draws his face on a mirror while making a monoprint at the Museum of Art and Light booth Saturday during the Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan Lora McDonald performs during Saturday’s Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan She opened up a day of musical entertainment on the plaza’s patio washes laundry with a washboard as Riley County Historical Museum director Katharine Hensler observes Saturday during the Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan A train ride zips past the Union Pacific Train Depot during the Flint Hills Festival in Manhattan A dinosaur-costumed individual offers fist bumps to people waiting in line at food trucks Saturday during the Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan The Flint Hills Discovery Center during the event was promoting its next temporary exhibit “Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies,” which opens May 24 Families play with foam blocks Saturday during the Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan from Kansas Geological Survey on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence watches as young visitors see the various rocks and fossils on display at the booth Saturday during the Flint Hills Festival at Blue Earth Plaza in Manhattan The history and ecology of the Flint Hills region was on full display Saturday at the Flint Hills Festival in Manhattan “Flint Hills Festival is our one day of the year in which we bring everyone together to celebrate the Flint Hills Region,” said Stephen Bridenstine director of the Flint Hills Discovery Center Vendors hosted demonstrations to educate and inform an educator with the Kansas Geological Survey came with rocks and fossils from around the region “We can see a variety of rocks that you can naturally find here ranging from the limestone to the rare ones like agate and even volcanic ash from Yellowstone,” he said Riley County Historical Museum director Katharine Hensler demonstrated how Flint Hills settlers from the late 19th century washed their clothes “We’re letting the kids go from dirty laundry process to using a washboard to running things through the agitator and ringer and then hanging them to dry,” she said Bridenstine said the event doesn’t happen without regional support “We have over 40 partners who come from throughout the region folks who run educational activities and engage with guests.” Guests also enjoyed free admission Saturday into the Discovery Center We're always interested in hearing about news in our community there are no recent results for popular commented articles Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: Investor Deadline: Investors who purchased or acquired Solaris securities during the Class Period may, no later than MAY 27, 2025, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. To learn your rights, CLICK HERE. Headquartered in Houston, Solaris develops equipment used in the oil and gas industry. On July 9, 2024, Solaris announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Mobile Energy Rentals LLC ("MER"). Solaris completed the MER acquisition on September 11, 2024. On March 17, 2025, investors learned the truth when Morpheus Research published a report alleging that MER had been "a ~$2.5 million revenue equipment leasing business based out of a condo with zero employees, no turbines, and no track record in the mobile turbine rental industry." The report revealed that one of MER's co-owners was a convicted felon who was involved in a "$800 million gas turbine scandal… that included allegations of bid rigging [and] corruption." On this news, Solaris' stock price fell $4.15, or nearly 17%, to close at $20.46 per share on March 17, 2025. To learn your rights or for more information, CLICK HERE or please contact Berger Montague: Andrew Abramowitz at aabramowitz@bm.net or (215) 875-3015, or Peter Hamner at phamner@bm.net. Berger Montague, with offices in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Delaware, Washington, D.C., San Diego, San Francisco and Chicago, has been a pioneer in securities class action litigation since its founding in 1970. Berger Montague has represented individual and institutional investors for over five decades and serves as lead counsel in courts throughout the United States. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/250799 .st3{enable-background:new}BuzzFeed Shopping logoSearchGift Guide but all were independently selected by our editors BuzzFeed and its publishing partners may collect a share of sales and/or other compensation from the links on this page this order of ingredients is important to note because the ingredients listed first are the most present in a product Shokeen Khalsa explained that some of these shared ingredients include glycerin a favored humectant that draws moisture into the skin and panthenol (provitamin B5) which soothes and heals using anti-inflammatory properties She mentioned that the two moisturizers have a comparable rich and thick consistency in part to the inclusion of lanolin alcohol and petroleum an emollient-rich and occlusive combination that works to soften skin and lock-in moisture — kind of like how people use petroleum jelly to slug their skin “Crème de la Mer’s formula is centered around its ‘Miracle Broth,’” Shokeen Khalsa said ”[This] is a fermented mix of sea kelp and other nutrients along with a bio-fermentation process that the company claims makes the product unique.” this secretive solution is what helps to repair visible signs of premature skin aging rejuvenates the complexion and is what makes this cream so sought after Shokeen Khalsa notes that the coveted recipe is also packed with antioxidants which she said “has a more straightforward formula does not boast the same proprietary components or the extensive research and development that La Mer does.” you don’t necessarily need to pay for something top-dollar as long as a cream is doing its job as a hydrator And many people attest to the Nivea Creme doing just that even if it doesn’t boast the same composition as La Mer reviewers claim that Nivea has provided relief for damaged flaking skin when nothing else would and has even helped to minimize the appearance of fine lines and dryness-related wrinkles You can read them for yourself down below or buy a budget-friendly tin from the link below Reviews have been edited for length and/or clarity Make a smart investment by bringing Apple to your school or your entire district For help with sales,contact Apple Education at edulatam@apple.com Speak to an Apple Education Specialist for help with products and solutions Ensemble scolaire St Pierre de la Mer is a multi-school campus with 1,100 students aged 5-18 years old located in the coastal town of Saint-Cyprien in the south of France As part of the national drive to improve student digital skills the school focuses on STEAM learning — emphasizing science When St Pierre de la Mer first began its STEAM program the school’s leaders knew that giving students the right technology would be key to their success They also believed each student should have their own device — one that was portable and versatile enough for individualized learning St Pierre de la Mer began deploying iPad to teachers and students our middle and high school students are learning the indispensable skills that they’ll need in their professional lives,” says Sandrine Olivier St Pierre de la Mer’s deputy director of middle and high school iPad’s built-in apps and features give students learning tools — all in one device students use Camera to capture the cells they see through their microscopes and then mark up the images in Keynote to annotate their findings Physics students in Stéphane Calvo’s class observe the motion of rolling objects and easily create visualizations to locate patterns within their results allowing us to move around the classroom with our devices so we can give students the right amount of attention,” says Director of Education Stéphane Calvo With iPad deployed to every middle and high school teacher educators at St Pierre de la Mer are introducing new innovative approaches to teaching in the classroom computer science teachers use Swift Playground on iPad to teach every student from middle school onward how to code They set weekly challenges to test student understanding Educators also rely on iPad to help students with different learning styles students can use whichever tools best support their unique strengths Visual learners take notes with Pages or Keynote while auditory learners use Voice Memos to record their thoughts rather than writing them down and kinesthetic learners use Clips or Freeform to create tactile learning maps “When students are encouraged to find the tools they need to complete their tasks they discover new ways to show their learnings This inspires both educators and pupils and fosters a closer connection between them,” says Calvo iPad is a vital part of St Pierre de la Mer’s STEAM approach to learning the school is ensuring all students graduate with a love of learning equipped with the tools they need to succeed in the future Apple products and resources are designed to make learning personal Jesper Svensson and Chris Via rounded out the quarterfinals field for the 2025 PBA Playoffs with their respective Round 1 victories while Via eliminated Ryan Barnes in their respective Race-to-Two match at Strobl Arena in Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park Anthony Simonsen and Kyle Troup also advanced through Round 1 in yesterday’s competition. The quarterfinals will air May 10 at 2 p.m. and May 11 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on FS1. Svensson again prevailed over Butturff in a rematch of last month’s PBA Tournament of Champions title match Butturff won the first game 200-192 before Svensson forced a two-frame roll-off with a 199-197 Game 2 win Svensson fired four strikes in the roll-off to advance by a 60-39 margin the transition happened a little quicker than usual,” Svensson said “The left lane got pretty dirty after a while I felt like we couldn't really figure out a way to consistently hit the pocket it didn't really strike either on that lane I felt like I threw good shots to get the dub.” 2 seed who will be competing less than an hour from his hometown of Holly and one of the best players probably in the clutch here,” Svensson said “It's going to be hard to feel like I can put enough pressure on him to kind of tap out I also get the chance to set up the lanes a little bit more the way I want to The Iceman cometh for the quarterfinals.📺 FS1 | FOX Sports app pic.twitter.com/ZDSncDepN9 — PBA Tour (@PBATour) May 5, 2025 Via came back from a decisive 279-188 Game 1 defeat to beat Barnes Via won the second game 234-185 and struck on his first three shots to win the roll-off “The transition hit me a little bit quicker than I thought on that long pattern and I was a little behind (the transition) and I think Ryan was a little further left than I was A couple of not-great shots were magnified by being on the wrong side of it,” Via said of his poor start “I was making great shots on the short pattern pretty much the entire time so I felt super confident and comfortable over there.” Via said competing on dual oil patterns — the 37-foot Bat pattern on the left lane and the 44-foot Hardwick pattern on the right lane — presents a different but not necessarily more difficult challenge “Even when you’re bowling on the same pattern rather than just playing a pattern,” Via said typically you are doing something a little bit closer on both lanes With this seven-foot difference in the length of the pattern so it makes it a little bit more difficult but I guess it’s just a different kind of challenge.” Via will face Jason Belmonte in the quarterfinals on May 11 “If you always want to beat the best,” Via said “Obviously EJ has had an incredible couple of years here but Belmo had that 10-year stretch where he was just unreal It seems like EJ is kind of starting that 10-year stretch right now To be able to take him down would just make it that much sweeter.” WHAT A COMEBACK!@ChrisVia_ celebrates his Round 1 win over Ryan Barnes with the Pilgrim's Moment of the Match. pic.twitter.com/VpkDhe2RPF — PBA Tour (@PBATour) May 5, 2025 The PBA Playoffs feature the top 12 players in competition points this season Tackett led the tour with 34,690 points — more than second place Andrew Anderson (18,120) and third place Jason Belmonte (15,365) combined Belmonte and Fach each earned a bye to the quarterfinals The finalists will return for the live championship match The full TV schedule is available here Round 1No Quarterfinals - airing May 10 at 2pm ET | FS1No Quarterfinals - airing May 11 at 6:30pm ET | FS1No Semifinals - airing May 18 at 12pm ET | FS1Tackett/Simonsen vs Championship - airing May 24 at 2:30pm ET | FOX (live) © 2023 PBA. All Rights Reserved  California Gov. Newsom on Tuesday announced a new initiative that integrates generative AI technologies across the state government The initiative focuses on using generative AI tools that improve traffic flow the governor said it’s about improving — not cutting — government services we know that efficiency means more than cutting services to save a buck but instead building and refining our state government to better serve all Californians,” Newsom said As part of the new initiative, the California Department of Transportation will use use generative AI to analyze highway data and reduce congestion, while the Department of Tax and Fee Administration will use AI tools to streamline its customer service systems The state will also deploy AI analytics aimed at preventing traffic fatalities and improving public safety “We are committed to harnessing the latest technologies to better serve Californians,” Nick Maduros California Government Operations Agency secretary we’re improving government service while also showing the benefits this California-based industry can bring to governments all over the world.” The rollout stems from Newsom’s 2023 executive order on AI It uses California’s unique “request for innovative ideas” procurement process which allows the state says allows it to test and scale tech projects more quickly and securely The initiative also aligns with the February launch of the new Engaged California platform designed to strengthen civic engagement, especially in wildfire-affected communities Get excited for the upcoming launch of the brand-new Nana Kosher Beach Club and La Mer Restaurant opening exclusively for Passover 2025 in Miami Beach This limited-time experience brings together elevated kosher dining the Nana Beach Club will be open daily from 10AM–5PM offering guests a luxurious kosher day-club experience like no other La Mer is a new beachfront Mediterranean kosher restaurant (KM) by celebrity chef Olivia Ostrow and a Shabbat dinner experience during Passover week La Mer’s Passover menu is a true celebration of Mediterranean coastal flavors crafted with flair by celebrity chef Olivia Ostrow The beachfront restaurant is offering gourmet lunch and specialty dinner options daily during Passover with everything prepared under strict KM Glatt Kosher certification Guests can start their experience with refreshing salads like the watermelon salad with mint and balsamic glaze the hearty Tunisian salad with tuna and preserved lemon or the vibrant seaside ceviche with grouper For a protein-packed appetizer or shareable plate family-style meat platters and boneless ribeye entrecote are on offer—perfect for groups enjoying the club vibe The “Al Ha’Esh” grilled section is the centerpiece of La Mer’s savory menu These main courses are paired with a beautiful variety of mezze-style sides like harissa potato salad Diners can enjoy options like grilled salmon with preserved lemon and za’atar and even a grilled fish platter featuring Moroccan sardines and rouget For something more casual but just as indulgent the sandwich lineup includes a smashed burger a gourmet grilled chicken club with pastrami bacon and a grilled grouper sandwich topped with pineapple slaw and Ostrow’s signature sauce—all served on Passover-friendly bread or buns Chef Olivia Ostrow brings 30 years of award-winning culinary expertise to Nana Known for her innovative kosher cooking techniques Olivia’s resume includes managing Cecconi’s at Soho House Miami and now she’s curating a menu that blends Mediterranean flavors with beachside elegance a 20-year veteran in global hospitality and nightlife is the visionary force behind the Nana concept With hundreds of high-profile events under her belt she’s redefining what luxury kosher entertainment looks like six-time NBA All-Star and advocate for kosher living Blending the taste of the French Riviera with the energy of Tulum Nana Kosher Beach Club is set to be Miami Beach’s most talked-about kosher experience of the season—but only for Passover The club will reopen in July for summer reservations Dani Klein founded YeahThatsKosher in 2008 as a global kosher restaurant & travel resource for the Jewish community He is passionate about traveling the world and spending time with his friends & family We use ads & sponsored posts to support the creation of new content © YeahThatsKosher 2024 – Reproduction without explicit permission is strictly prohibited. | Privacy Policy • Download our kosher restaurant directory app Metrics details Accurately genotyping structural variant (SV) alleles is crucial to genomics research We present a novel method (kanpig) for genotyping SVs that leverages variant graphs and k-mer vectors to rapidly generate accurate SV genotypes Benchmarking against the latest SV datasets shows kanpig achieves a single-sample genotyping concordance of 82.1% significantly outperforming existing tools We explore kanpig’s use for multi-sample projects by testing on 47 genetically diverse samples and find kanpig accurately genotypes complex loci (e.g and produces higher genotyping concordance than other tools Kanpig requires only 43 seconds to process a single sample’s 20x long-reads and can be run on PacBio or Oxford Nanopore long-reads We showcase kanpig through a comprehensive benchmarking framework evaluating its accuracy using a diverse set of haplotype-resolved long-read assemblies We compare kanpig’s genotype accuracy with that of other long-read SV genotypers In addition to evaluating kanpig using high-confidence we also benchmark against SVs discovered by the commonly used SV caller sniffles and multi-sample SV VCFs kanpig consistently produced more accurate genotypes and successfully avoided common errors seen in other genotypers particularly for neighboring SVs within and across samples a Schematic of the main steps of kanpig’s algorithm b Sequence similarity vs Canberra similarity of ≥50 bp insertion pairs within 500 bp from GIAB v1.1 SVs 41,152 (29%) have a size and edlib sequence similarity above 95% which included 30,641 compound heterozygous pairs occurring at the exact same position 37,918 (92%) also had a Canberra similarity above 95% many neighboring SVs are highly similar and the Canberra similarity metric accurately measures them kanpig’s graph ensures that if a haplotype supports the red SV it cannot also support the overlapping green or blue SVs if either reads or SVs were evaluated independently it is possible for reads from the same haplotype to support different conflicting SVs or for overlapping SVs to redundantly recruit support from the same read This could give rise to problems such as two overlapping SVs being genotyped as homozygous Since human autosomal chromosomes are diploid a homozygous variant that overlaps another present variant in a single sample is conflicting as it is biologically implausible to e.g lose both copies and then additional copies of overlapped deletions at the same time Kanpig’s design prevents this type of genotyping error by correctly handling overlapping and nearby SV neighborhoods derived from a single highly polished diploidtelomere-to-telomere assembly These two benchmarks of insertions and deletions greater than 50 bp have vastly different levels of completeness GIAB v0.6 contains 9646 SVs compared to 27,560 SVs for v1.1 The ratio of heterozygous to homozygous variants (het/hom ratio) in GIAB v0.6 is 1.16 compared to 4.15 for v1.1 These benchmarks’ differences are especially notable in the context of overlapping and closely adjacent SVs While GIAB v0.6 has no Tier 1 passing SVs within 1 kbp of another SV 15,685 (43%) of GIAB v1.1 SVs have at least one neighbor These observations of het/hom ratio and neighboring SVs are not independent as 92.2% of draft GIAB v1.1 SVs with at least one neighbor are heterozygous compared to 65.5% without neighbors being heterozygous (chi-squared test p < 0.01) SV genotypers benchmarked primarily against GIAB v0.6 may be biased towards a subset of homozygous SVs in the development of kanpig we leveraged the draft GIAB v1.1 and in-house sequencing replicates of HG002 for training This resulted in a 0.996 precision and 0.987 recall with a 99.3% genotype concordance The consistency of the HG002 variants from the HPRC assembly and dipcall pipeline to GIAB v1.1 suggests the pipeline is sufficient for generating baseline VCFs across all HPRC samples for testing Note that sniffles and cuteSV are long-read SV discovery tools with genotyping-only (a.k.a “force-calling” or ‘-fc‘) modes which are tested here Left side: Genotype concordance a for three read coverages b stratified by SV type of deletion (DEL) and insertion (INS) c stratified by SV location inside or outside tandem repeats Note that left figures have truncated y-axes (50–90%) for readability d Genotype concordance by number of neighboring SVs within one thousand base pairs (top) and proportion of SVs by number of neighbors (bottom) e Average genotype distribution per sample in the baseline assembly-based variants and for each tool’s result All bar plot error bars represent 95% confidence intervals of the mean The assemblies produced an average of 9706 deletions and 16,870 insertions per sample. Stratifying genotyper performance by SV type found that all tools’ deletion genotypes had higher concordance than their insertion genotypes (Fig. 2b) The best-performing genotyper on deletions was SVJedi at 88.2% average genotype concordance followed by kanpig at 86.5% kanpig’s 79.5% genotype concordance was much higher than SVJedi’s at 66.1% Kanpig’s performance between SV types had the lowest imbalance (i.e difference between deletion and insertion concordance) at 7.0 percentage points (p.p) compared to 20.5 p.p to 23.2 p.p for the other tools SVJedi had the second highest performance at 72.4% inside and 78.6% outside of TRs A strong predictor of a genotyper’s ability to correctly assign a genotype was the presence of neighboring variants since they increase the complexity of the locus being evaluated. We measured tools’ genotyping concordance stratified by variants having neighbors within 1000 bp and those without (i.e. isolated) (Fig. 2d) genotype concordance was between 95.0% (SVJedi) and 92.7% (kanpig) Over the remaining 49.2% of SVs per sample with neighbors kanpig had the highest average genotyping concordance at 70.9% while sniffles-fc and cuteSV-fc were below 40% This suggests that all tested genotypers perform reasonably well on isolated SVs while kanpig’s ability to correctly genotype SVs in close proximity to one another differentiates it We found kanpig’s 3.00 average het/hom ratio per sample is closest to the assembly SVs’ average het/hom ratio of 4.58 The other tools had a stronger bias towards assigning homozygous genotypes with het/hom ratios between 1.38 and 1.10 Since every variant assessed in this experiment is known to be present according to their respective assemblies any assignment by a genotyper of a reference homozygous state is an error Kanpig exhibits the second highest average reference homozygous error rate at 11.4% behind cuteSV-fc at 16.5% the above genotype concordance measurements are already penalized for these mistakes and did not prevent kanpig from recording the highest genotyping concordance insufficient evidence to assign any genotype: ./.) is from kanpig with an average of 3.5% of variants per sample while SVJedi is second at 1.2% and missingness rate suggest that in some stratifications other tools may be able to confirm the presence of alternate alleles (i.e kanpig’s consistently high assignment of correct genotypes (i.e precision) across all stratifications lead to a significantly higher overall genotyping accuracy SV discovery tools are susceptible to errors in the form of imperfect variant representations each of which challenges the subsequent use of SV genotypers To test kanpig’s ability to handle errors in the variant graph we generated SVs on the 47 HPRC 32x samples using sniffles discovery and compared results to the assembly-derived SV set and ≥95% similar in sequence and size (Methods: Data Collection) The initial set of discovered SVs had 561,735 total variants and truvari collapse left 257,323 total variants (54.1% reduction) as input for the genotypers The consolidated assembly-derived SVs from the 47 HPRC samples contained 403,031 autosomal SVs between 50 bp and 10kbp A total of 371,771 SVs (92.2%) were within 1000 bp of another SV; this included 346,843 (86.0%) within 500 bp of another SV of the same type that was also at least 95% similar in terms of size and sequence Genotype concordance by number of neighbors for discovered SVs (a) and assembly-derived SVs from 47 samples (c) with the top figure representing genotype concordance per-neighbor count and bottom representing the percent of SVs in the project-level VCF having the specified number count Genotype distribution for discovered (b) and assembly-derived SVs (d) the x-axis has been truncated to 20–100% for readability the baseline corresponds to the original sniffles discovery genotypes without full genotyping and all missing (‘./.’) genotypes assumed to be reference homozygous Bar plot error bars represent 95% confidence intervals of the mean there are 403,031 SVs found across samples an average of 7% (~28,000) of these SVs were expected to be present (heterozygous or homozygous alternate) Kanpig genotyped an average of 7% of SVs as present and 6% as missing SVJedi genotyped 15% of SVs as present and 16% as missing while sniffles-fc and cuteSV-fc genotyped 33% and 66% of all SVs as being present per sample with both producing missingness rates below 1% The comparability of genotyper performance on ONT and PacBio reads suggests all tools can effectively leverage both technologies kanpig’s 2.3 percentage point (p.p) drop in concordance using R9 compared to R10 being higher than other tools (second sniffles-fc at 1.5p.p) indicated kanpig is more dependent on the base-pair level accuracy of reads for even comparison we subtracted minigraph’s runtime from SVJedi’s runtime (4.6 h) All tested genotypers can run using multiple threads and therefore were also tested when given 16 cores the whole-genome 32× sniffles discovery calls We repeated the chromosome 1 and whole-genome tests on the 47-sample sniffles VCF and found kanpig was the second fastest and least memory-intensive tool Here we presented a detailed description and evaluation of our long-read SV genotyping tool kanpig By leveraging high-quality SV benchmarks from multiple samples and testing under various conditions we showed kanpig’s superior accuracy to other genotypers Our results demonstrated that kanpig consistently outperforms other long-read SV genotypers across most stratifications and use cases we found that kanpig more frequently assigns the correct genotype to nearby (i.e neighboring) SVs that dominate the SV landscape particularly when analyzing SVs across multiple samples If the evaluation of neighboring SVs is improper genotypes which produce biologically implausible haplotypes per sample (e.g three overlapping deletions in a diploid genome) Kanpig is able to properly genotype neighboring SVs due to its algorithm evaluating variant graphs constructed over windows of the genome instead of independently searching for read evidence supporting each SV kanpig’s measurement of sequence similarity between long-reads and paths through the variant graph helps ensure that the single optimal path through multiple SVs is chosen the draft GIAB v1.1 benchmark has ~2.5x more SVs than its predecessor including ~43% within 1000 bp of another SV the HPRC assemblies - which comprise 47 genetically diverse individuals - supported a variant count of ~26 thousand SVs between 50bp-10kbp and ~4 het/hom ratio per sample Not only was kanpig able to achieve the best genotyping concordance on these high-confidence benchmarks but we also showed kanpig’s ability to accurately genotype discovered SVs from sniffles While this manuscript primarily reports test results using dipcall and sniffles discovery VCFs kanpig is able to process any compliant VCF with SVs having accurate breakpoints and full allele sequences (i.e which are routinely produced by many long-read SV discovery tools We benchmarked kanpig’s accuracy when given PacBio HiFi and ONT R9 and R10 reads to demonstrate its utility across multiple long-read technologies SV genotypers are not only reliant on sequencing technology but also the quality of the provided input SVs’ description since genotypers are designed to investigate the postulated SVs kanpig’s precision in applying sequencing to SVs’ variant graphs was able to reduce the number of falsely discovered SVs while maintaining a high recall improving not only the calls’ genotypes but also the set of SVs reported per sample This is dependent on the information a SV caller provides in terms of accurate and complete allele descriptions researchers need to be aware that over or under merging will impact the performance of not only the SV genotyping methodology but all subsequent analysis Future work is needed to understand exactly what combination of DNA sequencing technology and SV merging approach most efficiently reports SVs whereas the work presented here serves only as a start to addressing the field’s need for an accurate SV genotyper Any bioinformatics tool designed to assist genomics researchers must undergo continuous development and maintenance While the version of kanpig presented here can immediately begin serving researchers optimized BAM/CRAM access patterns could reduce runtime and kanpig’s design should be able to leverage haplotagged reads to assist read clustering as well as annotate long-range phasing information kanpig is limited to parsing continuous alignments and does not leverage the split or clipped alignment signals that typically occur around larger SVs kanpig is currently applicable to variants smaller than the read length Future versions of kanpig should be able to incorporate split/clipped alignments to better genotype SVs larger than ~10 kbp kanpig currently requires long-read alignments to span the neighborhood of variants in each locus’s variant graph a future implementation of kanpig could potentially relax this requirement by applying partial alignments to their corresponding subgraph Though this will require careful design to ensure there is no regression in kanpig’s accuracy when genotyping neighboring SVs and the potential impacts of improved SV genotyping to SV research The results presented here on high-confidence benchmarks and other datasets should promote rapid adoption of kanpig for at-scale SV studies thus improving the reliability of population SV results and potentially contributing to novel findings in biological and clinical research Variant sequences are encoded as k-mer vectors T} and the function E be the two-bit encoding of each element of n such that A = 0; G = 1; C = 2; T = 3 Let S be a string of nucleotides with length l such that S = n0 A k-mer K of size k is a substring of S beginning at 0-based position i and defined as Kki(S) = ni K-mer vectors (V) hold the counts of all k-mers inside of a string of nucleotides Each possible k-mer combination of n can map to a unique index j of a conceptual array V with size |n | k The index j of Kk0 can be calculated using a left bitshift operation (<<) and the formula: j of the first 3-mer for the sequence “CAGT” is: This operation updates j by first masking (m) the two leftmost bits and adding the current nucleotide’s encoding before again incrementing Vj Sequences shorter than k cannot be vectorized and therefore return a vector of all zeros The similarity of two k-mer vectors (p & q) of length n can be calculated using the Canberra distance function and the absolute value function abs In addition to comparing variants’ k-mer vectors’ sequence similarity the size similarity of two variants’ sequences (a,b) can be compared Deletions constitute a removal of sequence and are thus negative in length whereas insertions add sequence and are positive in length Two vectors’ associated lengths must be of the same sign (e.g two deletions would both have negative size) to be compared and their size similarity is calculated as The thresholds for minimum size and sequence similarity needed for two vectors to be considered equivalent defaults to 0.90 and can be set by users via a parameter This setup of k-mer vectors and comparison metrics allows multiple variants within a region to be summed in order to produce a ‘net-change’ over the region two 100 bp deletions have 99% size similarity with a single 198 bp deletion k-mer vectors can be summed to contain the total k-mer count across multiple variants A variant call format file (VCF) containing full alleles (REF and ALT sequence) is parsed and partitioned into chunks of variants which are within --chunksize distance from one another This creates sets of variants where the distance between the upstream-most variant’s start position and the downstream-most variant’s end position is at least --chunksize base pairs away from any other variant on the same chromosome A directed graph is constructed with nodes representing each variant and edges linking variants to all non-overlapping downstream variants anchor bases are trimmed and the remaining reference and alternate sequences are stored as a k-mer vector of V(ALT)-V(REF) the length of the variant’s described change is recorded as length(ALT)-length(REF) A source node upstream of all variants is added to the graph with edges to all variants as well as a sink node downstream with edges from all variants Note that only variants are k-mer vectorized and not reference sequences (i.e read alignments’s CIGAR strings from a BAM file which span the graph’s region are parsed to identity insertion and deletion variants and which reads support each variant is tracked only primary alignments which fully span the region and have above a minimum mapping quality (--minmapq 5) are included in the pileup and insertion and deletion variants within a parameterized size range (--sizemin 50 –sizemax 10000) are analyzed Each variant’s sequence is converted into a k-mer vector and size is recorded Reads with identical sets of pileup variants are consolidated with constituent reads’ count recorded to thus create a putative haplotype We define a haplotype as a set of variants described by aligned reads over a window of the genome A haplotype contains the set of variants’ k-mer vectors and the size of variants’ changes relative to the reference The set of putative haplotypes created during pileup generation described above is grouped with k-means clustering (using k = 2) on the sum of their variants’ k-mer vectors to identify up to two alternate allele haplotypes the putative haplotype described by the highest number of reads is chosen as the representative for the haplotype If only one alternate haplotype is identified the proportions of alternate and reference homozygous read coverage are analyzed (see Methods: Genotyping and Annotation) to identify if the locus is homozygous alternate or heterozygous kanpig allows haplotypes above a size similarity threshold (--hapsim default: 1) to be consolidated and the locus is deemed to have a single alternate allele Note this threshold is off by default and therefore performs no consolidation the two alternate haplotypes are considered a compound heterozygous pair of alleles and returned to be applied to the variant graph Given a haplotype and variant graph for a locus kanpig searches for an optimal path through the variant graph that best matches the haplotype’s variants by maximizing the score described in (5) The algorithm begins with a breadth-first search and explores outgoing edges to construct paths to neighboring nodes These partial paths are added to a binary min-heap which prioritizes paths based on their length with paths having total nodes’ variants’ length more similar to the haplotype’s length receiving higher priority kanpig pops the highest-priority path from the heap and extends the path by visiting all outgoing edges from this node Newly extended partial paths are pushed back onto the heap the haplotype-path pair is scored by summing the k-mer vectors and sizes of the haplotype’s variants and separately the path’s nodes before applying the scoring function Only paths meeting user-specified minimum thresholds for size and sequence similarity to the haplotype are scored kanpig introduces a user-defined parameter (--maxpaths default: 5000) to limit the number of paths compared against The search terminates when either all possible paths have been evaluated or the number of checked paths reaches --maxpaths Split-variant representations can occur when e.g a haplotype contains a 100-bp deletion while the graph has a path with a single 100-bp deletion and also a path with two 50-bp deletions kanpig penalizes differences between the haplotype’s variant count and the path’s node count thereby preferring paths in higher agreement to the observed variant representations from the aligned reads To account for potential false negatives in the variant graph (i.e a haplotype containing variants not present in the input VCF) kanpig allows variants in the haplotype to be skipped during the k-mer vector and variant size summation Skipping occurs only when the haplotype’s size or sequence similarity falls below the minimum thresholds Skipping will temporarily replace the haplotype’s summed size and k-mer vector with those of each n − 1 subset of variants The skipping process continues until a partial haplotype meets the minimum size and sequence similarity thresholds or until a maximum of n − 3 variants (i.e. up to three skipped variants) have been tested The kanpig scoring function for a path and haplotype is in (5) where P and H are the path and haplotype SS is the sequence similarity defined in (3) The L function measures the number of nodes in a path or number of variants which comprise a haplotype The variable N is the number of false-negative (i.e The penalty λg for split-variant representations defaults to 0.01 while the penalty λf for false-negatives defaults to 0.10 and both can be set with user-defined parameters This formula leverages three priors of allele coverage ratios for reference homozygous and 0.95 for loci with less than 10x coverage and 1e-3 The conditional probability of each genotype state given the priors is then calculated and the most likely state assigned These derived likelihoods are then leveraged to calculate a genotype quality score (confidence in the assigned genotype state) and sample quality score (confidence that the alternate allele is present in any genotype state) Genotype quality score is derived as -10 multiplied by the absolute difference of the second most likely genotype state and most likely genotype state Sample quality score is derived as -10 multiplied by the absolute difference of the reference homozygous likelihood and the log10 sum of the heterozygous and homozygous alternate likelihoods Both genotype and sample quality scores range from 0 (lowest quality) to an artificial cap of 100 (highest quality) kanpig will record additional annotations to each variant These include two common genotyping annotations of depth (DP: total number of reads from a locus analyzed to evaluate this variant) and allele depth (AD: how many reads from DP support the reference allele and alternate allele) The score described in (5) of the haplotypes created for a locus to the final chosen paths through the variant graph are reported as well as a phase-set (PS) unique identifier which annotates the set of variants that comprise each independent variant graph a filter flag (FT) is populated as a bit-flag with states to assist users in filtering genotypes The bits are defined as: 0x 1 - The genotype observed from variants matching paths is not equal to the genotype observed from measuring the proportions of reads supporting the two alleles; 0x 2 - the genotype quality score is less than 5; 0x4 - the observed coverage is less than 5; 0x8 - the sample quality score is below five for a non-reference-homozygous variants; 0x16—the alternate allele supporting coverage is below 5; 0x32—the highest scoring path didn’t use the entire haplotype which may suggest a false-negative in the variant graph relative to the read evidence Note that kanpig’s filter flag is available to users but was not used to alter the kanpig results presented here and the prefix that achieved the desired number of bases was kept ONT reads were downloaded from a CARD Google Cloud Bucket (See Data availability) we downloaded the fastq.gz files from directories X/reads/ (R9 reads) and X_R10/reads/ (R10 reads) for every sample X and we downsampled such files as described above The multi-sample dipcall VCF was created by performing a bcftools merge of all the single-sample dipcall VCFs followed by a final bcftools norm --multiallelics - to remove any remaining multiallelic records PacBio CCS reads at each coverage were mapped to GRCh38 with pbmm2 align --preset CCS using pbmm2 1.13.0. Single-sample discovery VCFs were created by running Sniffles 2.3.3 in discovery mode on the 32x CCS BAM of each sample, using default parameters and the tandem repeat track from https://github.com/PacificBiosciences/pbsv/tree/master/annotations The resulting VCFs were then cleaned as follows The ALT sequence of every symbolic DEL and INV was filled in using the reference and every DUP was converted into an INS located at the same start position SVLEN fields were made consistent with REF and ALT fields The multi-sample discovery VCF was created by running bcftools merge --merge none over all the cleaned single-sample VCFs followed by the following truvari v4.2.2 command: ONT reads were mapped to GRCh38 using minimap230 v2.28 with parameters -ayYL --MD --eqx --cs and specifying -x map-ont for R9 reads and -x lr:hq for R10 reads Sniffles 2.3.3 was run in genotyping mode (--genotype-vcf) with default parameters cuteSV 2.1.1 was run with the following flags SVJedi-graph 1.2.1 was run with --minsupport 1 and all other parameters set to default Kanpig 0.3.1 was run with a GRCh38 ploidy BED file and with the following parameters for single-sample VCFs: and with the following parameters for multi-sample VCFs: but it got killed by the OS on a cloud VM with 128GB of RAM For the single-sample benchmarking experiments on the assembly-derived variants SVs between 50 bp and 10,000 bp from the original VCF and genotyped VCF were merged using bcftools merge -m none before the baseline and predicted genotypes were compared SVs on autosomes and with start and ends within dipcall’s reported high-confidence regions were then counted SVs genotyped as missing (e.g../.) were counted separately from the total number of calls and genotype concordance was calculated as the number of matching genotypes over total number of calls the assembly-derived single-sample variants were matched to the genotyped variants using truvari v4.2.2 and the parameters bench --pick ac --no-ref a --sizemin 50 --sizemax 10000 along with dipcall’s high-confidence regions as the --includebed Truvari’s default sequence and size similarity thresholds of ≥70% allow genotypers to choose ‘imperfect’ variant representations to apply genotypes The ‘pick ac’ parameter leverages a call’s genotype to determine in how many matches it is allowed to participate if a genotyper assigns a homozygous status to a variant its allele count is two and can therefore match up to two baseline variants The ‘no-ref a’ parameter ignores variants with a missing or reference homozygous status in the baseline or comparison VCFs Every genotyped variant with a match and a truvari annotation of GTMatch=0 had an equal baseline genotype and was classified as having a consistent genotype Every matched variant but with GTMatch!= 0 and every unmatched (i.e false positive) genotyped variant was classified as having an inconsistent genotype Genotyping concordance is therefore defined as the percent of present calls (heterozygous or homozygous alternate) from the genotyper with a matching variant and matching genotype in the assembly-derived variants consider a locus with two deletions in the VCF being 105 bp and 120 bp long and starting at the same position The expected/baseline variant at the locus is a homozygous 110 bp deletion therefore no ‘perfect’ variant representation exists Truvari’s ambiguity allowances permit the genotyper to assign a homozygous genotype to either the 105 bp or 120 bp deletion to get credit for correctly genotyping the variant the genotyper assigns a homozygous genotype to both SVs the tool is penalized for an incorrectly genotyped SV Stratification of genotyper performance by number of neighbors was performed by running truvari anno numneigh which annotates an INFO field ‘NumNeighbors’ indicating the number of SVs within 1000 bp for each variant inside the genotyped VCF To measure the single-core performance of each tool we used as input the subset of a 12× CCS HG002 BAM and the subset of the 32× CCS HG002 sniffles discovery VCF that relates to chromosome 1 (we used samtools view to subset the BAM samtools fastq to get a corresponding FASTQ for SVJedi-graph We used only chromosome 1 as the reference We set the number of threads to one on the command line of each tool and we pinned each tool to the fifth logical core of our machine with the taskset command We measured wall clock time and maximum resident set size with /usr/bin/time (specifically we timed a set of five iterations of each program we divided the runtime measure by five and we used the max RSS measure as it is) we used the “Real time” and “Peak RSS” measures that were printed in output To measure performance under a typical workload we ran each tool on a 20x CCS HG002 BAM and on the 32x CCS HG002 sniffles discovery VCF over the entire genome setting the number of threads to 16 on the command line of each tool and pinning each tool to logical cores 8-23 (all located on the same processor) We ran SVJedi-graph and pbmm2 just once in this experiment Computational performance experiments were run on a Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS server (kernel 5.4.0) with two AMD Epyc 7513 processors (64 physical cores in total) Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article Kanpig is available under an MIT license at https://github.com/ACEnglish/kanpig. Analysis scripts and pipelines used to create and summarize the results presented here are available in the github repository https://github.com/fabio-cunial/kanpig_experiments/ Towards population-scale long-read sequencing Structural variant calling: the long and the short of it UK Biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age A global reference for human genetic variation A framework for variation discovery and genotyping using next-generation DNA sequencing data Truvari: refined structural variant comparison preserves allelic diversity Evaluation of computational genotyping of structural variation for clinical diagnoses SpeedSeq: ultra-fast personal genome analysis and interpretation Pangenome-based genome inference allows efficient and accurate genotyping across a wide spectrum of variant classes Variation graph toolkit improves read mapping by representing genetic variation in the reference Paragraph: a graph-based structural variant genotyper for short-read sequence data A robust benchmark for detection of germline large deletions and insertions Characterizing the major structural variant alleles of the human genome SVJedi-graph: improving the genotyping of close and overlapping structural variants with long reads using a variation graph English, A. C. et al. Analysis and benchmarking of small and large genomic variants across tandem repeats. Nat. Biotechnol. 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02225-z (2024) Computer programs for hierarchical polythetic classification (“Similarity Analyses”) exact sequence alignment using edit distance A synthetic-diploid benchmark for accurate variant-calling evaluation Smolka, M. et al. Detection of mosaic and population-level structural variants with Sniffles2. Nat. Biotechnol. 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-02024-y (2024) Jiang, T. et al. Regenotyping structural variants through an accurate force-calling method. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.08.29.505534 (2023) Audano, P. A. & Beck, C. R. Small polymorphisms are a source of ancestral bias in structural variant breakpoint placement. Genome Res. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.278203.123 (2024) Accurate circular consensus long-read sequencing improves variant detection and assembly of a human genome Oxford Nanopore R10.4 long-read sequencing enables the generation of near-finished bacterial genomes from pure cultures and metagenomes without short-read or reference polishing Scalable nanopore sequencing of human genomes provides a comprehensive view of haplotype-resolved variation and methylation The design and construction of reference pangenome graphs with minigraph Jasmine and Iris: population-scale structural variant comparison and analysis Minimap2: pairwise alignment for nucleotide sequences Long-read sequencing of 3,622 Icelanders provides insight into the role of structural variants in human diseases and other traits English, A. Project Adotto Tandem-Repeat Regions and Annotations. Preprint at https://zenodo.org/records/8387564 (2022) English, A. Kanpig Structural Variants Genotyping Benchmark from HPRC Dipcall. https://zenodo.org/records/14726292 (2025) Download references The authors would like to thank Jason Chin for fruitful discussions on graph-based algorithms Yulia Mostovy for early beta-testing of kanpig Ryan Lorig-Roach and Qiuhui Li for input on using HPRC as a benchmark Michael Macias for development and support of the noodles-vcf rust crate Xinchang Zheng for early review of the manuscript and Nathanael Olson and Justin Zook for early access to the GIAB v1.1 benchmark This manuscript was supported by the Baylor/JHU award (OT2 OD002751 RG) the All of Us award (OT2 OD038121 Gabreiel Stacey) and the Gabriella Miller Kids First award (5U24HD090743 Gabreiel Stacey) Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center Department of Molecular and Human Genetics designed the project and implemented kanpig FJS receives research support from Illumina The remaining authors declare no competing interests Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58577-w Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology We use cookies to ensure our website works properly, and to collect statistics to provide you with the best experience. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to this. Find out more about how we use cookies and how to manage your settings AcceptDo not accept Sudan’s humanitarian crisis is deepening as escalating violence blocks aid deliveries and forces thousands more civilians to flee “The UN is gravely concerned about the plight of civilians fleeing Zamzam camp as well as the dire situation in and around El Fasher which is in North Darfur,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at a regular news briefing in New York Famine conditions have already been identified in several displacement camps vital relief efforts have been suspended due to severe insecurity and ongoing violence Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal civil war between the military government and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023. The conflict has claimed thousands of lives and driven over 12.6 million from their homes, including over 3.8 million as refugees into neighbouring countries “We continue to receive alarming reports of serious protection issues harassment and intimidation at checkpoints controlled by the RSF,” Mr According to local sources, further intensification of attacks was reported in and around El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province. Fighting earlier this month had displaced tens of thousands of people from the region “We reiterate that international humanitarian law must be respected,” the UN Spokesperson said reiterating his call on warring parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure production of civilians authorities in Northern State reported the arrival of thousands of people from Zamzam camp and Al Malha town in North Darfur Dujarric said that most of those displaced are seeking safety in poorly constructed shelters while others are being hosted by family or friends They are relying on just one meal a day and in dire need of food One month after devastating earthquakes struck Myanmar, more than six million people urgently need aid – with many still too afraid to return to their damaged homes – the UN aid coordination office, OCHA At least 55,000 dwellings were destroyed or severely damaged in the worst affected regions forcing families to live in makeshift shelters exposed to harsh weather and rising protection risks Ongoing aftershocks have deepened fears among communities leaving many unwilling to risk re-entering their homes The humanitarian response has so far reached over 600,000 people with clean water nearly 500,000 people were provided food assistance and more than 115,000 with emergency shelter and critical supplies “This is a critical moment for the response Additional and quick disbursement of resources and sustained access to all communities are vital to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate further,” he added The UN Spokesperson also reported on Monday that more than 4,300 victims and community members affected by sexual exploitation and abuse linked to UN personnel received vital support last year through a special Trust Fund The fund helps close critical gaps in assistance for victims – including psychological It also supports income-generating activities for survivors and children fathered by UN peacekeepers The fund is raising awareness on the risks of misconduct among up to 89,000 community members in the Central African Republic the trust fund has mobilized more than $5 million through voluntary contributions from 25 Member States as well as payments withheld following substantiated allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel “We continue to appeal to Member States for additional funding for this important work,” said Mr The situation in western Sudan is “shocking” and people in the capital Khartoum face “absolutely devastating” conditions according to a senior UN official in the African country One month since Myanmar’s earthquake disaster tens of thousands of survivors still live in makeshift tents with little to protect them from pre-monsoon storms and mosquitoes Frankfort’s Eli Morton bats during the Wildcats’ 9-1 win over Wabaunsee Friday at Tom Watson Ball Field in Frankfort Email notifications are only sent once a day Have some photos on your phone or computer Send them to The Mercury and see them in print We’ll print them each Tuesday on Snapshots Anthony Simonsen and Kyle Troup captured wins in the opening round of the 2025 PBA Playoffs in their respective matches at Strobl Arena in Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park Round 1 of the PBA Playoffs continues at 7 p.m Eastern time Sunday on FS1: Jesper Svensson will face Jakob Butturff the first rookie to qualify for the PBA Playoffs Straighter is greater for @AnthonySimonsen 📺 FS2 | FOX Sports app pic.twitter.com/1QdM1gOI5q — PBA Tour (@PBATour) May 3, 2025 Simonsen made quick work of Fiore in the opening Race-to-Two match of the PBA Playoffs sweeping the 20-year-old Fiore in two games Players will compete on the 37-foot Bat oil pattern on the left lane and the 44-foot Hardwick oil pattern on the right lane throughout the PBA Playoffs four and five majors — delivered high praise for Fiore in his post-game interview who became the fourth-youngest major champion earlier this month “Ethan seems to be a few years ahead of the curve compared to me and I think we'll be seeing his name around for quite a while,” Simonsen said “Tommy Jones made a really good point when I came out on tour but I didn't know how to bowl,’ and I never really processed what he meant (until now) It’s one of those things where I could physically bowl but I didn't really understand what to do on the lanes (with) moves and things like that.” Simonsen advances to face the top seed EJ Tackett in the quarterfinals He's been kicking our ass for the last three seasons,” Simonsen said “We're going to try to see if we can tip the scales a little bit in my favor for this event He has a very good understanding of these lanes as well I think I’ll have a good chance so I’ll just keep trying to do that.” A double to win Game 1 💪💪 @KyleTroupPBA 📺 FS1 | FOX Sports app pic.twitter.com/6R7pXlPK1L — PBA Tour (@PBATour) May 4, 2025 the only past champion in the 12-player PBA Playoffs field proved why he’s also the only player to have won the PBA Playoffs twice doubling in the 10th frame to win Game 1 before firing the front-six strikes en route to winning Game 2 “Confidence wakes me up every day,” Troup said. “That’s my word for the tournament because I haven't had a lot of it throughout the year. I got to throw a few strikes and win the Battle of the Brands so that gave me a little bit of confidence on those two lanes (in Strobl Arena) A lot of the hard work that I put in this year hasn't paid off yet I've had a prime example of that in Jesper Svenson last year and this year He grinds and grinds and grinds and saves the season at the end I've got to dig deeper and try and give even more through these next few rounds.” Clear to partly cloudy. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Students get their photo professionally taken in front of a backdrop during Manhattan High School’s prom Saturday, April 26, 2025, at Manhattan Town Center. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles. Send us your photos! Have some photos on your phone or computer? Send them to The Mercury and see them in print! We’ll print them each Tuesday on Snapshots. Barriers prohibit access to the southbound on-ramp at Anderson Avenue and Seth Child Road in Manhattan, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved Noah Snider walks through the Commanding General’s Mounted Color Guard stables on Fort Riley The two-legged and four-legged members of a Fort Riley unit will make history in May when th… the gigantic coco de mer palms yield the key ingredient at the heart of the Coco de Mer Collection: the biggest and most exquisite seed on earth intoxicating aroma and true aphrodisiac properties have inspired Seychelles legends for millennia Collectors this rare perfume will experience its enchantment while helping conserve the 5,000 fiercely protected coco de mer palms bright and intoxicating aroma draws you into a dense tropical forest a winding path leads you to a gigantic palm Bathed in wonder and awakened by its natural perfume a mystical pillar of the Seychelles that became so valuable it was almost lost "We fall in love with the Coco de Mer like we fall in love with a woman," says Coco de Mer Collection creator Sharon Bonne a native Seychellois Creole entrepreneur and conservationist "The Coco de Mer is more than just a plant; it's a symbol of our heritage a living testament to the Earth's primeval past is a magnificent example of island gigantism that has captivated imaginations for millennia the Coco de Mer is found nowhere else but the Seychelles flourishing isolated and undisturbed in the Indian Ocean between Kenya Madagascar and the Maldives until recent times Featured by David Attenborough in his documentary The Living Planet the Coco de Mer (Lodoicea Maldivica) is believed to have coexisted with dinosaurs its lineage stretching back to an era shrouded in myth and legend the largest and heaviest in the plant kingdom have inspired countless tales and imbued the Seychelles with an aura of enchantment "We fall in love with the Coco de Mer like we fall in love with a woman," says Coco de Mer Collection creator Sharon Bonne "The Coco de Mer is more than just a plant; it's a symbol of our heritage We display them as natural fine art and fertility symbols in our homes." Highly prized and fiercely protected in the island's National Parks the Coco de Mer Palm takes 25-50 years to mature The suggestive shape of this rare forbidden fruit adds to its potent mystique One glance and you can see why they had reverence with the original island inhabitants and inspired British sailors to believe they had found the true Garden of Eden The female Coco de Mer grows the iconic seeds with their sensual feminine shape and the "heart of the goddess" fruit inside is a potent natural aphrodisiac and traditional medicine The male Coco de Mer palms have an eye opening stamen that is often a meter in length delicate yellow flowers (used in the collection's Sovaz perfume) and it dramatically lifts upright when the flowers are mature and ready to be cross pollinated by geckos and spread by the wind Coco de Mer is unwavering in its commitment to ethical and sustainable sourcing The company harvests only naturally fallen Coco de Mer seeds from wild palms adhering to stringent government regulations that safeguard this precious natural resource Coco de Mer proudly contributes 1% of all sales to Nature Seychelles a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Coco de Mer's fragile ecosystem Coco de Mer is also proudly woman and Seychellois owned partnering with the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) the longest-established local organization working in nature conservation Each exquisite seed is purchased from the National Parks for an average of $1,300 with proceeds going towards protecting the precious seeds from poachers Though the natural essence of the Coco de Mer is inimitable cinnamon and amber to evoke the scent of the Coco de Mer The Coco de Mer Collection perfumes are the only in the world to feature the natural aroma of the Coco de Mer The Coco de Mer Collection transcends mere perfume; it's an invitation to immerse yourself in the Seychelles' breathtaking beauty Each of the five distinct fragrances evokes the islands' dense aromatic rainforests With the primary ingredient being the Coco de Mer these scents transport you to a realm of pure sensory delight The Collection with their Seychellois Creole Names + Fragrance Notes Fanm - "Woman" Luminous • Floral • Commanding Zonm - "Man" Seductive • Marine • Intriguing Sovaz - "Wild" Provocative • Fresh • Unruly Lodas - "Audacity" Effervescent • Verdant • Wanderlust Oud - "Agarwood" Enigmatic • Smoldering • Sacred The Coco de Mer Collection is the culmination of a remarkable family legacy: the brainchild of Sharon Bonne Her mother and father created the patented extraction process to release the unique remained a closely guarded secret of the Seychelles Sharon and her family work with the only Seychelles artisan with the passed-down skill to open the Coco de Mer while preserving its shell and fruit The Coco de Mer Collection is a true olfactory journey each made with primarily natural plant-derived ingredients including the exquisite Coco de Mer and fragrant botanicals local to the Seychelles the Coco de Mer Collection invites you to escape the everyday and take a journey of the senses—no passport required is an independently owned fragrance importing company which has an exclusive licensing deal with Coco de Mer Collection to sell the fragrances within the United States is dedicated to ensuring authenticity and helping to conserve the coco de mer palms Complimentary samples of this scent, never before experienced in the United States, are available this April to perfume aficionados for only the cost of shipping. For more information on the Coco de Mer Collection and to experience the perfumes for yourself, please visit www.cocodemerfragrances.com Marcy Clark, Coco de Mer Fragrance Co., 1 2127299619, [email protected], www.cocodemerfragrances.com Do not sell or share my personal information: compete with Topeka High’s Ben Roeder and Wichita East’s Ivan Teal in the 100-meter dash during the Manhattan Invitational both Manhattan High track and field took first place in the Indians’ home meet a… You don't have to hop on the Hogwarts Express to become a South Jersey sorceror La Mer Beachfront Resort in Cape May is set to host Harry Potter for Wizard Weekend Wizard Weekend is to feature a variety of activities based on the popular fictional world conjured by British author J.K More: Freedom Mortgage Pavilion 2025: DMB, Creed, Willie, Luke Bryan & more coming to Camden Events are to include the "Triwizard Bar Trivia Tournament," "Divinations Tea Leaf Reading Class" and the "Screen to Table: Wizarding Dinner," which the dinner is to be an eight-course themed tasting meal taking guests into the culinary world of Harry Potter It's to feature dishes such as the Sorting Salad Golden Snitch Croquette and Forbidden Forest Stuffed Mushrooms Tickets are available for the weekend and vary in price for each event taking place The weekend package is also still available Tickets and the full itinerary can be found on the La Mer Beachfront Resort website Nick Butler is an impact reporter for the Courier Post the Daily Journal and the Burlington County Times covering community news in South Jersey WorkBoat+ Membership – Free to Join You may unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time Diversified Communications | 121 Free Street NEWS: Long-Delayed USCG Polar Icebreaker Moves Into Full Production and the Port of Los Angeles have recently secured a $31 million grant from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to test emission reduction vessel technologies The grant will fund passenger ferry and excursion boat demonstration projects focused on reducing emissions from harbor craft released a statement detailing the Los Angeles Marine Emission Reduction (LA MER) project which includes the development and launch of new vessels with advanced emission-reduction technologies Port noted Catalina Express will design and construct a passenger ferry powered by Tier 4 engines with a potential diesel particulate filter (DPF) The statement said the ferry will operate on renewable diesel and replace three smaller vessels with Tier 2 and Tier 3 engines.  Harbor Breeze Cruises plans to build and deploy two excursion boats capable of operating at least 30% of the time in zero-emission mode with some trips achieving 100% zero-emission operation the project includes a detailed evaluation of the technologies’ feasibility infrastructure needs for zero-emission harbor craft and workforce development for advanced engine and battery-electric solutions Funding support includes $15 million from each grant partner $650,000 from the Los Angeles Harbor Commission Become a WorkBoat+ Member Participants in the annual Little Apple Pride Festival’s parade make their way down Moro Street in Aggieville Manhattan’s LGBTQ+ community celebrated Little Apple Pride over the weekend Don’t Miss a Single Sparkling Moment! Sign up for The Court Jeweller Newsletter The Court Jeweller Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World 04.25.2025 by // Leave a Comment Drooling over the preview images from the new Cartier exhibition at the V&A I’m taking you with me to look closely at one of the fascinating tiaras on display A few weeks ago, I was one of the lucky people invited to attend a press preview of the new Cartier exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and I’m excited to share peeks inside with you over the next weeks and months—starting today with a tiara that I had to completely reevaluate after seeing it sparkling in person Near the end of the exhibition, a darkened room welcomes visitors with an enormous projection of a famous scene from the movie High Society, showing Grace Kelly’s Tracy Samantha Lord polishing her Cartier diamond engagement ring on a pillow. The ring wasn’t a prop: it was one of two real engagement rings given to Grace by her fiancé As viewers walks through this exhibition room they encounter both the real diamond engagement ring and a tiara that was given to Grace as a wedding present the same year The tiara’s design is typical of the midcentury whimsy that was so popular during the 1950s set with both round and baguette-cut stones with a slender diamond band running behind them In the center of each of the three elements sits a large cabochon ruby The gleaming rubies and the sparkling diamonds are incredible and you can see why representatives from the Société des Bains de Mer one of Monaco’s most important business institutions thought that the tiara would be a perfect present for their new princess Cartier understood that a princess needed a piece of jewelry that could be reconfigured and worn in different settings for different kinds of occasions The jewel could be worn as a traditional tiara it could also be worn in a necklace setting all three of the ruby and diamond sections could be detached so that each separate piece could be worn as a brooch or a hair ornament and the sash and star of the Order of Saint-Charles Monaco’s highest chivalric decoration Princess Grace wore the full setting of the tiara again a year later for another important engagement: a private audience at the Vatican with Pope Pius XII She repeated much of the same jewelry worn for the opera gala during her wedding celebrations adding a pair of earrings and a second bracelet to the mix has since exercised the privilege du blanc at the Vatican Grace opted to wear black for this papal audience And here’s a rare glimpse of Princess Grace wearing the tiara in color This photograph was taken in 1958 in New York as Grace danced with Prince Rainier during the Imperial Ball The color photograph allows some of the vibrancy of the tiara’s rubies to peek through but there’s really nothing like seeing them in person Rainier and Grace stopped by Broadway to see the newest Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song They chatted with the musical’s director Grace demonstrated some of the Cartier jewel’s versatility Here’s one more photograph that I took of the tiara in the new Cartier exhibition at the V&A The tiara was just one of many surprises I encountered during my time walking through the rooms of the exhibition Even pieces that I felt like I had “met” before over years of research and writing greeted me in fresh new ways when I saw them in person There’s just something about so many of these jewels that photographs and videos can’t really capture I’m going to try my best to continue to offer little glimpses inside the museum to those who can’t travel to see the show this year Categories // Monaco Enter your name and email address below to subscribe to our weekly newsletter Sign up for my new subscriber-supported community, Hidden Gems, delivered directly to you each Saturday! Copyright © 2025 THE COURT JEWELLER LLC A new UN initiative aims to drive collective action to support the rights and needs of people everywhere whose lives have been upended by the continuing threat posed by terrorism.  The UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) launched the Victims of Terrorism Associations Network (VoTAN) on Monday The network is a key outcome from the first UN Global Congress of Victims of Terrorism It brings together victims and survivors of terrorism victims’ associations and civil society organizations from across the globe The goal is to provide a safe space for victims and survivors to support each other UN Under Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism expressed solidarity with all victims regardless of nationality and paid tribute to their courage and resilience “In the face of unimaginable personal tragedy becoming powerful advocates for solidarity and tolerance,” he said the needs of victims and survivors are urgent and underfunded International and national assistance remains critical,” he stressed The development of VoTAN received financial support from Spain and its launch marks an important step which will allow victims to connect and support each other said the country’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno “Synergies between civil society and governments are essential to understanding the needs of victims especially those belonging to the Group of Friends will also support the Global Network,” he added.  The Group of Friends of Victims of Terrorism was established nearly six years ago to uphold the need to protect victims’ rights.  Chargé d’Affaires at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq reaffirmed the Group’s solidarity with all those affected.  “They all have our utmost respect and commitment to continue doing everything necessary to make them feel recognised The event concluded with statements from five victims of terrorism and victims’ associations.  Grace Acan from Uganda highlighted “the critical importance of collaboration resilience and partnership” in her remarks.  advocate for justice and ensure that the needs of victims are met with compassion and urgency,” she said The UN Security Council has strongly condemned the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday that killed at least 26 tourists and left many more injured calling for accountability and international cooperation to bring the perpetrators to justice In a new study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology (JCAD), La Mer, in partnership with the company’s owner, The Estée Lauder Companies, shared findings on how its Macrocystis pyrifera ferment-containing serum (MPF-Serum; a type of giant kelp) strengthens the skin barrier and speeds up recovery after dermatological procedures The clinical trials involved women aged 31 to 65. They measured the serum’s ability to boost hydration and strengthen the skin barrier over an eight-week period. When tested on skin recovering from 70% glycolic acid peels and non-ablative laser treatments MPF-Serum outperformed standard moisturizers “This innovation underscores the potential for science-led solutions in the beauty industry.” But an excuse to splurge on high-end skin care BUY NOW – $200 BUY NOW – $190 we get the most trusted information from the beauty authority delivered right to your inbox Find a NewBeauty "Top Beauty Doctor" Near you Surviving on one meal a day and stretching out rapidly dwindling food rations have become a desperate reality in the Gaza Strip where humanitarian aid has been blocked for nearly two months.   Both the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, and the World Food Programme (WFP) report that food stocks are now exhausted even as supplies of lifesaving assistance pile up at border crossings waiting to be brought in Humanitarians continue to warn that hunger is spreading and deepening in the enclave ongoing Israeli military operations and a rise in looting UNRWA shared the testimony of a woman called Um Muhammad who is staying at a shelter in Gaza City and prepares food for 11 family members daily so I distribute some bread to the children who come asking for a piece of bread,” she said I don’t know what we will do because what is available in the market is scarce.” Gaza has a population of more than two million people who mostly depend on aid but no humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered since 2 March when Israel imposed a full blockade on the territory.   This is by far the longest ban on aid moving into the Strip since the start of the war in October 2023 following the deadly Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel The situation has led to shortages – not just of food shelter supplies and safe water.  WFP recently noted a 1,400 per cent increase in food prices when compared to the ceasefire period which lasted from 19 January to 18 March of this year the UN agency delivered its last remaining stocks to hot meals kitchens which have been a lifeline in recent weeks The kitchens are expected to fully run out of food within days and another 16 closed over the weekend.  Furthermore all 25 WFP-supported bakeries are now shuttered There has been an increase in reports of looting incidents, the UN humanitarian affairs office OCHA said on Monday armed individuals reportedly ransacked a truck in Deir Al-Balah and a warehouse in Gaza City the latest famine review analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) got underway this week Humanitarian partners warn that the nutrition situation across Gaza is worsening about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified including 1,600 cases of severe acute malnutrition.  Although treatment supplies remain available in the south accessing them continues to be extremely challenging due to operational and security restrictions OCHA stressed that the depletion of critical stocks in Gaza goes far beyond food trauma-related medical supplies are running out at a time when the number of people injured in mass casualty incidents continues to increase.  Gaza also lacks surgical supplies, including gowns, drapes and gloves.  The World Health Organization (WHO) informed that their warehouse has run out of therapeutic milk as well as spare parts for ambulances and oxygen stations Partners working in health add that an increasing number of critical staff are being denied access to Gaza with a rise in the denial of entry for emergency medical teams particularly highly specialized professionals – including orthopedic and plastic surgeons – and a recent restriction of movement across the enclave humanitarians are doing everything possible to reach people with whatever supplies remain available They also have stocks of food and other lifesaving items ready and waiting to enter the Gaza Strip as soon as border crossings re-open This includes nearly 3,000 UNRWA trucks of aid while WFP has more than 116,000 metric tonnes of food assistance – enough to feed one million people for up to four months.  The International Court of Justice (ICJ) began hearings on Monday into Israel’s continuing severe restrictions on the work of the UN and other international organizations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) assign and write about all things beauty and grooming from buzzy styling tools to celebrity skincare favorites I’ve been a journalist covering style and travel for more than 15 years and I’ve written about everything from the best international spas worth the long-haul flight to the art of French girl hair My work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler I held senior editorial roles at Lucky magazine I majored in English and French literature at Amherst College and attended Columbia Journalism School I’ve tried an abundance of face masks over the years, yet none have offered the truly visible ... More results of the La Mer Deep Purifying Mask. If I’m being completely honest here, I am quite addicted to this product—it’s now my go-to skincare product that I use several times every week and have come to rely on for glowy, dewy, real-life-Instagram-filter skin. I’ll break it all down for you as to why. La Mer’s newest detoxifying mask is an impurity magnet, ideal for purging skin of all that daily debris that clings to its surface including dirt, bacteria and oil, causing a less-than-perfect complexion over time. I was a victim of said dirt wreckage, especially after a summer of caking on sunscreen and sweating out muggy afternoons in the city, and my skin was crying out for help in the form of a dull, lackluster appearance and less than appealing pore size. Enter my new miracle product: The La Mer Deep Purifying Mask is composed of a proprietary Pretoxifying Ferment. It’s a 99% naturally derived ingredient containing bamboo charcoal, sea salt, and antioxidants that blend together with the brand’s signature Miracle Broth (a blend of sea kelp, vitamins and minerals) to help draw out impurities, refine pore size, and balance the skin overall. Three times a week as part of my evening routine, I dip the accompanying silver brush into the thick, goopy jar of mud-like substance and apply a generous layer over my entire face. It’s a process that feels oddly luxurious considering I am applying green goo to my skin—but it is La Mer after all, so it’s guaranteed to be nothing short of that no matter what Nickelodeon-esque color it comes in. The La Mer Deep Purifying Mask draws out impurities and leaves skin refreshed and glowing. Nevertheless, it’s worth it; ten minutes later my skin is radiant, my pores are smaller and my face just feels refreshed like I’ve just gotten a luxurious facial at an overpriced spa in New York City. This creamy cooling mask has been a godsend for my face, and so I shall hereby keep it as my secret no longer. * membership suspended on 24 February 2023  High-Risk and Other Monitored Jurisdictions  Kuwait Mutual Evaluations Paris 8 October 2024 – Kuwait has an adequate legal and supervisory framework to address illicit finance but has serious shortcomings in delivering effective outcomes investigation and prosecution of money laundering and terrorist financing Ratings that reflect the extent to which a country's measures are effective The assessment is conducted on the basis of 11 immediate outcomes which represent key goals that an effective AML/CFT system should achieve HE = high level of effectiveness   |   SE = substantial level of effectiveness    |   ME = moderate level of effectiveness   |   LE = low level of effectiveness Ratings which reflect the extent to which a country has implemented the technical requirements of the FATF Recommendations C = compliant   |   LC = largely compliant     |   PC = partially compliant   |   NC = non-compliant Terms & conditions | Privacy Policy | Sitemap  Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Barbara Lewis €25.00Add to cart Grand was the Monegasque recipient recognised at this year’s regional tour which celebrates culinary excellence across eleven French territories and awards twelve distinctions in various gastronomy fields This accolade adds to an already remarkable year for the chef following her recent selection for the Michelin Guide’s Passion Dessert title — a dual recognition that further enhances the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer Group’s position in the world of haute cuisine Grand has cultivated a deep passion for pastry through her involvement in national and international competitions such as the Meilleur Apprenti de France (MAF) and the Coupe du Monde de Pâtisserie Junior After formative experiences with Maison Fauchon and K2 Palace Courchevel she joined the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in 2019 as Sous-Cheffe alongside Chef Marcel Ravin She was named Pastry Chef the following year Grand crafts desserts for the Blue Bay Marcel Ravin as well as for other on-site restaurants including Las Brisas Her creative process is rooted in seasonal inspiration and garden produce — always seeking the perfect harmony between lightness “This Trophy is a source of immense pride; it recognizes the work accomplished at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort alongside my Chef and dining room teams for their daily cohesive work that has brought us to where we are today I thank Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer and the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort for giving us the opportunity to expand the Blue Bay Marcel Ravin I also thank Gault & Millau for putting French pastry in the spotlight,” said Floriane Grand The Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer’s culinary distinction continues to shine across the Gault & Millau guide alongside the Grill and Pavyllon Monte-Carlo Abysse Monte-Carlo is distinguished with four while Elsa and the emblematic Louis XV-Alain Ducasse at the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo — a five-toque member of the Gault & Millau Academy — further anchor the Group’s gastronomic leadership Oman 19 December 2024 - Oman has significantly improved its legal operational and supervisory framework on anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing (AML/CFT) in recent years through robust technical compliance with the FATF Recommendations Oman is achieving positive results in the use of financial intelligence combating terrorist financing and implementing financial sanctions for proliferation financing more time and effort are needed for measures and reforms introduced to impact the effectiveness of Oman's AML/CFT system The joint FATF/MENAFATF mutual evaluation of Oman assessed the effectiveness of Oman’s measures to combat money laundering terrorist financing and proliferation financing and their level of compliance with the FATF Recommendations at the time of an on-site visit between January and February 2024 Oman is a high-income country and is exposed to money laundering and terrorist financing risks associated with cross-border flows and activity due to its proximity to countries destabilised by conflict or terrorism The country is also particularly vulnerable as a result of a predominantly cash-based economy Oman has a good understanding of its terrorist financing risks including the geographic risks it faces and demonstrated strengths in combating terrorist financing Oman has an adequate legal framework to implement without delay targeted financial sanctions with only some areas for improvement Oman should deepen its understanding of money laundering risk and strengthen capabilities of law enforcement agencies to detect investigate and prosecute money laundering Oman achieved 50 money laundering convictions during the review period While Oman demonstrated the ability to pursue complex cases most cases prosecuted and convicted relate to simpler cases of self-laundering Oman should ensure that money laundering investigations are better targeted on high-risk areas competent and well-resourced Financial Intelligence Unit that has sophisticated artificial intelligence systems Although Oman has an effective asset recovery regime in place and has generated good results greater efforts are needed to confiscate money at borders in line with risks particularly considering cross-border threats that Oman faces Oman takes a collaborative approach towards international cooperation Authorities provide and seek timely and effective assistance across a range of assistance and extradition requests Oman has put in place a well-resourced AML/CFT supervision framework While the supervision is risk-based to some extent some challenges remain on the ability of all supervisors to understand ML/TF risks While Omani authorities have access to most Beneficial Ownership information the country should finalise its centralised Beneficial Ownership registry to further improve the availability of information to all legal persons Oman places excessive measures on Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) which are not consistent with Recommendation 8 of the FATF’s Standards This may discourage and disrupt legitimate NPO activities so Oman should remove the requirement that NPOs serve as reporting entities Oman is placed in "enhanced follow-up" and will report back to MENAFATF in one year Argentina 18 December 2024 - Argentina has strengthened its laws and processes on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) since its previous mutual evaluation (2010) which highlighted substantial gaps in compliance Argentina faces shortcomings in delivering effective outcomes apart from cooperation with international partners where it is achieving positive results The joint FATF/GAFILAT mutual evaluation of Argentina assessed the effectiveness of Argentina’s measures to combat money laundering at the time of the on-site visit in March 2024 Argentina faces money laundering risks primarily from domestic threats such as drug trafficking Argentina must improve its money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) risk understanding in particular laundering from corruption and through informal financial services Argentina must also increase prosecution of money laundering and improve confiscation in line with its risk profile Although Argentina has invested significant efforts to enhance the identification and conviction of money laundering and achieved some positive convictions over the review period the 91 convictions secured is a relatively low number given the size and context of Argentina and although authorities secured confiscations in almost all cases Argentina has a generally adequate regulatory framework lack of prosecutions and the absence of convictions is not entirely consistent with the country’s medium-low risk profile and should improve Argentina demonstrates strengths in domestic cooperation and coordination between agencies with public prosecutors and investigative judges using financial intelligence from a broad range of sources The report provides recommendations to protect the operational independence of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Issues were also identified with suspicious transaction reporting from high-risk sectors such as securities real estate and virtual asset service providers limited use of intelligence from cross-border cash movements and low levels of terrorist financing-related intelligence Argentina provides constructive legal assistance and extradition and provides different types of international cooperation Argentina has a well-designed AML/CFT supervision framework it is not achieving greater effectiveness because of serious human and information technology (IT) resource constraints Financial institutions were found to have an overall good understanding of money laundering risks but an uneven understanding of terrorist financing risk 'gatekeeper professions' such as lawyers and real estate agents (Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions) understand their main ML/TF risks in line with Argentina’s National Risk Assessments the understanding of sector-specific ML/TF risks within the respective sectors is uneven Argentina should take a more risk-based approach to mitigating the risk of abuse of NPOs in line with Recommendation 8 of the FATF Standards so as not to unduly disrupt or discourage legitimate NPO activities Argentina is placed on “enhanced follow-up” and will report back to the FATF in one year Acclaimed chefs Jacques Pepin and Rudi Sodamin are making news in the cruise world While Sodamin contributes to multiple Carnival Corporation brands, it’s his Holland America Line partnership that is currently front and center thanks to an update to onboard restaurant Sel de Mer Pepin, meanwhile, is seeing an expansion of his restaurant, Jacques, on Oceania Cruises where he is the line’s founding executive culinary director Read on for more details on the culinary updates Oceania’s two current executive culinary directors and master chefs of France “I am so excited to be writing the next chapter of Jacques with my friends and colleagues chefs Alexis Quaretti and Eric Barale,” Pepin said “This is the perfect opportunity to experiment with some delicious new dishes and to explore unique ways to serve some of the classics that our guests have come to know and love We have lots of exciting plans for this latest iteration of Jacques Tableside service will be newly introduced for fresh dishes such as beef tartare glassware and silverware will be updated for an authentic Parisian bistro experience Joining the menu will be duck with a Grand Marnier-infused orange sauce and a veal medallion with morel sauce classic crepes suzette and profiteroles will be extra dessert offerings “It is wonderful to bring Jacques to our two newest ships and I am thrilled to be working alongside the man himself to create this latest version of our signature French restaurant,” Quaretti said “When considering this new generation of Jacques it was very important for me to introduce recipes from personal childhood memories and to share my vision of French family food as well as honoring the classic French bistro experience.” which has announced plans to update the venue a new concept will “feature casual but classic Mediterranean dishes that reflect the cuisine of regional countries including Italy “The new Mediterranean bistro concept allows us to diversify the menu at Rudi’s Sel de Mer and showcase the beautiful flavors and fresh ingredients that are synonymous with the region,” said Michael Stendebach beverage and rooms divisions at Holland America Line we’re able to offer our guests a variety of dishes that appeal to a wide range of palates as well as some of the most popular dishes that have been mainstays on the menu from the start.” new dishes will feature Mediterranean ingredients such as olive oil Among the new menu items will be appetizers of burrata and prosciutto with cherry tomatoes thyme and olive oil; foie gras torchon with fruit chutney and toasted baguette; and wild mushroom soup with truffle oil entrees will encompass Greek spiced lamb chops with lemon chickpea puree fava beans and garlic jus; osso bucco ravioli with cherry tomato Stracciatella and basil; seafood cioppino with crab And desserts will extend to a chocolate hazelnut volcano with raspberries and Frangelico cream; warm strawberry tarte tatin with sugar puff pastry crust caramel and creme fraiche; and salted caramel St The updated restaurant will be available to guests for $55 per person, or as part of the line’s “Have It All” premium package Copyright © 2025 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 301 Route 17 N, Suite 1150, Rutherford, NJ 07070 USA | Telephone: (201) 902-2000 LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP reminds investors of the upcoming May 27, 2025 deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in the class action filed on behalf of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Solaris Energy Infrastructure, Inc. (“Solaris” or the “Company”) (NYSE: SEI) securities between July 9, 2024 and March 17, 2025, inclusive (the “Class Period”). IF YOU SUFFERED A LOSS ON YOUR SOLARIS INVESTMENTS, CLICK HERE TO INQUIRE ABOUT POTENTIALLY PURSUING CLAIMS TO RECOVER YOUR LOSS UNDER THE FEDERAL SECURITIES LAWS. On July 9, 2024, Solaris announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Mobile Energy Rentals LLC (“MER”). Solaris completed the MER acquisition on September 11, 2024. On this news, Solaris’ stock price fell $4.15, or 16.9%, to close at $20.46 per share on March 17, 2025, on unusually heavy trading volume. If you purchased or otherwise acquired Solaris securities during the Class Period, you may move the Court no later than May 27, 2025 to request appointment as lead plaintiff in this putative class action lawsuit. If you wish to learn more about this action, or if you have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact us: Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. If you inquire by email, please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased. To be a member of the class action you need not take any action at this time; you may retain counsel of your choice or take no action and remain an absent member of the class action. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. Copyright © 2025 FactSet Research Systems Inc.© 2025 TradingView SEARCHThe global authority in superyachting Sur La Mer was built in GRP as a Vision 45 model and delivered in 2011 to a design from design extraordinaire Stefano Righini advanced AV enhancements and numerous other improvements The 43.6-metre has been well maintained since her delivery including a refit in 2022 which saw her receive an interior "facelift" with new furniture Her modern and refreshed interior is by Molori Design which features a self-playing piano and two lounge areas lies a full-beam master suite with a separate office and lounge area a walk-in wardrobe and en suite bathroom with "statement" bathtub This suite also enjoys direct access to a private terrace on the foredeck where there is seating and a Jacuzzi The four remaining guest suites are positioned on the lower deck and comprise two large VIPs the latter two with additional Pullman berths that are ideal for children One of Sur La Mer’s most attractive features is her generous sun deck where another "oversized" Jacuzzi beckons a party of 10 guests sun pads and a large table for relaxed al fresco dining formal dining can be found on the upper deck and looks aft through full-height semi-circular glass windows that open up to the exterior deck The yacht for sale has a top speed of 15 knots, with a cruising speed of 14 knots and range of 3,200 nautical miles at 12 knots. She is powered by twin 2,600hp Caterpillar diesel engines. Sur La Mer is asking $13,250,000, currently lying in the Virgin Islands.  Latest news, brokerage headlines and yacht exclusives, every weekday SubscribeSign up to our newslettersSign up to BOAT International email newsletters to get the latest superyacht news Boat International Media Ltd © 2008 - 2025 Content presented under the "BOAT Presents" logo is an advertising feature and Boat International Limited has been paid to include this content (WJAR) — The Newport Mansions announced that Chateau-sur-Mer will be decorated this holiday season for the first time in 20 years Marble House and The Elms will also be decorated and open for tours for the holidays the historic mansions will feature a total of nearly 30 Christmas trees and will be decorated to the theme of each room Other holiday decorations will include ornaments Holidays at Newport Mansions will begin next Friday and will continue through Jan Chateau-sur-Mer and The Elms will only be open for a part of that period, so officials said visitors should check operating schedules at the Newport Mansions website. which features hundreds of thousands of lights in a half-mile stretch Admission to Sparkling Lights at The Breakers will require a special ticket which includes interior access. More about this experience can be found at the Newport Mansions website. Composed under the gathering war clouds of 1914 Ravel’s Piano Trio melds Parisian refinement with the teeming rhythms of France’s Basque region Alexander Shelley conducts a brilliant orchestration of the trio along with Debussy’s wondrous seascape La mer and Lili Boulanger’s exquisite ode to a spring morning Join the CSO Student Ambassadors for Teen Night prior to the concert. Enter promo code TEEN and select the teen ticket type for any attendees between the ages of 13 and 19 who plan to attend the event. Learn more » The 2024/25 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program Major support for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago also provided by Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund; Nancy Dehmlow; Leslie Fund Inc.; Judy and Scott McCue; Leo and Catherine Miserendino; Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation; The George L This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts Return to events calendar More info Sign up Get the guide Contact us © 2025 Choose Chicago. All rights reserved.Privacy policy | Your privacy choices | Terms of use | Sitemap 2024 — La Mer’s lead scientist a neuroscientist and fellow at Estée Lauder Companies (NYSE: EL) (ELC) has been selected to present pioneering research at Neuroscience 2024 in Chicago organized by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is the world's largest gathering of scientists and physicians dedicated to advancing the understanding of the brain and nervous system with more than 30,000 experts expected to attend from across the globe Emmetsberger will present her latest findings on the complex relationship between the skin's sensory neurons and the regulation of neurocutaneous inflammatory signals through endocannabinoid pathways Her research highlights the crucial role sensory neurons play in cutaneous inflammation by releasing neuropeptides and cytokines which can influence the skin’s stress response The study explores the bidirectional communication between skin cells and sensory neurons uncovering feedback mechanisms that may intensify inflammation This intricate crosstalk is partly regulated by the endocannabinoid system a key factor in maintaining skin homeostasis which offers new insights into inflammation in skin "Presenting at Neuroscience 2024 is a significant milestone in my career," said Dr "It’s a privilege to share research that connects skin science with neuroscience often called the 'third brain,' not only recalls past immune responses especially those related to emotional stress but also functions with a level of independent intelligence comparable to the central nervous system it's essential to consider how the nervous system contributes to cellular communication within the skin." Emmetsberger’s work represents a significant advancement in understanding the interaction between the skin and the nervous system By unraveling the mechanisms that govern neurocutaneous communication to balance skin this research lays the groundwork for inspiring the development of precise and effective skin care innovation.  Max Huber Research Labs has continued the legacy of the founder’s breakthrough scientific approach and journey of discovery by continuously studying the power of Miracle BrothTM With constant testing under new conditions Max Huber Research Labs is always finding new forms and delivery systems for Miracle BrothTM combining it with ongoing experiments in fermentation that embrace La Mer’s artisanal time-intensive proprietary bio-fermentation process to unlock its incredible potency in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at Stony Brook University where she investigated the immunological and proteolytic events triggered by central nervous system trauma followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship researching the effects of schizophrenia risk genes on neuronal signaling and brain development Her contributions have been recognized through grants and fellowships including the prestigious National Science Foundation IGERT and the Van der Kloot Award for Teaching Excellence You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience The Krewe of Mer on Saturday celebrated its 30th annual grand ball — a Venetian masquerade that blended the elegance and mystique of Venice with the rich traditions of Mardi Gras in Natchez The highlight of the evening festivities was the presentation of the 2025 Royal Court Duchess Gwendolyn Harris and Duchess LaDonna Washington Below are scenes from the evening’s festivities Monday’s SWAC college basketball lineup has lots in store Among those contests is the Southern Jaguars squaring off… Ranked squads are on the Monday college basketball schedule in two games including the Wake Forest Demon Deacons… Monday’s college basketball schedule has several interesting games including the matchup between the McNeese Cowboys and the Stephen… which includes the Tampa Bay Lightning taking on the Florida Panthers Top-25 teams will take the court across two games on Monday’s college basketball slate Adams County residents: Could you live with once-a-week garbage pick up if it would save you significantly on your monthly garbage collection bill View Results This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Elizabeth Pehota and Matthew Keemon's journey of love and teamwork culminated in a breathtaking celebration by the sea This article is from the 2025 issue of Boston Weddings 2024Belle Mer (Longwood Venues & Destinations)Newport When it comes to couples who fall in love with each other and Boston there’s no better example than Elizabeth Pehota and Matthew Keemon the city plays a major part in their story After meeting at Boston College and bonding as stunt partners on the cheer team the future bride and groom continued their partnership personally and professionally by cheering together for the Boston Celtics and supporting and enjoying the city’s sports scene It’s a journey they describe as defined by love working as a CTO—got engaged in an unusual yet apropos way under the guise of an awards ceremony that the groom’s company was holding in Florida “His colleagues emailed me and asked if I would like to host the opening video,” Elizabeth says so the timing was perfect.” It turns out the ruse paid off “I was speechless when he was proposing because I was so impressed he caught me by total surprise which was held at the Belle Mer in Newport With Newport Bridge and the sunset over Narragansett Bay as the backdrop Belle Mer served as a stylish and elegant destination to celebrate the couple’s union One of the venue’s luxury event spaces is the Water Salon which boasts sparkling crystal and soft whites as the design aesthetic and a wall of glass doors that open to a large lawn with picturesque views of the ocean “Good things come in threes” was the case for the bride’s wedding dresses she wore a custom Martina Liana strapless gown from VOWS Bridal in Watertown Next came a glamorous glitter ball gown from Milan boutique Nadine Milano which Elizabeth found on the couple’s last-minute excursion to see Taylor Swift amid the event-planning stress limited-edition bridal mini dress by RosieEtienne Because cheerleading has had such an impact on the couple they often perform a stunt—where Matt lifts Elizabeth high in the air—at get-togethers and special occasions especially since it’s something family and friends love to see “There was something so beautiful about doing this stunt at the biggest moment of our lives,” the bride says “I think it symbolized that we plan to continue to live that metaphor—lifting each other up every day—even as we get older.” Elizabeth and her cousins shared a dance with her to Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” the favorite song of Elizabeth’s late grandfather who recently passed away after a decades-long battle with Alzheimer’s As the only living grandparent at the wedding the bride thought it was the perfect way to celebrate Mimi “We didn’t tell her we were doing it in advance That was really special because she had no idea it was coming and it was such a surprise,” Elizabeth says Since the couple wanted to honor several loved ones who had passed away they decided to have a special table dedicated to them “We basically created it as generations of love stories so it was detailing the different generations of love that led us to one another,” Elizabeth explains Wedding videos are always a fun way to look back on your special occasion and it’s rare that couples get to do so in real time But with the help of Chris Walsh Productions and their guests were able to enjoy an expertly edited four-minute video during the reception Final clips were shared that featured highlights of everything from morning preparations and the ceremony to the first dance and the bride’s late-night dress change Band Legends of SummerCake Cakes by CapoChampagne Cart Chic Party CartsFirst Dance Windrose CoachingFlowers FlowerthymeGroom’s Attire State & LibertyHair Rhode Island Wedding HairMakeup Beauty By NelsePhotographer Ella Farrell PhotographyVideographer Chris Walsh ProductionsWedding Bands and Jewelry Hannah Florman First published in the print issue of Boston Weddings 2025 with the headline Getting married? Start and end your wedding planning journey with Boston Weddings' guide to the best wedding vendors in the city Three Barn Wedding Venues in Massachusetts Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.