Jennifer, a manager at a local Tru Value store, had the task of hiring someone to fill a job opening. After sorting through a stack of resumes she found four people who were equally qualified. Jennifer decided to call the four in and ask them only one question. Their answer would determine which of them would get the job.*

The day came and as the four sat around the conference room table, Jennifer asked, ‘What is the fastest thing you know of?’

The first man replied, ‘A THOUGHT.’ It just pops into your head. There’s no warning.

‘That’s very good!’ replied Jennifer. ‘And, now you sir?’, she asked the second man.

‘Hmmm…let me see ‘A blink! It comes and goes and you don’t know that it ever happened. A BLINK is the fastest thing I know of.’

‘Excellent!’ said Jennifer. ‘The blink of an eye, that’s a very popular cliché for speed.’

She then turned to the third man, who was contemplating his reply.

‘Well, out at my dad’s property, you step out of the house and on the wall there’s a light switch. When you flip that switch, way out across the pasture the light on the barn comes on in less than an instant. ‘Yep, TURNING ON A LIGHT is the fastest thing I can think of’.

Jennifer was very impressed with the third answer and thought she had found her man. ‘It ‘s hard to beat the speed of light,’ she said.

Turning to Wally, the fourth and final man, Jennifer posed the same question.

Old Wally replied, ‘After hearing the previous three answers, it’s obvious to me that the fastest thing known is DIARRHOEA.’

‘WHAT !?’ said Jennifer, stunned by the response.

‘Oh sure’, said Wally. ‘You see, the other day I wasn’t feeling so good, and I ran for the bathroom, but before I could THINK, BLINK, or TURN ON THE LIGHT, I had already shit myself..’

Wally is now working at a Tru Value near you!

The post Jennifer, a manager at a local Tru Value store, had the task of hiring someone to fill a job opening, SUBMITTED BY ERROL RAPPAPORT appeared first on Good News!.

We are very proud of the Mayor’s Press/Photo Op Conference at City Hall on Friday, September 19th, where Deputy Mayor Varlack rang the FOWPAL Ancient Peace Bell, and our dear friend Pastor Monrose joined the respectful ceremony. A Peace Pole, from May Peace Prevail on Earth, was given to the City of New York. Additionally, a New York City Citation was presented to the nonprofit Good News Corporation, est. In 2002, Founder Paul Sladkus, who has accepted it for everyone who, over the last 23 years, has dedicated themselves to our peace efforts.

#MasterSha #DeputyMayorVarlack #CityHall #FOWPAL #PeaceBell #PastorMonrose

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The post DIGITAL ASSETS, PAUL SLADKUS addresses a United Nations Audience appeared first on Good News!.

A reef in waters off Tahiti, French Polynesia. Countries and territories including Chile, Colombia and others pledged 20 new marine protected areas on Friday.  Credit…Daniel Cole/Associated Press

More than 20 new marine protected areas in coastal waters were announced at the third U.N. ocean conference this week. Experts say thousands more are needed.

Remote coral atolls in the Caribbean. Habitat for threatened sharks and rays around a Tanzanian island in the Indian Ocean. And 900,000 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean around French Polynesia.

These are some of the millions of acres of water now set aside as part of an international goal to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. More than 20 new marine protected areas were announced at the third United Nations Ocean Conference, which ended on Friday in France.

Countries and territories pledging new areas included Chile; Colombia; French Polynesia; Portugal; Samoa; Sao Tome and Principe; the Solomon Islands; Tanzania; and Vanuatu.

“Protecting the ocean is beginning to become fashionable,” said Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist and oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the 1990s, at an event celebrating a network of protected areas around the Azores.

The new designations come at a time when the United States, which sent only two observers to the conference, has moved to reopen the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. The country is also seeking to unilaterally authorize mining of the seafloor in international waters.

France, which hosted the conference with Costa Rica, pushed for a moratorium on deep sea mining, with four new countries pledging their support this week, bringing the total to 37 countries.

Less than 3 percent of the ocean is currently fully protected from “extractive” activities like commercial fishing and mining, according to the Marine Protection Atlas.

Peter Thomson, the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy for the ocean, acknowledged at the Azores event that reaching 30 percent by the 2030 deadline may not happen. But, he said, “It’s not a mythical thing that will never happen.”

In order to reach the goal, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement, also known as the High Seas Treaty, needs to be enforced with at least 60 countries ratifying it. At the conference, 19 new countries ratified the treaty, bringing the total to 50 individual countries plus the European Union. Once active, the treaty would provide a pathway toward protecting stretches of the ocean beyond individual countries’ borders.

And in coastal waters within those borders, much remains to be done. A study published in May found that the average marine protected area today is about 10 square kilometers, meaning about 188,000 more areas of that size are needed — or 85 new marine protected areas a day.

These numbers are “super daunting,” said the report’s lead author Kristin Rechberger, who is chief executive of the conservation organization Dynamic Planet. She wants countries to break through the challenge by decentralizing marine protection and allowing coastal communities to create their own small protected areas at a faster pace.

A separate report published last week found that countries need to raise $15.8 billion a year in order to protect 30 percent of the ocean. Currently about $1.2 billion a year goes toward ocean protection globally.

Questions also remain about how meaningful existing protections are.

Activists have been pushing the French government to announce a ban on bottom trawling in its marine protected areas. President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would place 4 percent of its mainland waters under “strong protection,” limiting bottom trawling, a fishing process that drags nets along the seafloor. This falls short of an existing European Union goal of placing 10 percent of its waters under “strict protection,” without commercial fishing of any kind.

“Allowing destructive bottom trawling in most of France’s so-called ‘protected’ areas makes a mockery of ocean protection,” said Alexandra Cousteau, senior adviser to Oceana and granddaughter of the ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, in a written statement. “It’s like building a fence around a forest and then bulldozing it anyway.”

Even where protections from commercial fishing exist around the world, enforcement is often lacking.

Zafer Kizilkaya, president of the Mediterranean Conservation Society, has worked with local fishing communities to create and patrol a marine protected area at Gokova Bay in Turkey, allowing endangered monk seals to return. Community members — including former fishers — serve as marine rangers, reporting illegal commercial fishing to the Turkish Coast Guard, which follows up with fines.

Mr. Kizilkaya is not seeking greater percentages of protected marine areas at this point, but rather “serious enforcement and management,” he said. “That will make a huge difference.”

The United States did not send an official delegation to the conference. Two representatives from the the administration’s Environmental Advisory Task Force, including Ed Russo, the chairman, attended as what the State Department called “government observers.”

The day before the conference began, Mr. Russo wrote an opinion piece in Time magazine with Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce and owner of Time, outlining ideas for a “focused, global effort to restore coral reefs.”

“We believe that addressing coral-reef health is a smart place to focus — not because it is the only crisis,” they wrote, “but because it offers a clear, actionable, achievable goal that can unite governments and ocean advocates.”

Mr. Russo and Mr. Benioff did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Russo is chief executive of RussKap Water, president of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition and a board member of Reef Relief.

Mr. Benioff, who during the first Trump administration raised Republican support for an initiative to plant a trillion trees, has funded a center for marine conservation called the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Salesforce was a major sponsor of the U.N. ocean conference’s publicly accessible exhibits.

John Kerry, the former special presidential envoy for climate under President Biden, said he didn’t know what role the United States would play in ocean protection now.

“We have an amazing conglomeration of countries that have come together to improve the marine protected areas,” Mr. Kerry said. The announcements this week, however, are “just building blocks,” he said. “We are not moving fast enough or at scale.”

Note: Along with heads of state, delegates, NGOs, and journalists, Fellows with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network attended the conference.

Daphné Anglès contributed reporting.

Delger Erdenesanaa (Author)

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Under the High Patronage of
Mr Emmanuel MACRON
President of the French Republic

Paris, May 30, 2025 – Responding to the call of the Israeli, Palestinian, and global populations for lasting peace in the Middle East, the Paris Peace Forum is hosting a civil society mobilization event for the two-state solution, peace, and regional security in Paris on June 13, 2025. Entitled “Paris Call for the Two-State Solution, Peace and Regional Security,” the event will be held at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) under the high patronage of Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic. This key meeting will take place a few days ahead of the High-Level International Conference on the Peaceful Resolution of the Palestinian Question and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, which will be held from June 17 to 20, 2025, at the United Nations in New York.

This event will bring together several hundred civil society actors committed to the implementation of the two-state solution and a shared future based on mutual recognition, peace, and security for all. At a time when the region is plagued by extreme violence, terrorism, hatred, and injustice, and when the two-state solution faces existential threats, participants—mostly Israelis and Palestinians, but also from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States—will highlight the need for decisive action. They will stress the urgency of an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the unconditional delivery of humanitarian aid commensurate with the needs of the people of Gaza.

On June 13 in Paris, these organizations and civil society figures will put their expertise and experience at the service of concrete solutions for the implementation of the two-state solution and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, offering security guarantees for all, and for advancing regional integration. In addition to contributing to the work of the eight thematic working groups of the High-Level International Conference on June 17-20, the civil society actors gathered in large numbers on this occasion will launch a call to action to the international community reflecting their commitment to peace and security for all.

This Paris Call will reinforce the action of France and the European Union, which are committed to peace in the Middle East, which cannot be achieved without the implementation of the two-state solution. The conference organized by the Paris Peace Forum aims to support this objective by providing a platform for the concrete expression of civil societies committed to the two-state solution, regional peace, and security.

For media enquiries, please contact media@parispeaceforum.org. For all other enquiries (e.g., if you are a civil society actor), please contact contact@parispeaceforum.org. 

About the Paris Peace Forum: The Forum is a platform to originate, shape & share multi-actor responses towards global peace & sustainable prosperity. By convening key decision-makers and fostering collaboration between governments, international organizations, businesses, and civil society, we ensure that diplomacy is not just discussed but reinvented to meet the demands of a changing world. For more information, visit parispeaceforum.org. 

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WHO: Mayor Eric Adams and Multifaith Leaders

WHAT: Vigil and Press Conference to denounce last night’s murder of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC.

WHEN: Yesterday, Thursday, May 22nd, 12PM

Listen to “Ari Ackerman is a successful serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, sports team owner, and powerful social media influencer.” on Spreaker.

#mayoradams #israeliembassy #dc #washington

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https://www.aspireartemis.org/

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