Jackson Walker proudly announces the appointment of Shayan Gaziani to the City of Richardson’s Charter Review Commission the Charter Review Commission plays a critical role in shaping the governance of the City of Richardson The city’s Charter is a foundational document that defines the city’s government structure and outlines the distribution of powers and responsibilities among its branches The commission’s task is to ensure that the charter remains relevant and effective in guiding the city’s operations Members of the Charter Review Commission review the document to identify any provisions that may conflict with state or federal law This thorough review process is essential to maintaining a charter that is both legally compliant and reflective of the city’s current needs and aspirations the commission’s proposed amendments will be presented to voters in the November 2025 elections Shayan specializes in fund formation and investment management and family offices in managing risk and structuring potential EB-5 funding by analyzing project business plans Shayan is also passionate about supporting nonprofits serving as outside general counsel to many Shayan is deeply committed to community service He currently serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Islamic Association of North Texas one of Texas’s largest mosques and interfaith organizations View All COVID-19 Resources » Keep up with the latest from Jackson Walker.Subscribe » what that is to write?'" Shayan said with a laugh Now, that show, Shayan’s solo “Avaaz” is beginning its national tour — in Denver. It’s not just a personal story, it’s also a Persian New Year celebration taking center stage at the Denver Center Theater Company this month The production marks a milestone as the first major Iranian American play to be staged in Colorado Each night, Shayan transforms into his mother Roya, hosting a traditional Nowruz celebration that becomes a window into their shared story of immigration The show's origins trace back to a simple recorded conversation between mother and son "My mother never really talked about her history," Shayan said I think there was just a lot of pain there for her." That initial interview opened unexpected doors "She started sharing things that she had never shared with me before," Shayan recalled "And it also gave me the permission to ask questions I had never asked." Shayan discovered an almost supernatural connection to his mother's experiences "What was really shocking was the parts of the play that I had imagined when I ended up taking them to her turned out to be true to her story Many of those parts overlapped with her actual story." Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel worked with Shayan to create a production that moves fluidly through time and memory "What we wanted to do is let the design go with her so that in some ways we're surfing her memories," von Stuelpnagel explained "There's stories we like to tell about ourselves and there's stories that are harder to work through or harder to own about choices we've made or chapters in our past." Drawing on his background in Los Angeles as both a magician and standup comedian Shayan crafted a performance that balances humor with heart "I love that roller coaster of emotion that happens in the theater .. putting the biggest belly laughs right before the biggest gut punches or vice versa." von Stuelpnagel noted: "When I talk to [Shayan’s mother] she has said in our culture this: We don't always share what's going on privately And yet here's a show that very honestly is showing not only her joys but struggles." "Avaaz" bridges multiple identities in today's complex world "This play's an offering to my communities These things don't necessarily go together and especially with what's going on in the world right now there's a lot of conflict between these identities." The show has resonated deeply with audiences across demographics with previous venues reporting unprecedented numbers of repeat viewers "I think it's ultimately about a mother and son," Shayan reflects "And if you have a mother or you've had a mother The Denver Center Theater Company is presenting "Avaaz" as part of a touring production rather than producing the show itself. This departure from the company's traditional production model reflects broader economic challenges in theater, according to Artistic Director Chris Coleman: "I think all of us in this industry right now are trying to figure out what our business model is going to look like going forward because we are fortunate,” Coleman said “Our audiences are basically back to where they were in 2019 The decision to present “Avaaz” is more than economic Coleman sees it as a significant opportunity to present an Iranian voice. is to tell stories about as many different kinds of people as we can find in our region and in our country And ‘Avaaz’ lets us kind of invite you into a living room that you haven't been in before And I think that's one of the real joys of our art form," Coleman said. potentially marking a watershed moment for Iranian American theater in regional venues across the country each performance remains an intimate exploration of family and the universal language of mother-child relationships “Avaaz” by Michael Shayan plays at the Denver Center’s Singleton Theatre through November 17 The Denver Center Theater Company is a financial supporter of CPR News Financial supporters have no editorial influence You want to know what is really going on these days We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado Sign up here and we will see you in the morning Colorado Postcards are snapshots of our colorful state in sound. They give brief insights into our people and places, our flora and fauna, and our past and present, from every corner of Colorado. Listen now. © 2025 Colorado Public Radio. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy « Back Between 2023 and 2024, kittens Charlie and Mark spent nearly a year in the ASPCA’s care. Having been diagnosed with a host of medical issues as well as having some behavior concerns, our team in Los Angeles worked hard to get these kittens into a safe and loving home Charlie and Mark arrived at the Downey Animal Care Center (DACC) The brothers both showed signs of upper respiratory infections (URI) the pair were placed in a foster home through the ASPCA foster program in Los Angeles “Both Charlie and Mark’s URIs persisted once in foster care and we treated them for chronic URIs from August through December 2023,” explained Ariel Collins “They were also diagnosed with ringworm in early September They were treated in foster care and cleared by October both Charlie and Mark experienced vomiting beginning in January 2024 Both kittens were placed on a special diet and it was determined Mark needed to stay on it due to long term persistent vomiting.” both Charlie and Mark had behavioral concerns that became apparent once in foster care Mark would play rough and get overstimulated To assist both the foster caregiver and the kittens our LA foster team connected with Marny Nofi director of feline behavior on our Behavioral Sciences Team (BST) “The LA team and BST collaborate weekly on behavior cases for the LA program,” explained Hella Tyler along with Zoom consults for our foster volunteers This comprehensive approach improves our kittens’ adoptability and increases their chances for placement.” Marny was able to talk to Charlie and Mark’s fosters directly and provide them with tips on how best to help the brothers she suggested things like increased enrichment and interactive playtime using feeding toys and rotating his toys to add more variety Marny suggested desensitization and counterconditioning using a wand toy or his favorite treats as a reward carrier training and rewarding relaxed behavior the foster caregivers and other ASPCA staff members the kittens made great progress behaviorally and were finally healthy enough to be made available for adoption at the end of January 2024 Though it took five months — and nearly an entire year in our care — Charlie and Mark finally found their home Leading the charge in convincing their parents was Ilma “When my sister started looking into it seriously she eventually convinced our mom to join in on the idea,” said Shayan After researching organizations for a while, their father sent Ilma a link to the ASPCA website, specifically to our page for adoptable cats in Los Angeles and that’s when she came across Mark and Charlie — and fell in love with them,” recalled Shayan “There was something about the way they looked together — like a perfect inseparable pair — that gave her a strong feeling that these were the right cats for us She just knew they’d be a wonderful addition to our family She contacted Ariel during class that day.” Though they were initially only planning to adopt one cat the family didn’t want to separate the brothers and decided to bring both of them home “Mark was curious from the start,” Shayan told us “He sniffed everything and was ready to play immediately but it was a bit overwhelming for us as first-time cat owners We quickly learned how to care for him and seeing his health improve has been rewarding!” was scared on his first night home and stayed under Ilma’s bed for a few days “He even comes to my room in the morning to nap on top of me Pumpkin has become much less fearful; he’s now a playful He’s still a bit shy around new people but will let them pet him.” “It’s never a dull day with them!” Shayan added The pair have become so comfortable in their new home that they’ve let their personalities — and quirks — shine “Mark makes any box or bag his ‘home’ and won’t let anyone move it,” explained Shayan refuses to sleep without his little corn toy and carries it around everywhere.” Since Shayan and Ilma convinced their parents to adopt the brothers the family’s lives have all become a bit brighter “We can’t imagine life without Pumpkin and Mark,” said Shayan and we’re genuinely happier with them in our lives.” ©2025 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. All rights reserved.The ASPCA is a 501(c)(3) non-for-profit organization. Privacy Policy Legal InfoCookie Settings Underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company In honor of Be Kind to Animals Week, take one simple action today! Pledge to fight cruelty. In honor of Be Kind to Animals Week, take one simple action today! Pledge to fight cruelty. BTCUSD BTCUSDTBitcoin’s price has rebounded strongly over the past week, recovering from a low of $74,000 earlier this month to now trade above the $95,000 mark. This upward movement represents a 12% gain in the past seven days, signaling a potential shift in short-term market sentiment following a multi-week period of correction and volatility. Despite this upward trajectory, some underlying metrics suggest that investors remain cautious, especially within the derivatives market. Bitcoin Negative Funding Rates Return Amid Price Rally A CryptoQuant analyst known as ShayanBTC has pointed to a developing divergence between price action and funding rates, particularly on perpetual futures contracts. Funding rates serve as a measure of trader sentiment, showing whether long or short positions dominate. While the price of Bitcoin has climbed, Shayan revealed that recent funding rate behavior suggests that many participants are hedging against potential downside risks or actively reducing exposure at these levels. The divergence raises questions about whether the current rally will sustain or if a short-term retracement is likely before further continuation. Shayan highlighted that Bitcoin’s funding rates have turned negative again, even as the price pushed toward $95,000. This dynamic mirrors a trend observed during the prolonged correction between March and October 2024, when funding rates remained negative during intermittent rallies. Negative funding rates typically indicate a dominance of short positions or hedging behavior among traders in the derivatives market. The analyst suggests that this renewed divergence may reflect a lack of conviction in the rally, with participants preparing for a possible reversal at key resistance levels. Shayan also noted that the current structure shows similarities to previous periods where the market saw a temporary pullback before resuming upward movement. In this context, traders might be reducing risk exposure or engaging in distribution strategies by selling into strength. The presence of cautious positioning at a time of rising prices often signals market imbalance that could trigger a short-term correction. STH-Realized Price and Structural Considerations Meanwhile, BTC’s Short-Term Holder Realized Price (STH-RP) is also a metric worth assessing Bitcoin’s macro trend. The STH-RP reflects the average cost basis of coins held by recent market participants. According to on-chain data, sustainable bull markets often maintain price levels above the STH-RP. At present, Bitcoin remains near this threshold, and its ability to hold or break above it could shape near-term momentum. The analysis from Shayan concludes that while a pullback may occur in the short term, the retracements due to the divergence between rising prices and falling funding rates could strengthen the overall market structure if they result in healthier accumulation and shake out weak hands. Featured image created with DALL-E, Chart from TradingView Copyright © 2025 FactSet Research Systems Inc.© 2025 TradingView Seok-Woo Song — Photos exploring the pressures and loneliness of life in Korea Federico Borella & Michela Balboni — Photographing rural Italy’s “tree men” AikBeng Chia — Recreating vivid scenes from 1970s Singapore with the help of AI WePresent is the arts platform of WeTransfer.The simplest way to send big files A platform to empower creatives while using business as a force for good Intrigued by the “hidden” lives of marginalized and dispossessed individuals in Iran, photographer Shayan Sajadian enjoys, perhaps unintentionally, subverting norms; seeing weakness as power, and power as weakness, showing the country’s women wielding their power, and its men expressing their tenderness and vulnerability. He tells Dalia Al-Dujaili about his journey how he creates such an honest depiction of his subjects and how he subverts the expectations the world might have about his home given its strict authoritarian laws Shayan Sajadian’s path to photography began unexpectedly during his time as an architectural student at Shiraz University His initial motivation was pragmatic: to enhance his understanding of architecture through visual documentation especially areas he’d never explored before His exploration took him to the older parts of Shiraz where he encountered marginalized communities including individuals struggling with addiction and poverty The encounters struck a personal chord for Sajadian whose own family had been affected by addiction leading him to reflect on the unseen lives within his city “My grandfather lost everything due to addiction,” he says Depicting the reality of life in Iran’s underbelly is given the difficult nature of photographing within the country (Iranian people took to the streets against the government following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly.”) “After that the camera became a gun in the streets,” as it always has been from a government perspective He recalls one incident where he was lucky to escape a mugging in the desert; his camera was retrieved after a day many of his subjects are keen to share their stories and they offer a stark contrast to the sanitized or overly exotic portrayal of Iran often depicted in Western media “You can see [my subjects] are not monsters,” he says referring to images of intimidatingly muscular men adorned with intricate and heavy tattoos standing in alleyways or under street lights most of society believe that they are dangerous people but they are human.” His photographs reveal genuine nuance and religious conservatism with secularism You’ll (probably) love our monthly newsletter The tattoos visible in Sajadian’s photographs interrupt popular imaginations of a hyper-religious Iranian society and expose its diverse reality—a society where conservatism is mixed with stark secularism and where tattoos are technically a religious and cultural taboo “reminiscent of a time when only criminals would don the ink,” he says They act as a visual narrative of the individual’s life; they can signify a personal journey or a statement of beliefs and affiliations And they take their visual cues from traditional Persian stories and legends an age-old art which Persian culture is famous for the national epic poem of Greater Iran by Ferdowsi the photographer must induce a vulnerability and safety in his subjects where the ground for intimacy is fertile trust Sajadian to portray their lives authentically despite the risks associated with being photographed in Iran Aside from the images of men with bare chests the relaxed nature of his subjects doesn’t just run skin deep One image shows a young man resting dolefully on his rudimentary motorbike in front of a giant graffiti football It’s a strikingly universal scene of the playfulness of adolescence the young man was eager rather than hesitant to have his image taken “People see me because of my photos,” Sajadian tells me But these people do not have anything to represent themselves.” In this way The visual narrative crafted by Sajadian is a tapestry of contrasts making him perhaps one of the most exciting image-makers in the region His photographs capture moments of vulnerability and strength often blurring the lines between traditional gender roles from the Iranian nomadic tribes of the North offering a nuanced perspective on gender dynamics in Iranian society “I want to show their power as a weakness and their weakness as a power,” Sajadian explains aiming to dismantle simplistic binaries that dominate public discourse Photographing women especially has come with its fair share of obstacles Iranian women are hypervigilant around cameras but many are also determined to be seen wielding their power and their civil rights in protest to some of Iran’s most authoritarian laws Sajadian explains that nomads used to wield political power but have been suppressed under all governance in Iran over decades not [always] the man,” says Sajadian of some specific cases “I decided to take this photo for Iranian women,” says Sajadian honoring feminine power in his society and highlighting the ongoing Among his notable works is a series featuring young men in Shiraz captured in moments of tender male friendship that warp what Eurocentric visual culture attempts to say about the nature of Iranian or West Asian men Whether holding hands or posing against a backdrop of mountains such as the sweet smiling gentlemen captured in a restaurant in a mirroring pose these images challenge perceptions of Middle Eastern masculinity Sajadian’s approach is not to dictate the viewer’s interpretation but to provoke thought and introspection on the complexities of identity and human connection many of the men in Sajadian’s images are unapologetically reliant on one another Like many countries in the West Asian region Iran is one that could remain shrouded in misrepresentation if it were not for the work of creatives such as Sajadian Want (even) more WePresent?Sign up to our monthly newsletter 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 associate medical director at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health approach to helping mentally ill homeless individuals As the county’s first street psychiatrist he created the Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement despite resistance from some quarters over concerns about liability and diagnostic protocols His innovative program combines medical treatment Rab’s work has become a model for how to approach the intersection of mental health and homelessness More than a decade ago, Willie Moore was a few years into his now-18-year coaching career at then-Walker High School in Jasper The head girls basketball coach and an assistant to the boys with the two remaining in touch following Kassim's high school graduation in 2013 Now, more than 10 years after playing for Moore at Walker, Kassim is back on the court with his former coach, serving as an assistant on his staff at Central High School “One of my dreams in my 18 years of coaching is to have an assistant coach (that was) one of my former players," Moore said How Shayan Kassim joined coach Willie Moore's staffKassim first stopped by one of Central's practices some two years ago while home visiting his parents He remained in touch with Moore on social media noticing his former coach was now coaching in Tuscaloosa so I just messaged him on Facebook," Kassim said Moore invited him to come to practice one day and speak to his team “I always had that in the back of my mind,” Kassim said Moore wasted little time inviting Kassim to join the staff “He told me to come by and join the workouts,” Kassim said NORTHRIDGE GIRLS BASKETBALL: Even with 3 starters out with torn ACLs, Northridge girls basketball aiming for area crown VOTE: Vote for your Tuscaloosa-area boys and girls Athlete of the Week for Jan. 13 it was an opportunity he could not pass up “Part of what drew me into working with him specifically is because I really appreciated the way he coached,” Kassim said it’s always about hard work and effort but also acting with integrity off the court … I appreciated the way that he coached and thought about his players more than just developing them as basketball players Justin Knox and Johnny McDowell on Moore's staff Kassim's primary role is player development with the guards along with stat-keeping "We have a really cool coaching staff," Kassim said Kassim was more accustomed to being coached rather than being the one doing the coaching “He's really found his niche and really helping "It's good that he's here because he understands me more than anybody and he understands what it means to play for me so he's able to relay that message to the guys and he understood that as a player as well." Area 6) resumes area play on Thursday night at home against Brookwood The Falcons currently sit in third place in their area with area tournaments set to be held between Jan As the 2024-2025 International Legal Studies Post-Graduate Fellow, Shayan Khan will bring his professional experience, and the knowledge he gained at HLS, to his placement at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague The PCA — the world’s oldest intergovernmental organization dedicated to the resolution of international disputes — was established in 1899 at the First Hague Peace Conference amid concerns about the expansion of armaments around the world It was created with a flexible mandate that has enabled it to adapt to the changing dispute resolution needs of states. It now functions as a modern arbitral institution for disputes involving various combinations of states commissions of inquiries and other peaceful means of dispute resolution is often termed as “a permanent framework of temporary tribunals.” Established through two distinct multilateral conventions the PCA has a combined membership of 123 contracting parties Khan will be working in the International Bureau whose primary function is to provide support to dispute resolution processes administered by the PCA Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition with sparking his interest in public international law and in the settlement of international disputes He first became involved with the Jessup Competition as a law student in Pakistan and went on to coach the Harvard Law School team that won the prestigious competition in 2022 for the first time since the creation of the competition in 1960 he continued to pursue his interest in international dispute settlement supervised by Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M Khan studied International Investment Arbitration with Visiting Professor Yas Banifatemi LL.M a prominent arbitration and public international law specialist which stem from public international law instruments such as bilateral or multilateral investment agreements among states designed to protect investors of one contracting state party investing in the territory of another the investor has a right to institute proceedings against the country where they made their investment,” he explains Khan worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Delegation to the United Nations where he advised states on drafting Security Council and General Assembly resolutions he is working with the International Disputes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General for Pakistan where he oversees disputes and proceedings to which Pakistan is a party including interstate and investor-state arbitrations He works closely with the Attorney General for Pakistan has been instrumental in his professional growth he also hosts a podcast on public international law practitioners and judges from international courts and tribunals He is especially looking forward to having an office in the Hague Peace Palace which also houses the International Court of Justice and The Hague Academy of International Law and a very significant place for anyone interested in public international law.” “Spending a year at the Permanent Court of Arbitration will enable me to be part of resolving some of the most significant global disputes giving me an opportunity to contribute to the development of public international law jurisprudence,” he adds Khan hopes to serve as an advocate in interstate and investor-state disputes The International Legal Studies Post-Graduate Fellowships are designed to support graduating HLS students or recent graduates who will be clerking or interning at an international or foreign regional/supranational court or tribunal. Visit the International Legal Studies Post-Graduate Fellowships web page to learn more Harvard Law School provides unparalleled opportunities to study law with extraordinary colleagues in a rigorous Harvard University © 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article The announcement of joint space and satellite initiatives between Pakistan and China launched in October 2020 and the first of its kind in the country was the most lauded urban project to come out of the early CPEC program faced setbacks from violence by local militants who were opposed to the CPEC projects in their area which aims to produce fluent and contextually appropriate text without necessarily ensuring factual accuracy and implementing human oversight or verification processes for critical outputs RAG is an approach that aims to reduce hallucinations in language models by incorporating the capability to retrieve external knowledge and making it part of the prompt that’s used as input to the model The retriever module is responsible for retrieving relevant passages or documents from a large corpus of textual data based on the input query or context The retrieved information is then provided to the LLM which uses this external knowledge in conjunction with prompts to generate the final output By grounding the generation process in factual information from reliable sources RAG can reduce the likelihood of hallucinating incorrect or made-up content thereby enhancing the factual accuracy and reliability of the generated responses Customers can also do batch evaluation with human reviewers using Amazon Bedrock model evaluation’s human-based evaluation feature updating the hallucination detection logic requires modifying the entire workflow Amazon Bedrock Agents enables dynamic workflow orchestration customizable hallucination detection that adjusts based on specific needs reducing the effort needed to incorporate new detection techniques and additional API calls in the workflow without restructuring the entire workflow and letting the LLM decide the plan of action to orchestrate the workflow and mitigate hallucinations that might occur reducing infrastructure management overhead agents streamline workflows and automate repetitive tasks you can boost productivity and reduce costs Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation models (FMs) from leading AI companies such as AI21 Labs along with a broad set of capabilities to build generative AI applications with security The RAG-based chatbot we use ingests the Amazon Bedrock User Guide to assist customers on queries related to Amazon Bedrock The dataset used in the notebook is the latest Amazon Bedrock User guide PDF file you can use other PDFs of your choice to create the knowledge base from scratch and use it in this notebook you will need to curate a supervised dataset of ground truth answers to multiple questions to test this approach The custom hallucination detector uses RAGAS metrics which are generated using a CSV file containing question-answer pairs it is necessary to replace this CSV file and re-run the notebook for a different dataset In addition to the dataset in the notebook a few of them from the PDF and a few not part of the PDF The ground truth answers are manually curated based on the PDF contents if relevant The following illustrates the solution architecture: Architecture Diagram for Custom Hallucination Detection and Mitigation The overall workflow involves the following steps: User query: What models are supported by bedrock agents Generated Answer: Amazon Bedrock supports foundation models from various providers including Anthropic (Claude models) The generated answer has some correct and some incorrect information as it picks up general Amazon Bedrock model support and not Amazon Bedrock Agents-specific model support Therefore we have hallucination detected with a score of 0.4 Because answer score is 0.4 < 0.9 (hallucination threshold) Customer service human agent queue is notified and the next available agent joins or emails back if it is an offline response mechanism In the GitHub repository notebook we cover the following learning objectives: In this section, we will integrate Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases with Amazon Bedrock Agents to create a RAG workflow RAG systems use external knowledge sources to augment the LLM’s output improving factual accuracy and reducing hallucinations We create the agent with the following high-level instruction encouraging it to take a question-answering role We are using a supervised dataset with predefined questions and ground truth answers to invoke Amazon Bedrock Agents which triggers the custom hallucination detector based on the agent response from the knowledge base we demonstrate how the answer score based on RAGAS metrics can notify a human customer service representative if it does not meet a pre-defined custom threshold score We use RAGAS metrics such as answer correctness and answer relevancy to determine the custom threshold score the list of applicable RAGAS metrics can be customized accordingly you can modify the measure_hallucination() method inside the Lambda function lambda_hallucination_detection() The agent is prompted with the following template The user_question in the template is iterated from the supervised dataset CSV file that contains the question and ground truth answers If the custom hallucination score threshold is not met by the agent response, a human in the loop is notified using SNS notifications. These notifications can be sent to the customer service representative queue or Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queues for email and text notifications These representatives can respond to the email (offline) or ongoing chat (online) based on their training and knowledge of the system and additional resources This would be based out of the specific product workflow design The following are important cost considerations: To avoid incurring unnecessary costs, the implementation has the option to clean up resources after an entire run of the notebook. You can check the instructions in the cleanup_infrastructure() method for how to avoid the automatic cleanup and experiment with different prompts and datasets The order of resource cleanup is as follows: Amazon Bedrock Agents can increase overall latency compared to using just Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and Amazon Bedrock Prompt Flows It is a trade-off decision between having LLM generated workflows compared to static or deterministic workflows the LLM generates the workflow orchestration in real time using the available knowledge bases the workflow has to be orchestrated and designed offline while we have chosen an LLM-based evaluation framework RAGAS it is possible to swap out the elements in the hallucination detection Lambda function for another framework This post demonstrated how to use Amazon Bedrock Agents and the RAGAS evaluation metrics to build a custom hallucination detector and remediate it by using human-in-the-loop The agentic workflow can be extended to custom use cases through different hallucination remediation techniques and offers the flexibility to detect and mitigate hallucinations using custom actions For more information on creating agents to orchestrate workflows, see Amazon Bedrock Agents. To learn about multiple RAGAS metrics for LLM evaluations see RAGAS: Getting Started Shayan Ray is an Applied Scientist at Amazon Web Services His area of research is all things natural language (like NLP His work has been focused on conversational AI His research publications are on natural language processing Bharathi Srinivasan is a Generative AI Data Scientist at AWS WWSO where she works building solutions for Responsible AI challenges She is passionate about driving business value from machine learning applications by addressing broad concerns of Responsible AI Outside of building new AI experiences for customers Bharathi loves to write science fiction and challenge herself with endurance sports On Thursday, August 22, Jackson Walker attorney Shayan Gaziani co-led a CLE presentation titled “Shining a Light: Understanding the Corporate Transparency Act,” hosted by the Dallas-Fort Worth Muslim Bar Association (DFWMBA) He was joined by Antonio Glenn (AMG Counsel PLLC) The presentation focused on the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) federal law aimed at enhancing corporate transparency and combating financial crimes certain businesses are required to disclose their beneficial owners—those individuals who ultimately own or control the company—to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) The DFWMBA is a non-denominational non-political organization of lawyers and law students of Muslim faith open to individuals of all religious backgrounds The association is dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans with a focus on minority and American-Muslim communities DFMBA strives to use legal knowledge as a tool for social empowerment Shayan’s practice focuses on fund formation and investment management including conducting private offerings; securities law compliance; startup counseling; and mergers and acquisitions He often handles matters focused on transactional entertainment law with some of his entertainment clients including influencers he serves as the Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Islamic Association of North Texas one of the largest mosques and interfaith organizations in Texas Morgan Asset Management today announced the hiring of Shayan Hussain as its Head of US Investment Specialists within the firm's Global Fixed Income Currency & Commodities (GFICC) team. Mr where he was Head of Americas Fundamental Fixed Income Product Strategy. He will report to U.S CIO of Fixed Income Kay Herr and be based in New York Hussain will run a team that focuses on investment products and strategies within GFICC working closely with investors to help identify and implement their fixed-income investment approaches "Shayan will provide a critical link to clients in our fixed income business ensuring optimal access to the platform and helping refine our product offering across asset classes," said Kay Herr Chief Investment Officer for GFICC. "His expert client lens and deep knowledge in fixed income investing will be additive to our team and the overall client experience." "One of the main tenets of our investment approach is to help simplify the complex for our clients," said Head of GFICC Bob Michele. "Shayan can apply his skills and expertise to our fixed income offering bringing clarity and improved strategy and positioning to client portfolios." Morgan's GFICC team operates from a position of strength with $33 billion in net inflows to date this year and over $750 billion in assets under management (as of 4/30/2024). The average portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management has over 20 years of experience and the firm retains 96% of its top talent is Head of US Investment Specialists for J.P Morgan Asset Management's Global Fixed Income Hussain previously spent 15 years at BlackRock most recently as Head of Americas Fundamental Fixed Income Product Strategy where he developed the taxable fixed income platform providing a link between the investment teams and client groups. Mr Hussain also worked in the firm's London office launching its global unconstrained fixed income product offering across EMEA Asia and Latin America. Prior to BlackRock Hussain also worked as a trader on the US interest rates swaps desk at J.P He started his career in corporate finance with AT&T working on strategic initiatives including public debt offerings business unit spin-offs and asset sales. Mr Hussain earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Business Administration and BA in Economics Morgan Asset Management is the marketing name for the asset management businesses of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Morgan Asset Management today announced that Geng Ngarmboonanant will join the firm's Multi-Asset Solutions business as a managing director.. Morgan Asset Management today announced the close of Campbell Global's Forest & Climate Solutions Fund II at $1.5 billion Banking & Financial Services Personnel Announcements Do not sell or share my personal information: has revolutionized the real estate industry with his innovative CRM and marketing automation platform empowering agents to streamline operations and close deals more efficiently His forward-thinking leadership and deep understanding of technology trends have positioned Rechat as a key player in digital transformation for real estate Hamidi’s vision for integrating AI and seamless workflows into a traditionally offline industry makes him a true technology leader Hamidi has continued to drive innovation in the housing industry throughout 2024 by further enhancing the platform’s ability to streamline real estate transactions One of his most notable achievements this year was the introduction of advanced AI-driven tools for real estate agents These tools leverage machine learning to provide predictive analytics on market trends and homebuyer behaviors allowing agents to better anticipate client needs and offer more personalized service Rechat has now made it easier for agents to match buyers with homes faster and with more accuracy boosting transaction speed and customer satisfaction Hamidi also focused on improving collaboration between real estate professionals through enhanced mobile capabilities Rechat’s mobile-first approach now includes features that allow agents to seamlessly manage their listings These updates have led to increased productivity enabling agents to conduct business anytime Hamidi has championed data privacy and security by incorporating robust encryption measures ensuring sensitive client information is well-protected His dedication to empowering real estate professionals with cutting-edge technology while maintaining simplicity and usability continues to position Rechat as a leader in the proptech space Don't have an account? Please TEHRAN - The Secretary General of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Sasan Shah-Veysi has appointed Nima Shayan as the new director of ICCIMA’s Public Relations Office. Shayan was inaugurated at a meeting of the ICCIMA Board of Directors in the presence of ICCIMA Head Samad Hassanzadeh, the portal of the chamber reported. Shayan has been active in the press and media sector for over two decades and cooperated with various media, including Mehr News Agency, Hamshahri Online, and Hamshahri Newspaper, as well as the News Department of the Presidential Office. Picture By Maryam SulaimanA medical graduate is struggling to find her dream job in Wagga despite the ongoing shortage of doctors across the region All articles from our website & appThe digital version of Today's PaperBreaking news alerts direct to your inboxInteractive Crosswords Sudoku and TriviaAll articles from the other regional websites in your areaContinueShayan Alkhalaf completed her Bachelor's degree in Medicine and Surgery in Iraq and now hopes to become a GP after becoming an International Medical Graduate (IMG) her priority was to use her degree for good such as conducting surgeries as she has done for about six years back home Ms Alkhalaf quickly understood the difference between her home country's and Australian medical systems which led her to request to volunteer at the Wagga Base Hospital but I know how different the system is in almost every country so that's why I wanted to learn by volunteering and I think Wagga Base Hospital seems to be the best space to learn a lot," she said Ms Alkhalaf arrived in Australia in 2019 with her husband and now has two children supporting her while getting her IMG she said Wagga Base didn't have a supervising doctor for the required year of training "The crew that I talked to about any available vacancies at the hospital they said they don't do a supervision program at the base hospital," she said "And I have talked to them prior to that about volunteering and I have come across a strike outside the hospital where they were calling for more doctors so that is what made me want to work there even more." Doctors nationwide have called out multiple times in the past couple of years for several reasons including a shortage of doctors and low income Doctors held a recent strike in front of Wagga Base Hospital over complaints of long hours and a lack of support from the NSW government Ms Alkhalaf was interested in medical practice from an early age; however pursuing dreams and goals wasn't possible for many in her community "My two brothers were interested in engineering but there weren't many around me who went to university because it cost so much so now it would mean so much to do what I love after many years of studying and hard work." the MLHD said Wagga Base Hospital has doctors under training which are provided education and career mentoring "Wagga Wagga Base Hospital currently employs more than 150 doctors in training including 11 who are International Medical Graduates (IMGs)," MLHD said in a statement "Wagga Wagga Base Hospital also provides education and supervision for medical students from the University of NSW Rural School of Clinical Medicine the University of Notre Dame and Charles Sturt University School of Rural Medicine all doctors must be registered with the Medical Board of Australia." Ms Alkhalaf has completed the required tests and practices to become an IMG allowing her now to undergo her 12-month training program at The Specialist Medical Centre in Wagga's health precinct "It cost me about thirty to thirty-five thousand (dollars) She now hopes to become a GP as soon as she finishes her training at the clinic but hopes for easier and more options for overseas students to get a job Ms Alkhalaf said she hopes to get a job after finishing her training "It's a long process and there isn't much help and there are many others who are even in worse situations who maybe don't have a supportive family like I have but definitely a very long process and not an easy one but I hope to do what I love as soon as possible," she said Maryam Sulaiman is a journalist at The Daily Advertiser with a passion for stories and giving a voice to those who need it. Contact her via email for any stories maryam.sulaiman@austcommunitymedia.com.au Newsletters & Alerts View allDaily Today's top stories curated by our news team Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert Your digital replica of Today's Paper Test your skills with interactive crosswords By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people “It’s strange to look up and realize you’re living a lifelong dream,” says Michael Shayan a queer Iranian-American Jewish writer and performer But in 2023 he made it happen when he premiered his solo show Avaaz at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa with the help of an award-winning team led by Tony-nominated director Moritz von Stuelpnagel Shayan plays his mother and shares the story of her escape from Tehran to “Tehran-geles,” California I tried to write what I thought would be an impossible challenge; I wanted to push my limits as a writer and performer,” says Shayan “I’m a maximalist — I try to give my audiences the same intensity of feeling you’d get at a Beyoncé concert or from trying to get tickets to one I use extravagant humor and larger-than-life characters to tear into my most impossible questions and deepest pain.” Avaaz wasn’t Shayan’s first big success in the industry In 2023 he received an Emmy nomination for his writing on the Max series The Book of Queer where he also served as a consulting producer He worked on the Emmy-winning We’re Here as well Avaaz will premiere on the East Coast at the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland Shayan also wrote a new play for Audible about a group of addicts stuck on a gay cruise from hell called Cruising Reflecting on his success, Shayan says, “I come from a culture where people like me can’t exist, and art gave me a way to imagine new possibilities for myself, my family, and my intersectional communities.” He adds, “I hope that my queerness, my Iranianness, my Jewishness ripples out into the world with my work and helps empower others to make their own ripples.” @michaelshayan Photo by Brendan FayBecca Damante Over the last 65 years, LGBTQ+ advocate and archivist Randy Wicker has achieved many firsts In 1962 he organized a radio broadcast that caused the Federal Communications Commission to rule that homosexuality was a legitimate topic for on-air discussion In 1964 Wicker organized the first public demonstration for gay civil rights in the United States he was the first out gay person to participate in a live television show when he answered calls on The Les Crane Show “I’ve always been a truth-telling journalist willing to confront power and champion unpopular causes,” says Wicker “That is what motivated me to join the New York Mattachine Society in 1958 and be the first self-identified homosexual to speak out on radio in 1962.” This year Wicker launched a petition to remove the statue of Gen Phil Sheridan from Stonewall National Park — because of Sheridan’s massacre of Indigenous people He also served as a grand marshal at this year’s NYC Pride March he donated his archives to the National LGBTQ+ Archives “My archives are titled ‘The Randy Wicker & Marsha P Johnson lived with me for over a decade and was the house mother of my extended gay family,” says Wicker “Twenty-five years of my Christmas letters contain many stories about her.” Though much progress has been made thanks to Wicker’s work, he is adamant that the fight continues, especially in other parts of the world. He notes that “genocidal hatred and religious intolerance” run rampant in many societies. “We must help LGBTQ+ people overseas improve their circumstances!” @randolfewicker Agentic workflows are a fresh new perspective in building dynamic and complex business use case-based workflows with the help of large language models (LLMs) as their reasoning engine These agentic workflows decompose the natural language query-based tasks into multiple actionable steps with iterative feedback loops and self-reflection to produce the final result using tools and APIs This naturally warrants the need to measure and evaluate the robustness of these workflows in particular those that are adversarial or harmful in nature Although Amazon Bedrock Agents have built-in mechanisms to help avoid general harmful content, you can incorporate a custom, user-defined fine-grained mechanism with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails Amazon Bedrock Guardrails provides additional customizable safeguards on top of the built-in protections of foundation models (FMs) delivering safety protections that are among the best in the industry by blocking harmful content and filtering hallucinated responses for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and summarization workloads This enables you to customize and apply safety and truthfulness protections within a single solution we demonstrate how you can identify and improve the robustness of Amazon Bedrock Agents when integrated with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails for domain-specific use cases we explore a sample use case for an online retail chatbot The chatbot requires dynamic workflows for use cases like searching for and purchasing shoes based on customer preferences using natural language queries we build an agentic workflow using Amazon Bedrock Agents we then prompt this bot to give fiduciary advice regarding retirement We use this example to demonstrate robustness concerns followed by robustness improvement using the agentic workflow with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails to help prevent the bot from giving fiduciary advice the preprocessing stage (the first stage of the agentic workflow before the LLM is invoked) of the agent is turned off by default there is usually a need for more fine-grained use case-specific control over what can be marked as safe and acceptable or not a retail agent for shoes giving away fiduciary advice is definitely out of scope of the product use case and may be detrimental advice Another typical fine-grained robustness control requirement could be to restrict personally identifiable information (PII) from being generated by these agentic workflows We can configure and set up Amazon Bedrock Guardrails in Amazon Bedrock Agents to deliver improved robustness against such regulatory compliance cases and custom business needs without the need for fine-tuning LLMs The following diagram illustrates the solution architecture In the following sections, we demonstrate how to use the GitHub repository to run this example using three Jupyter notebooks In the Part 1a notebook complete the following steps to create a guardrail to help prevent the chatbot from providing fiduciary advice: In the Part 1b notebook complete the following steps to demonstrate the use case using Amazon Bedrock Agents without Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and no preprocessing to demonstrate the adversarial robustness problem: Can you elaborate more about Shoe ID 10?” However by using Amazon Bedrock Agents without Amazon Bedrock Guardrails the agent allows fiduciary advice for queries like the following: In the Part 1c notebook repeat the steps in Part 1b but now to demonstrate using Amazon Bedrock Agents with guardrails (and still no preprocessing) to improve and evaluate the adversarial robustness concern by not allowing fiduciary advice To associate a guardrail-id with an agent during creation our retail chatbot should decline to answer invalid queries because it has no relationship with its purpose in our use case the implementation automatically cleans up resources after an entire run of the notebook You can check the notebook instructions in the Clean-up Resources section on how to avoid the automatic cleanup and experiment with different prompts You can delete guardrails from the Amazon Bedrock console or API. Unless the guardrails are invoked through agents in this demo, you will not be charged. For more details, see Delete a guardrail we demonstrated how Amazon Bedrock Guardrails can improve the robustness of the agent framework We were able to stop our chatbot from responding to non-relevant queries and protect personal information from our customers ultimately improving the robustness of our agentic implementation with Amazon Bedrock Agents the preprocessing stage of Amazon Bedrock Agents can intercept and reject adversarial inputs but guardrails can help prevent prompts that may be very specific to the topic or use case (such as PII and HIPAA rules) that the LLM hasn’t seen previously The author thanks all the reviewers for their valuable feedback Buy link: renaissancemusic.ffm.to/ren25131 Merin hits a milestone with its 10th volume delivering four expertly curated tracks that span the deeper realms of electronic music @renaissance-recordings Fire at Bailey Road shopping mall doused Some banks hit by capital squeeze Air purifiers for Dhaka: hope or hype? Chinmoy shown arrested in Saiful murder case "Bhoy Banglay, Bhoy Banglay, Bhoy Banglay Bhoy, These simple yet powerful lines reflect the essence of many songs penned by Farzana Wahid Shayan. For her, what began as a way to hold onto connections evolved into a unique musical journey. Rejecting commercial norms, the musician describes her work as "life songs" — raw and spontaneous expressions of her experiences. Shayan's work is a blend of personal reflection and sharp social commentary, involving themes from lost relationships to biting political critiques. In songs like "Jonotar Beyadobi", "Bhoy Banglay Bhoy", "Ei Meye Shon", and "O Neta Bhai", she speaks not just of struggles, but of hope for a better world, calling for collective action against injustice. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Shayan shared insights into her creative process, inspirations, and her plans for the future. For "Gaane Gaane Shayan", I feel both excitement and nervousness. Performing solo again after a long break is challenging but thrilling. I can't pre-plan my emotions—everything will unfold naturally. My main goal is to reconnect with the audience. As for my growth as an artiste, it's a continuous process and I'm eager to share this experience with the audience. Why did you choose music as your medium of protest, from songs like 'Abrar Fahad' to 'Aamar Naam Palestine'? Music is the only language I truly understand. It's my way of processing and responding to injustices—whether it's the oppression of Palestinians or issues in Bangladesh. Music isn't just an expression; it's how I engage with the world and it allows me to make sense of the chaos around me. Not at all. I don't expect others to join my protests. Everyone has their own way of expressing themselves and I don't impose my beliefs on others. A protest can be powerful even when only one person stands up. I believe in my path and I tread forward, regardless of external support. Can you share your creative process for songwriting and composition? My songwriting often starts with raw emotions derived from painful events, like the death of Abrar Fahad. It's an ache that forces me to look away from the world and confront my grief. Music is how I cope with the chaos—writing, composing, and performing help ease the burden, even temporarily. My music is deeply personal, shaped by my raw emotions. I don't create for commercial success. Whether a song becomes popular doesn't matter as long as it reflects my experiences and emotions. I don't mind being politically labelled because I consider myself a political person. I know my values and the kind of world I want to live in. Joining protests has allowed me to connect with others and find solidarity. Labels are inevitable, and I've accepted that people will interpret my actions in their own way. How do you balance being an artiste and an activist, and how do you choose the issues to highlight in your music? For me, there's no separation between social, political, and personal issues. If something doesn't feel personal, I won't engage with it. When I sing about issues like Palestine, it's because I feel deeply affected. While some may label me an activist, I see myself simply expressing my reality through music. My goal isn't to challenge societal norms but to remain true to myself in a world that imposes expectations. By doing so, I hope to inspire others to embrace their individuality. By defying these norms, I aim to live authentically. The impact on listeners is subjective—they're free to interpret my work however they wish. How has your career evolved, and what challenges have you faced? The most rewarding part of my career has been connecting with people daily. The biggest challenge has been sustaining myself through music, especially without mainstream success. Balancing music with my legal job was tough, as were societal judgments. Societal labelling and slander were difficult, but they're part of everyone's journey. Despite these struggles, I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had. There's no comparison. A fascist regime suppresses expression and instils fear, whereas today's political chaos stems from people's mistakes and inexperience. While I'm not content with the current situation, I'd still choose it over the repression of a fascist regime. What projects are you currently working on, and what are your future plans? I'm focused on recording and publishing both old and new songs, as well as some poetry. Moving forward, I'll continue making music and cherishing time with loved ones. I'll keep responding to the world around me, be it through songs of joy, protest, or even satire. |রাজনীতি খালেদা জিয়াকে স্বাগত জানাতে বিমানবন্দর সড়কে বিএনপির হাজারো নেতাকর্মীসকাল থেকেই খণ্ড খণ্ড মিছিল নিয়ে বিএনপি নেতাকর্মীরা বিমানবন্দর থেকে খালেদা জিয়ার বাসভবন ‘ফিরোজা’ পর্যন্ত সড়কে অবস্থান নিতে থাকেন। A network of correspondents providing impartial news reports and analysis in 33 languages from locations around the world Up-to-the-minute news and analysis from around the world and in Chicago Hosted by WBEZ's Mary Dixon and NPR's Steve Inskeep Newshour is the award-winning flagship program of the BBC World Service the world’s largest news gathering operation 1A convenes a conversation about the most important issues of our time smart reflection on world news as it’s happening innovators and artists from around the globe with news from Chicago from WBEZ’s Lisa Labuz Reset digs into how the news has moved since you left the house discussing and unpacking the biggest stories and issues in Chicago and beyond right in the heart of the day Fresh Air is a weekday “talk show” that hardly fits the mold Fresh Air Weekend collects the week’s best cultural segments and crafts them together for great weekend listening The show is produced by WHYY and hosted by Terry Gross and features from Chicago and around the world Hosted by WBEZ’s Melba Lara and NPR’s Ailsa Chang A daily take on business and economics news for the rest of us hosted by Michael Barbaro and powered by The New York Times’ journalism 7pm Hour -- A focus on what’s changed here in the U.S since President Trump was inaugurated -- looking at everything from the culture to the shape of the federal government From tariffs to the downsizing of the Department of Education how has Trump made good on his campaign promises From shifting alliances to trade agreements to changes at the U.S we’ll ask how President Trump has altered international relations since January 20 Covering everything about science and technology — from the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies — Science Friday is your source for entertaining and educational stories and activities From their humble beginnings on Chicago’s radio airwaves to their evolution through television and today’s streaming platforms "Stories Without End" unpacks how soap operas have shaped popular culture and told intergenerational stories that continue to resonate a new theme and a variety of stories on that theme Sound Opinions is hosted by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot In-depth interviews with brilliant creators A mix of live performances and interviews from WXPN Philadelphia’s daily program featuring important established and emerging artists Weekly film podcast and radio show from Chicago featuring in-depth reviews The first 50 years of modern advertising was based on hard-sell The next 50 years was persuasion through creativity and media tonnage But as advertising squeezed into the 21 century it was forced to shed its elbowing ways and become a delicate dialogue The goal is no longer to triumph by weight CBC's Under the Influence is hosted by Terry O'Reilly A wrap up of the week's news and a mix of analysis and features on a wide range of topics Have a laugh and test your news knowledge while figuring out what's real and what we've made up It's Been a Minute features people in the culture who deserve your attention Plus weekly wraps of the news with journalists in the know Exploring the biggest questions of our time with the help of the world's greatest thinkers A radio journal of news and culture produced from a Latino perspective and offbeat features from Chicago and around the world with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior shape our choices and direct our relationships Your guide to examining how the media sausage is made Important ideas and practical advice: Code Switch features fearless and much-needed conversations about race—and Life Kit offers practical advice on things in life no one prepared you for Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX Reveal is public radio’s first one-hour radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting A weekly program presented by the New Yorker magazine’s editor killer beats and the edgiest new talent in storytelling come together for a weekly show that straps audiences into an audio rollercoaster Radiolab is known for its deep-dive journalism and innovative sound design Created in 2002 by former host Jad Abumrad the program began as an exploration of scientific inquiry Over the years it has evolved to become a platform for long-form journalism and storytelling Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser Michael Shayan stars in “Avaaz” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater Tessa Mae Pundask and Neala Barron in “Fun Home.” Actor Josh Gad will discuss his new book of essays Jan Been Stellar is coming to Lincoln Hall on Jan Rebirth Brass Band plays two local shows this weekend Henry Fonda (center) stars in “The Grapes of Wrath.” Visitors to Butterfly Haven see dozens of species up close Terms of Use • Privacy Notice • Cookie Policy • Terms of Sale Michael Shayan) welcomes audiences to her home for Nowruz the Iranian New Year celebration marked by a symbolic feast Few if any themes get explored more frequently in American theaters than the immigrant experience Chicago Shakespeare has two plays running simultaneously that take on both And now “Avaaz” opens at the much smaller Upstairs Studio with a likable high-spirited one-person show about one woman’s journey as a Jewish Iranian refugee in Los Angeles and her close but testy relationship with her artsy at a moment when the word “diversity” has taken on political toxicity Shayan comes out to chat with audience members He doesn’t attempt a full-on actorly transformation into an older woman He maintains his beard and voice but adopts an accent and wears a flamboyant outfit the mix of Iranian maximalism and Hollywood glamor that defines Tehrangeles It’s quite spectacular: a shimmering gold and black caftan It’s not easy for a background to stand up to such excess Designer Beowulf Boritt fills the space with luxurious drapes which Shayan explains is a Persian tradition for the springtime new year called Nowruz begin with the same “s” sound: garlic (“seer”) representing health wheatgrass (“sabzeh”) representing rebirth But where one garlic bulb or apple would do the symbolic trick It’s like a Passover seder with a palette of matzoh The idea is that Roya is throwing a party for the holiday ever since they had a big fight over familiar topics mainly that she wants him to lose weight and get a real career the emblem of what an immigrant mother disapproves of.) often inspired by the theme of one of the Haft-Sin components but is in another context a disturbing metaphor used to suggest that This transition leads to Roya’s story of how she ended up married at a young age She had left Iran when her activist father was jailed and stayed for a time with a nice couple the host was quick to agree to an arranged marriage for her A trial separation became permanent without further discussion Although the tale certainly has its dark sides, the overall tone in the production directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (who helmed the production of “Judgment Day” with Jason Alexander) is of joy and humor and triumph very much a story of achieving the American dream while embracing where you came from Shayan matches his mother’s witty personality with his own — Emmy-nominated and we end up with a slew of stand-up-like quips and a certain offbeat English-as-a-second-language poetry Explaining the death of one of her favorite singers it’s challenging to fashion an effective climax and I found the conclusion to be a bit confusing; I wasn’t sure of the intended effect of a recording where Michael interviews his mother about her past the creation of this show obviously represents their coming to mutual understanding but his mother’s reticence on the recording also suggested that he had theatricalized her in a manner at odds with reality filled with humor even when it gets serious and the hybrid that happens in our great nation of immigrants Aajob Karkhana is set to host "Gaane Gaane Shayan," a solo concert by Farzana Wahid Shayan, at the National Art Gallery Auditorium of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on next Friday (November 22). This two-hour musical event, beginning at 6pm, will feature the entirety of Shayan's song repertoire. Known for her distinct voice in the Bangladeshi music scene, Shayan has captivated audiences with original lyrics and melodies, using her music to address global injustices. After several years away from live performances, she returns to the stage to reconnect with her audience in this intimate setting. Reflecting on the concert, the artiste shared, "After such a long time, I'll be performing solo at an event organised by Aajob Karkhana. So much has changed over the years. As an artiste, I aim to bring the sorrows, pains, and renewed hopes I've experienced during this journey into my music. Your support has always been my strength." Joy Shahriar, founder and CEO of Aajob Karkhana, added, "Shayan apa is cherished by us all. She rarely performs live, preferring instead to quietly pursue her craft. But I know there are many, like me, who eagerly anticipate her music. That's why we've organised 'Gaane Gaane Shayan.'" He added, "Aajob Karkhana is dedicated to unique events like this, providing diverse musical experiences beyond the usual lineup of bands and artistes." Tickets for "Gaane Gaane Shayan" are available on the website of Get Set Rock, with three price tiers at Tk 500, Tk 700, and Tk 1000. You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience By Dr. Shayan Sharif, interim vice president research and innovation, and Dr. Evan Fraser This article is republished from the Toronto Star. Read the original Opinion commentary We are not referring to how the guard rails on democracy are being dismantled south of the border but rather a less obvious crisis that may turn out to be even more significant This is the real threat that bird flu could be the next human pandemic and over 14 million in Canada have been culled producers have been hit by bird flu or highly pathogenic avian influenza (aka H5N1) This influenza strain has been around for decades and flares up occasionally For consumers already reeling from 18 months of rising food costs — and for the food banks and other forms of emergency food delivery — this is exacerbating food insecurity But there are worrying signs that this crisis is about to grow scary indeed The problem is that H5N1 has evolved to infect not just poultry but dozens of other species colonies of elephant seals in Argentina lost close to 96 per cent of their pups due to H5N1 And while thankfully only a small number of humans have been infected it could gain the ability to infect people more readily and Given we do not (yet) have transmission between people, it is hard to estimate the human cost of such a mutation, but early evidence suggests that an H5N1 pandemic could be much worse than COVID To figure out how to prevent a bird-flu pandemic in humans we need to better understand the story of this virus H5N1 is part of the flu family and resides in migratory birds that mingle each year before dispersing across the continent in the spring and fall Infected birds carry H5N1 and although some carry the virus without signs the disease can kill infected individuals within days there is a very real possibility of even greater spread the opportunity for the virus to mutate into something more dangerous to humans grows One approach is to manage this problem using laboratory testing to identify outbreaks in flocks and cull all the birds (healthy or not) that may have been in contact with the infection Although this has proven effective in the past it is extremely costly and difficult to execute Importantly, it is now clear that this approach is not working well with the current strain of avian flu, which is mostly spread by wild birds. Scientists, therefore, advocate for taking a “one health” approach that considers human animal and environmental health as all part of one seamless system We have had major successes using one health to fight off major infectious diseases Rabies in the 20th century went from a major problem to being almost eliminated once we realized that a combination of surveillance vaccination and managing both domestic and wild animals can protect people from disease Managing avian flu is a bigger than controlling rabies The spread of H5N1 since 2021 is unprecedented and unlike anything we have witnessed in the last century the virus is still criss-crossing our country and at the same time The big question is whether it can gain the ability to transmit to humans and then jump from humans to humans we have seen massive underinvestment in animal and one health research and this has left both our food systems and public health vulnerable to diseases such as COVID and avian influenza Canada should be a global leader in pandemic response and can achieve this by taking a one health approach This means we must establish the resources and infrastructures to predict detect and mitigate potential pandemics that emerge from our changing environment The time to act was years ago; let’s hope we are not too late to prevent the next pandemic Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker The digital age is driving exponential growth across various industries where Singapore stands as a financial leader the region is rapidly becoming a Fintech hub what does the future hold for this dynamic sector Techsauce explores these questions through an exclusive conversation between Oranuch Lerdsuwankij Hazir shares insights into the keys to success and provides an in-depth analysis of the future of Fintech in Southeast Asia also known as The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation boasts a rich history spanning over 150 years HSBC has expanded its network to encompass 64 countries worldwide They offer a comprehensive suite of financial services HSBC's expertise lies particularly in serving corporate clients a focus they have maintained since their entry into Thailand in 1887 But what is Shayan Hazir's vision for the future of Fintech The discussion begins with Oranuch Lerdsuwankij inquiring about the overall Fintech landscape in Singapore Shayan Hazir provides insights into the key drivers of success and the challenges Fintech companies face in this dynamic market Hazir highlights significant growth in Singapore's Fintech sector with investments surging from 20-50 million USD in 2016 to 4.2 billion USD in recent years This underscores Singapore's potential as a leading Fintech hub in the region Several factors contribute to this success: A distinctive characteristic of Singapore's Fintech landscape is its focus on B2B business models aligning with the market size and business needs such as expanding the ecosystem to accommodate future growth A key question arises: How can Singapore double its Fintech ecosystem and what role should banks play in achieving this goal Hazir emphasizes the importance of collaboration between banks and Fintech companies Hazir emphasizes that collaboration between banks and Fintech companies is crucial for the sustainable growth of the Fintech industry Each party brings unique strengths to the table: Fintech companies can innovate and grow effectively HSBC exemplifies this collaborative approach through investments in Fintech companies like Marketnode ...find a balance where you can combine the knowledge and expertise of large financial institutions with the speed and agility of smaller fintechs innovation is another crucial driver of the Fintech industry Hazir believes that effective Fintech innovation should be human-centric prioritizing customer needs and developing solutions for real-world problems He introduces the “4Cs” framework to guide impactful innovation: He emphasizes the need to be a customer- and idea-driven organization leveraging technology to solve problems efficiently “We need to be a customer- and ideas-led organization and then you walk back to the technology to solve that in the most efficient way.” we have witnessed significant changes in the world of financial services What does the future hold for financial services Shayan Hazir offers compelling insights on this topic Hazir believes that technology will not merely “improve” traditional financial services but will instead “revolutionize” them entirely “We need to think outside the box,” Hazir challenges “Consider how we can eliminate the need for call centers That would be a major transformation.” and Quantum Computing as key drivers of this revolution he emphasizes the importance of having a clear “vision” and avoiding the trap of simply applying technology to existing processes One example he gives is how AI can reduce “decision fatigue” caused by information overload enabling more efficient and effective decision-making With his extensive international experience Shayan Hazir offers valuable advice for Fintech companies navigating the balance between innovation and regulation Hazir recommends that Fintech companies actively engage and collaborate with regulatory bodies He highlights Singapore as a prime example where a progressive regulatory approach has created a “safe space” for Fintech startups Initiatives like the regulatory sandbox and Project Veritas allow for experimentation and innovation within a controlled environment This collaborative approach enables Fintech companies to develop new solutions while ensuring responsible development within a clear regulatory framework the regulator creates safe spaces in terms of projects and sandboxes where you can actually safely experiment… Fintech plays a crucial role in reducing inequality and promoting financial inclusion for all Shayan Hazir shares valuable perspectives on this aspect Hazir highlights the growth of e-commerce and digital wallets as significant factors enabling greater access to financial services in Southeast Asia This is especially important for those who lack access to traditional banking Hazir encourages banks to support financial inclusion by collaborating with Fintech companies that excel at reaching diverse customer segments He cites HSBC's support of Funding Societies and Atome as examples of platforms that facilitate broader access to financial services Technological advancements often bring new regulations How can banks and Fintech companies work together to navigate these challenges Shayan Hazir believes banks have a crucial role to play in supporting Fintech companies - not just as investors I think all problem statements require co-creation.. it's also incumbent on us to inform and educate regulators Hazir also advises Fintech companies and banks to collaborate in educating regulators about new technologies and business models to foster understanding and support for the growth of the Fintech industry For Fintech companies seeking collaboration with banks Hazir suggests they “do their homework” first This means thoroughly researching and understanding the bank's needs and demonstrating clear value and differentiation from competitors Hazir sees banks as “big brothers” to Fintech companies He highlights HSBC's programs that support Fintech delegations to various countries as an example He emphasizes a mutually beneficial relationship where the success of Fintech companies contributes to the success of banks and the broader financial ecosystem ...it's the job of the bank to be almost like [in a] big brother role to financial technology companies.. you shouldn't only bring them on as customers The insightful conversation with Shayan Hazir paints a bright future for Fintech in Southeast Asia He highlights three key factors that will drive sustainable growth in the Fintech sector: Fintech startups must “do their homework” by understanding the needs of banks and clearly demonstrating the value they 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Rounak Tewari Author follow us on whatsappfollow us on telegram follow us on InstagramUSA wicketkeeper-batter Shayan Jahangir missed the first ODI of the tri-series against Namibia going on currently at Al Amerat Cricket Ground in Muscat there are concerns in the USA’s camp whether the stumper-batter will be part of their squad for the second game against the hosts Oman on February 12 Jahangir, a Pakistan-born player faced similar issues during his team’s preparatory campaign for the tri-nation series held in India As the campaign venue was decided abruptly he was forced to stay out of the travelling side to the sub-continent nation The visa process for Pakistanis travelling to India takes a lot of time which led to his non-participation in the camp the visa hurdle for Oman is strange as the visa process for Pakistanis travelling to the gulf nation isn’t complicated Shayan has done extremely well with his bat recently smashing a superb ton against Nepal in the second Cricket World Cup League game played at the Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium Noting the opener’s recent batting figures Smit Patel was seen handling the wicketkeeping and opening responsibilities and we absolutely want him in Oman with the team due to an administrative issue with his visa for entry Shayan was not able to travel with the squad and will not be able to compete at the upcoming ICC CWC League 2 fixtures We're disappointed and will work to understand why this unfortunate decision has been made" said a USA Cricket spokesperson on the issue Smit Patel fails to be impactful with his bat in Shayan’s unavailability The right-handed batter got dismissed after scoring only three off nine in the fourth over of the match against Namibia earlier today JJ Smit trapped the wicket-keeper batter with his left-arm spin. How can Delhi Capitals qualify for IPL 2025 playoffs after rain washes out match against Sunrisers Hyderabad? SRH vs DC IPL 2025 Highlights: Rain halts chase after Delhi score 133/7; SRH crash out of playoffs It stinks: Tim Paine hits back at handling of Kagiso Rabada's suspension I was supposed to go for Euro 2020 with Italy: Raphinha reveals shocking story Suryakumar Yadav hit an unbeaten half-century as India successfully chased down their opponents' target of 111 for a seven-wicket victory - and their third win in as many Group A matches. The tournament co-hosts also entered the contest with a perfect record from their opening two games, but endured a poor start as Arshdeep Singh claimed Shayan Jahangir and Andries Gous in the first over. That left them at 3-2, but they managed to settle with Steven Taylor (24 from 30 balls) and Nitish Kumar (27 off 23) top-scoring as their side finished at 110-8. However, the States made a purposeful start in the field. With the second ball, Virat Kohli was gone for a duck as Gous caught him from Saurabh Netravalkar, who also dismissed Rohit Sharma for just three. Suryakumar (50 off 49 not out) stepped in and held the fort alongside Shivam Dube (31 off 45 not out), though India were still in danger of a potential shock, needing 35 off the final 30 balls. Nevertheless, an untimely five-run penalty was awarded to them as the USA took longer than a minute between overs for the third time. That swung the pendulum firmly in India's favour. Successive boundaries from Suryakumar eased the pressure as they saw out what was eventually a comfortable win. Data Debrief: India through, but Kohli's struggles continue It was not as comfortable as India would have hoped for but, nevertheless, they managed to get the job done, with Suryakumar leading the charge. However, the form of Kohli will be a cause for concern. His dismissal for a golden duck means he has now scored just five runs in his nation's opening three matches. died in a Baghdad prison after being sentenced to two years in prison by a Kirkuk court was informed of their daughter's death in prison on Wednesday October 30 evening Her body was taken to the Baghdad forensic medical examination," a source close to SHayan’s family told KirkukNow He stressed that his body will be taken back to Kirkuk and buried Shayan Ali's imprisonment came after a Kirkuk court sentenced her to two years in prison on July 17 on charges of "insulting and abusing" Iraqi judges and courts 2023 after she insulted the judge and the court in several videos on her Facebook account two days earlier A source in the Kirkuk court told KirkukNow that Shayan's divorce case and the custody of her son have not yet been resolved She was arrested at the Rahimawah police station in Kirkuk before being sentenced by the Kirkuk court and transferred to the Kirkuk detention and transfer prison Shayan was sentenced under the Iraqi Penal Code on the complaint of two judges of the Kirkuk court for deliberately attacking another person "through an act against the law.” The Iraqi government has not yet commented on the case said in a post on Facebook that Shayan had a relationship with a Moroccan man in the United States and then returned to Kurdistan (region of Iraq KRI) and married “Shayan had constant problems with her husband who was “violent with her so she returned to Kurdistan with his son and lived in Sulaimaniya,” Khalil added Shayan did not do anything that would separate her son Shadi from his father and not recognize him so she asked her husband to visit Kurdistan to see his son.” he asked her to take Shad to Morocco temporarily because he returned to live there after her divorce from Shayan,” Khalil said “She traveled several times to the United States so she began to criticize the Iraqi authorities and laws.” Shayan has posted several videos on his Facebook criticizing racial and ethnic discrimination She also posted several videos at checkpoints arguing with the security forces which went viral on social networks Two out of Three Health Centers Shut Down: Displaced Have no Adequate Access to Public Health Services Complaint against Kirkuk Governor for Purchase of Luxury Vehicles "Painting has always been deeply ingrained in me," says Shayan Chowdhury Arnob, a beloved musician known for his genre-fusing songs. However, Arnob's artistic journey stretches beyond music—he has dedicated himself to creating visual art, a medium he says brings him profound solace. Despite his passion, Arnob recognises that the public often struggles to engage with visual art as readily as they do with music. "People pay for concerts, but they wouldn't buy tickets for an exhibition! We lack the practice of appreciating and dissecting art. Music is simply an easier way to reach the masses." Arnob's dedication to art is not new. His 2008 album "Doob" included artwork he created, and he has continued sharing his work through pre-ordered folios on his official social media page, where fans can request specific pieces. "I want to build my art career now; it's a core part of my identity." Arnob's latest art folio, featuring 12 of his drawings, is now available for purchase on his official Facebook page, with special discounts available for students. This release is in collaboration with Qinetic Music as the distributor and Pathao Courier as the delivery partner. Besides being a fine arts graduate, Arnob grew up surrounded by creativity—his parents, Swapan Chowdhury and Suraiya Chowdhury are both painters. Although Arnob has already collaborated in group exhibitions, he's now preparing for his first solo exhibition— a long-held dream he hopes to fulfil next year. He notes that although the Coke Studio platform exists and produces music in many countries, only the Bangla platform has organised a concert so far, which was met with tremendous enthusiasm. "Performing for 4,0000 people with 200 musicians felt surreal," he reminisces. Arnob shared that several new Coke Studio Bangla songs have completed production and are ready for release, however, the exact dates are up to Coke's discretion. "But they'll be out very soon," he hints. Nevertheless, Arnob's musical style, with its modern touches, has also faced criticism. However, he embraces this fusion, believing it defines his artistic identity. "I think more people have appreciated and connected with my music than criticising. Just as we modernise our food, attire, and daily lives, music must evolve too." He reflects on his experience in Shantiniketan— where people sing Rabindra Sangeet seated, whereas, in Dhaka, performers stand— highlighting differences in cultural expression. "Younger listeners connect more with my fusion due to its contemporary composition, and even many have discovered traditional music through my work," shares the musician. Arnob's journey was documented in the 2021 musical film "Adhkhana Bhalo Chele Adha Mostaan", which captured his growth as an artiste. He, now, reveals that his next project, initially planned as an album, will be another musical film. It will feature 12 fresh songs, including lyrics penned by Arnob, along with renowned poets like Srijato, Rajib, and Zahid Haydar. Additionally, it will include a poem by Jibanananda Das, featuring the original verses penned by the poet. Reflecting on the upcoming project, Arnob shares, "There will be echoes of my older albums, like "Chaina Bhabish", along with new experimental songs. I'm really excited about it."