited)

Fake vaccination cards (video)

 

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Johnson & Johnson will split into 2 companies

       Johnson & Johnson shares jumped in premarket trading Friday after the business announcement. 

Johnson & Johnson announced Friday it will split itself into two publicly traded companies, separating its lucrative pharmaceutical and medical devices divisions from the consumer products business known for Band-Aid, Tylenol and its namesake baby shampoo.

The larger pharmaceutical and medical device business will retain the Johnson & Johnson name. The divisions — which include its coronavirus vaccine — brought in nearly $13 billion in the most recent quarter.

The other company will be built around such well-known brands as Tylenol, Listerine and Band-Aid, assets that took in about $3.7 billion in the most recent quarter. It is referred to in the company’s announcement as “The New Consumer Health Company.”

The separation will take 18 to 24 months and is subject to approval of the company’s board.

It is the latest corporate breakup of the week.

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said it will split into three businesses just days after General Electric announced it will become three companies focused on energy, aviation and health care.

From The Washington Post (edited)

Photo credit: Richard Drew/AP

A solar firm owner and a 1b dollar Ponzi scheme

The lavish lifestyle was part of the fraud. Jeff Carpoff and his wife, Paulette, wanted to give investors the illusion their solar energy company in the San Francisco Bay area was thriving.

So they purchased luxury real estate in the Caribbean, Nevada, Mexico and Lake Tahoe, Calif. They bought a NASCAR racecar sponsorship, a minor league baseball team and a private jet, and amassed more than 150 luxury and collector vehicles — including a 1978 Firebird formerly owned by actor Burt Reynolds, according to court documents.

The catch? The money used to finance that opulent lifestyle came from cheating their investors.

Now, Carpoff, 50, is going to federal prison for 30 years for orchestrating a $1 billion Ponzi scheme, which acting U.S. attorney Phillip Talbert called Tuesday “the largest criminal fraud scheme in the history of the Eastern District of California.” Carpoff, who pleaded guilty in January 2020, received the maximum sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

“Mr. Carpoff lived a luxurious life as a successful businessman,” Internal Revenue Service special agent in charge Mark Pearson said in a news release. “In reality, he manipulated the system to his advantage by lying to investors, promising significant federal tax credits, and laundering his ill-gotten gains.”

Carpoff, along with his wife and five other co-conspirators who also pleaded guilty, carried out the scheme from 2011 through 2018, according to court documents.

The Carpoffs’ business, DC Solar, manufactured mobile solar generator units, or MSGs, which are solar panels mounted onto wheeled trailers that harvest and store solar energy for later use. The company, based in Benicia, about 36 miles northeast of San Francisco, promoted the product as an emergency power source for cellphone towers and lighting at sporting events, construction sites and events in remote areas.

The company’s connection to solar energy was a major draw for investors because they would receive generous federal tax credits.

But Carpoff and his co-conspirators quickly ran into trouble when the business failed to deliver on several promises to investors, including revenue from third-party leases.

So they began fabricating market demand for MSGs, falsifying financial statements and lease contracts, and depositing new investor money into an account to give the appearance they were profiting from third-party leasing.

The business lost so much money that Carpoff stopped the production of MSGs, eventually selling thousands of nonexistent products to investors who believed they were benefiting from leasing the solar units.

“In reality, at least half of the approximately 17,000 mobile solar generators claimed to have been manufactured by DC Solar did not exist,” prosecutors said in a news release.

Carpoff and the co-conspirators tricked investors into believing the products were in several locations and put new vehicle identification stickers on older generator.

They also created a Ponzi scheme to pay back existing investors with money they claimed was from lease revenue but that was actually from new investors. Only about 6 percent of the funds paid to investors actually came from subleases.

Carpoff was required to forfeit many of his assets including his collection of luxury and collector cars. An auction of the cars netted $8.2 million. In all, the government has recovered about $120 million in lost assets which it intends to return to investors.

From The Washington Post (edited)

A new Mastercard for visually impaired users

 Approaching a register to pay for a morning coffee, for many people feels routine. The transaction likely takes no more than a few seconds: reach into your wallet, pull out a debit or credit card and pay. Done.

But for customers who are visually impaired, the process of paying can be more difficult.

Credit, debit and prepaid cards - all bank cards feel the same and cause confusion for people who rely on touch to discern differences.

One major financial institution is hoping that freshly designed bank cards, made especially for blind and sight-impaired customers, will make life easier.

Mastercard will distribute its new Touch Card — a bank card that has notches cut into the sides to help locate the right card by touch alone — to U.S. customers next year.

"The Touch Card will provide a greater sense of security, inclusivity and independence to the 2.2 billion people around the world with visual impairments," Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer, said in a statement. "For the visually impaired, identifying their payment cards is a real struggle. This tactile solution allows consumers to correctly orient the card and know which payment card they are using."

 

Credit cards will have a round notch; debit cards, a broad, square notch; and prepaid cards will have a triangular notch, the company said.

Virginia Jacko, who is blind and president and chief executive of Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired Inc.,  says this feature also addresses an important safety concern for people with vision problems since

they will no longer have to ask strangers for help identifying which card they need to use.

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How fresh is your food? (video)

 

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US and China will work together to slow warming

 

At a surprise announcement in the last days of the COP26 summit, the world’s two largest emitters — China and the United States — said they will work together to slow warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow climate conference ends in success.

In announcing the “Declaration for Enhanced Climate Action in the 2020s” China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said the two countries will reiterate the importance of the Paris temperature goal of limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with a goal of not exceeding 1.5 degrees.

With just a few days remaining to reach a COP26 agreement, he said the countries are focused on developing transparency regulations for reporting and tracking emissions and developing rules for a carbon market.

“Both sides recognize there is a gap between the current efforts and the Paris agreement goals,” Xie said in a news conference.

As the world’s two superpowers, he continued, the U.S. and China must work together on keeping the world a peaceful place.

“We need to think big and be responsible,” he said. “We must address climate change and, through cooperation, bring more benefits to our two countries and to people around the world.”

At his own news conference immediately after Xie’s, U.S. special climate envoy John F. Kerry called the declaration “a step we can build on in order to help close the gap” on emissions.

“The United States and China have many differences,” he added. “But on climate, cooperation is the only way to get this job done.”

The joint declaration is a product of nearly three dozen negotiating sessions, with diplomats from China and the U.S. meeting in person and virtually over the course of the year.

In a tweet, U.N. secretary general Antonio Guterres said he “welcomed” the agreement.

“Tackling the climate crisis requires international cooperation and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction,” he wrote.

Few details were immediately available about the implications of the declaration. For example, it did not identify an early date at which China’s carbon emissions will peak. Currently the country has said it plans to start decreasing emissions by 2030, or earlier if it can.

But, Kerry said, China will develop a plan to reduce its methane emissions and to phase down coal “as fast as is achievable.”

It is a first recognition from Beijing about the importance of methane in driving up warming.

One European negotiator said in a text message, speaking on condition of anonymity, “The significance of the U.S.-China accord is no guarantee that the broader talks in Glasgow will succeed”.

From The Washington Post (edited)