KEY POINTS

Liverpool star Sadio Mane reportedly could consider moving to FC Barcelona in the ongoing summer transfer window.

With Lionel Messi having informed Barcelona that he wants to leave this summer, the club is looking for a long-term replacement for their skipper. Barcelonas new head coach Ronald Koeman managed Mane at Southampton and is believed to be an admirer of the Senegal national and has identified the 29-year-old striker as an ideal replacement for Messi.

Under the watch of Koeman, Mane rose to ranks and netted 25 goals in 75 competitive matches at Southampton between 2014 and 2016. Impressed with Manes show with "The Saints", Liverpool had signed the player for $45 million on a five-year deal.

Mane was linked with a move to Real Madrid last summer and the player was reportedly angry with Liverpool for not even considering or discussing the same with him.

The 28-year-old winger has been a core member of Jurgen Klopps side that has tasted success over the last couple of years. He has scored 81 goals in 171 matches since his Reds debut in 2016. As a reward for his contribution, Mane was offered a new lucrative five-year contract in 2018. Along with Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, Mane has formed a mind-blowing front three at Liverpool helping the side win the Champions League, the Premier League, UEFA Super Cup, and their maiden FIFA Club World Cup.

While in the Ballon dOr awards, only journalists vote, international coaches, captains, and the media vote for FIFA awards. Messi, who won the record sixth Ballon dOr award in 2019, had voted for Mane for his stellar 2018-19 campaign that saw the Senegal striker score 26 goals in 50 matches, across all tournaments.

It has been reported that Liverpool could lose two of its talented players this summer: Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum.

While Mane has three years left in his current contract, Wijnaldums Liverpool deal is due to expire in 2021 and the Dutch midfielder has not been offered an extension yet. Both the players reportedly are wanted by Barcelona as their new boss Koeman has a great relationship with both. Under Koeman, Wijnaldum played a key role in helping Netherlands reach the final of the UEFA Nations League, which they eventually lost to Portugal.

Spanish publication Mundo Deportivo has claimed that Mane has been unhappy at Barcelona and is ready to consider an offer from Barcelona. The report has revealed that Mane feels he is not given the same importance as Salah, Firmino, or Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson. Since Barcelona is set to undergo a transformation under Koeman, it would be a great opportunity for Mane to embrace a new challenge after having proved himself in England.

Sadio Mane scored the winner for Liverpool against Norwich Photo: AFP / Oli SCARFF

The Spanish report has also disclosed that if Mane does choose to depart from Anfield, Liverpool reportedly will not accept any bid less than $142 million for their star winger.

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Liverpools $142M Star Is Ready To Consider Barcelona Move As Lionel Messis Replacement: Report - International Business Times

Q: Windows 10 is now five years old. How much longer will Microsoft provide critical updates for it? And what comes next? A Windows operating system thats paid for by monthly subscription fee?

James Labradori, Delafield, Wis.

A: Technology changes fast, but Windows 10 seems likely to be with us for several more years.

One reason is that the coronavirus has kept people isolated from each other, producing a surge of interest in using computers to stay in touch. Microsoft said that trend has also spurred public interest in using Windows 10, causing the company to invest more in the operating system.

Another reason to believe Windows 10 will be with us is that it doesnt have a fixed expiration date as previous versions of Windows did.

For example, it was known years in advance that Windows 7 would stop receiving security updates in January of this year, making it no longer safe to use. But Windows 10 has an expiration date that keeps getting pushed forward: Each major update is supported for 18 months. But the expiration date never arrives because a new version of Windows 10 is automatically installed every six months, restarting the 18-month expiration clock.

In addition, Windows 10 is getting a new cousin called Windows 10X. Microsoft said 10X wont run on PCs. Instead, its intended for stripped-down computers akin to Googles Chromebook.

A Windows 10X computer aimed at the education market would have so little processing power that it would mostly use online software (much as the Chromebook does.)

Another 10X computer intended for the business market would be less capable than a PC, but have enough processing power to run its own software. Experts said some of the technology improvements developed for Windows 10X such as faster updates and protecting the operating system from software crashes may be added to Windows 10.

What does Windows 10X mean for the future? Microsoft has hinted that all Windows computers might eventually run some version of Windows 10X, but it hasnt said when. And the introduction of 10X has been delayed from this fall until sometime next year.

A consumer Windows 10 subscription service (which would replace purchasing the operating system with a monthly fee to use it) has reportedly been discussed within Microsoft.

The idea is that a Windows 10 subscription fee could become part of Microsoft 365, which is currently the online subscription version of Microsoft Office. But subscriptions may not have much appeal to consumers. So far, its estimated that Microsoft 365 is used by fewer than 20% of all Office customers. So, I think Windows 10 users might get a choice of purchasing or subscribing.

Q: I have a model N5110 Dell Inspiron laptop on which I tried to install Windows 10 when support was eliminated for Windows 7. I wiped the hard drive so I could do a fresh installation of Windows 10, but it wouldnt install properly. I later discovered that this PC model isnt compatible with Windows 10. Is there a workaround to make Windows 10 function?

Bruce Johnston, Tamarack, Minn.

A: Dell said your 2011 PC isnt compatible with Windows 10, which was introduced in 2015 (see tinyurl.com/y4zc653x). Theres no workaround for that type of obsolescence; the only way you can get Windows 10 is to buy a new computer.

E-mail tech questions to steve.j.alexander@gmail.com or write to Tech Q&A, 650 S. 3rd Av., Suite 1300, Minneapolis, MN 55488. Include name, city and telephone number.

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Windows 10 is five years old, but not going away - Minneapolis Star Tribune

The world is changing and quickly too. As I get closer to my 80s, I cant keep up.

Have you noticed, phone booths are nowhere to be found. They have been replaced with itty bitty phones we can stuff in our pockets.

Everyone, wanting to be different, is becoming more the same as they race to cover their bodies with tattoos.

Folks, not satisfied with the number of body holes they were born with, are drilling new holes into their bodies to hang metal objects from, which makes it increasingly difficult to pass through the airports metal detector.

These are only a few of the changes. Did I mention the blue hair craze?

It had to happen eventually. I, for one, cannot believe it. Borrowing an old idea, Starbucks has come out with what is certain to become the latest popular craze. It may not replace the blue hair craze, but I am confident customers will be clamoring to be first to get in on this hip action. Check out the sign displayed on a Starbucks coffee shop window.

As the sign plainly states, you can order a head and pay for it with the Starbucks app.

One caution. Do not order a head in the state of Idaho. Ordering a head violates the cannibalism law in Idaho. None of the other 49 states have specific cannibalism laws to make ordering a head illegal.

You have to admit, the window sign helps prove I did not make this up.

Hey, wait just a minute. I wonder if I got the sign all wrong. Maybe I read too much into the the sign, order a head. Yea, I wonder if Starbucks is getting into toilet sales.

Another distinct possibility is Starbucks is bringing back a new and improved pay toilet which customers can reserve by ordering a head. You do not need to carry change for the pay toilet because you can pay with your Starbucks app.

It certainly is a sign of the times.

Related

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Westside Story A Sign of the Times - The Suburban Times

Irelands Kevin OBrien is no stranger to big-hitting exploits but he had cause to regret his batting prowess on Thursday when he smashed his own car window with a trademark six.

OBrien, who scored the fastest century in World Cup history in 2011 to help Ireland chase down a mammoth 327 to secure a famous win over England in Bangalore, made 82 off 37 balls for Leinster Lightning in the Inter-Provincial Twenty20 Trophy.

He hit eight sixes, one of which sailed into the parking lot next to the Pembroke Cricket Club in Dublin to shatter his cars rear window.

After the match, the 36-year-old all-rounder drove the car straight to the garage to get the window replaced.

Dont worry @KevinOBrien113 well get it fixed up as good as new, the dealership said on Twitter. Brien then came up with fitting reply, promising that he would park the car further from next time around.

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Irelands Kevin OBrien smashes own car window with monster six, says Will park further next time - Hindustan Times

Photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff

Photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff

On Tuesday, news that had long been speculated became official: As first reported by KSRs Matt Jones, DeWayne Peevy, the Deputy Athletic Director at Kentucky, has been named the AD at DePaul. The news had seemingly been in the works for weeks and is now finally official, with Kentucky announcing Peevys departure and DePaul following it up by announcing his arrival.

Admittedly, we dont normally do a lot of transactional, athletic department hirings and firings on this website. But it felt necessary here, if only to explain just how much this guy meant to the University of Kentucky, and its basketball program over the last decade and change. And while Peevy was long overdue to get a job of this magnitude (one he will crush, I have no doubt), its important to explain just how big of a hole he will leave behind at Kentucky.

Understand that Peevy has been at Kentucky for so long, that he actually pre-dates John Calipari by a year. In a world where there are now teenagers who dont remember life in Lexington before Calipari was named head coach, Peevy was on the ground in the wild year of 2008 BC (Before Cal) startingin Billy Gillispies final season as the head coach.

And yeah, if that feels like a lifetime ago, it basically was. Peevys job responsibilities also reflect just how long ago, and just how different Kentucky was at the time. Poor Peevy spent his first year in Lexington trying to drum up any positive media coverage he could for the Kentucky basketball team, in a year when there really was no good news to report. Yes, there was a time not long ago where Kentucky didnt have enough media coverage. Unlike today where it is impossible to keep track of all the newspapers, blogs, podcasts and radio shows who cover the team.

It also means that as Peevy walks out the door, he leaves with a little piece of history with him. He has been there since Day 1 of the Calipari era.

And when I say since Day 1 I mean, the guy was literally there Day 1. When I wrote my book One and Fun some of the best, most vivid stories I got from the entire book centered around Caliparis opening few days as the Kentucky basketball head coach. They were stories that many others had long since forgotten, or simply never took the time to commit to memory. It was Peevy who was there alongside Calipari as he prepared his opening press conference the day he accepted the Kentucky job. It was Peevy who tried to pass along notes, ones that Calipari stubbornly (surprise, surprise) chose not to use.

But it brings me to two important points. One, its that Peevy leaves as basically the unofficial historian of the Calipari era in Lexington. Two, outside of Kentuckys assistant coaches, Peevy quickly became Caliparis most-trusted right hand man at UK.

Really, the best way I can put it is this: You know how John Calipari is just a crazy visionary? A guy who comes up with a million new ideas every year, ranging from Big Blue Madness stuff to schedule quirks, the NBA Combine, on and on and on? Well, if Calipari is the guy throwing a million ideas at the wall, Peevy was the guy who had to execute them all.

When Calipari said I want to beef up the schedule early in his time at Kentucky, Peevy helped create the CBS Sports Classic (an event that Indiana was originally supposed to be a part of, according to Peevy). When Calipari said that he wanted to take his team down to the Bahamas for their once-every-four-years foreign tour, Peevy was the guy who had to call Atlantis and figure out where the team would play, how many hotel rooms theyd need and how to get opposing teams into the country. When Calipari wanted the latest and greatest crazy stunt at Big Blue Madness (think, John Wall dancing in the rafters) Peevy was the guy who worked with UKs operations team to make it happen.

And those are really just examples of things I know about personally. I cant imagine how many other hats he has worn at UK over the past 12 years.

More than anything though, what will be missed most around Lexington is Peevys unique ability to build relations and connect with people. See him at a UK basketball game and the poor guy never got a moment of free time, shaking hands with old friends, chatting with media members, you name it.

That extends beyond just gameday as well, as Peevy was essentially the connective fiber of Caliparis La Familia culture in Lexington. Yes, Calipari is the Godfather, and yes, Calipari is in touch with his former players daily.

But so too is Peevy.

And in the same way those former players inherently trust Calipari they trust Peevy the same. Meaning that if you ever needed John Wall or Jamal Murray or Willie Cauley-Stein for something, Peevy was the guy to go to. He might not be able to get you on the phone with the player that day, but any time Peevy asked one of the guys for a favor, they obliged. It was never a hassle for the player. It was never a wild goose chase where you had to track down the player through a million PR people. If Peevy vouched for you, that was all the players needed to know. Usually you were on the phone with them within a day or two.

Add it all up, and thats really why it is impossible to fully explain what Peevy leaving means to Kentucky basketball. Yes, he had a fancy title of Deputy Athletics Director in Lexington. But thats just a job title. Kentucky will be able to fill the job. But theyll never be able to replace the person theyre losing.

In the end however, what it all boils down to is what I said up top: Kentucky should just be thankful they had him as long as they did.

Hell make a heck of an Athletic Director at DePaul. A job he was long overdue, and way overqualified for.

Visit link:
DeWayne Peevy will be impossible to replace at Kentucky - kentuckysportsradio.com

The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home or business would be to simply keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others.

Masks do a decent job at keeping the virus from spreading into the environment, but if an infected person is inside a building, inevitably some virus will escape into the air.

I am a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Much of my work has focused on how to control the transmission of airborne infectious diseases indoors, and Ive been asked by my own university, my kids schools and even the Alaska State Legislature for advice on how to make indoor spaces safe during this pandemic.

Once the virus escapes into the air inside a building, you have two options: bring in fresh air from outside or remove the virus from the air inside the building.

The safest indoor space is one that constantly has lots of outside air replacing the stale air inside.

In commercial buildings, outside air is usually pumped in through heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. In homes, outside air gets in through open windows and doors, in addition to seeping in through various nooks and crannies.

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Simply put, the more fresh, outside air inside a building, the better. Bringing in this air dilutes any contaminant in a building, whether a virus or a something else, and reduces the exposure of anyone inside. Environmental engineers like me quantify how much outside air is getting into a building using a measure called the air exchange rate. This number quantifies the number of times the air inside a building gets replaced with air from outside in an hour.

While the exact rate depends on the number of people and size of the room, most experts consider roughly six air changes an hour to be good for a 10-foot-by-10-foot room with three to four people in it. In a pandemic this should be higher, with one study from 2016 suggesting that an exchange rate of nine times per hour reduced the spread of SARS, MERS and H1N1 in a Hong Kong hospital.

Many buildings in the U.S., especially schools, do not meet recommended ventilation rates. Thankfully, it can be pretty easy to get more outside air into a building. Keeping windows and doors open is a good start. Putting a box fan in a window blowing out can greatly increase air exchange too. In buildings that dont have operable windows, you can change the mechanical ventilation system to increase how much air it is pumping. But in any room, the more people inside, the faster the air should be replaced.

So how do you know if the room youre in has enough air exchange? Its actually a pretty hard number to calculate. But theres an easy-to-measure proxy that can help. Every time you exhale, you release CO2 into the air. Since the coronavirus is most often spread by breathing, coughing or talking, you can use CO2 levels to see if the room is filling up with potentially infectious exhalations. The CO2 level lets you estimate if enough fresh outside air is getting in.

Outdoors, CO2 levels are just above 400 parts per million (ppm). A well ventilated room will have around 800 ppm of CO2. Any higher than that and it is a sign the room might need more ventilation.

READ: Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

Last year, researchers in Taiwan reported on the effect of ventilation on a tuberculosis outbreak at Taipei University. Many of the rooms in the school were underventilated and had CO2 levels above 3,000 ppm. When engineers improved air circulation and got CO2 levels under 600 ppm, the outbreak completely stopped. According to the research, the increase in ventilation was responsible for 97% of the decrease in transmission.

Since the coronavirus is spread through the air, higher CO2 levels in a room likely mean there is a higher chance of transmission if an infected person is inside. Based on the study above, I recommend trying to keep the CO2 levels below 600 ppm. You can buy good CO2 meters for around $100 online; just make sure that they are accurate to within 50 ppm.

If you are in a room that cant get enough outside air for dilution, consider an air cleaner, also commonly called air purifiers. These machines remove particles from the air, usually using a filter made of tightly woven fibers. They can capture particles containing bacteria and viruses and can help reduce disease transmission.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that air cleaners can do this for the coronavirus, but not all air cleaners are equal. Before you go out and buy one, there are few things to keep in mind.

The first thing to consider is how effective an air cleaners filter is. Your best option is a cleaner that uses a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, as these remove more than 99.97% of all particle sizes.

The second thing to consider is how powerful the cleaner is. The bigger the room or the more people in it the more air needs to be cleaned. I worked with some colleagues at Harvard to put together a tool to help teachers and schools determine how powerful of an air cleaner you need for different classroom sizes.

The last thing to consider is the validity of the claims made by the company producing the air cleaner.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers certifies air cleaners, so the AHAM Verifide seal is a good place to start. Additionally, the California Air Resources Board has a list of air cleaners that are certified as safe and effective, though not all of them use HEPA filters.

Both the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that poor ventilation increases the risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

If you are in control of your indoor environment, make sure you are getting enough fresh air from outside circulating into the building. A CO2 monitor can help give you a clue if there is enough ventilation, and if CO2 levels start going up, open some windows and take a break outside. If you cant get enough fresh air into a room, an air cleaner might be a good idea. If you do get an air cleaner, be aware that they dont remove CO2, so even though the air might be safer, CO2 levels could still be high in the room.

If you walk into a building and it feels hot, stuffy and crowded, chances are that there is not enough ventilation. Turn around and leave.

By paying attention to air circulation and filtration, improving them where you can and staying away from places where you cant, you can add another powerful tool to your anti-coronavirus toolkit.

Shelly Miller is professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom.Read our ethics policy for more on The Suns opinion policyand submit columns, suggested writers and more toopinion@coloradosun.com.

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Opinion: How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors - The Colorado Sun

By Shirley Salemy Meyer

Im an avid painter. Fine art, such as peonies rendered in watercolors or portraits captured by oil, is not my forte. I favor the practical arts. Each year, in late spring and early summer, I paint something a room, a radiator, a patio chair, a window seat in my century-old house. In a week or a weekend, I see a dramatic change.

The notion of change is often thought of as difficult changing jobs can be laborious, changing routines can be disconcerting, even frightening. But change can also be transformative. I approached this years painting season, a time when COVID-19 forced me to change my routines and added layers of worry about my elderly parents in quarantine and my teenage children in remote learning, with a profound need for something new. The slowness of rolling a fresh paint color along nine-foot-high walls, of brushing another layer of semigloss onto wide, decorative wood moldings, allowed contemplation during this disquieting time, a stocktaking of present-day problems and future possibilities.

During my weeks of isolation in Essex County in the midst of the dangerous pandemic, sobering protests urging us to acknowledge and fight racial injustice, and stubborn national leadership one project led to the next. I painted the attic, the mudroom and two bathrooms.

Painting is a methodical, meditative process. I use a roller to cover broad areas of the walls, and then carefully drag my brush along the narrow spaces that the roller is unable to reach. I dont use tape to protect the window and door casings, the crown and baseboard moldings, when I cut in. Instead, I rely on my steady hand and a sharply angled brush. My body leans into the wall, nearly hugging it, as I pull the brush along the edge of the molding to get a clean line. The result of this slow, intimate work is a new look.

Sometimes, change can cause harm. The baseboard moldings are a mess, scuffed up by kids shoes and toys, and contain sections that are wavy and chipped. But lead paint is present amid the layers of paint. Ill never risk sanding the molding to attain a smooth finish when lead paint dust can be so damaging to our health. I can live with the moldings flaws.

But most change is a mark of progress. My drop cloths are a historical record of change in the house: old sheets with dump trucks or bright green polka dots, discolored shower curtains and plastic tablecloths splattered with glitter glue. After each painting project, I wash them all, then store them in a basement room where I keep supplies. The room is filled with old gallons of paint and quarts of colors I tested in various rooms. I recently cleaned out the cans that I will never need again: an electric blue and lime green that were on the walls of the girls room a decade ago; a soft blue that adorned the baby room the bedroom with the crib and changing table that two of my kids cycled into as infants and out of as toddlers. My youngest remained there a twin bed replaced the crib and the changing table became a bookcase and now three of its walls are painted white, the fourth a brick red.

The dining room has been three different colors in 19 years: golden yellow, off-white, and now a saturated, smoky blue. The color of the living room has changed from gold to beige to taupe during that same time period. The most dramatic makeover during my current painting season was in the mudroom, with the walls changing from fiery orange to a serene blue-green hue.

Each time Ive painted a room, Ive gained a new understanding, a new way of looking at the house and my environment. I never realized the usefulness of a bedroom window seat with storage until I painted it. I didnt appreciate the intricacy of the balusters in the attic until I painstakingly brushed them with paint. That gorgeous new color in the mudroom, which toggles between blue and green depending on the time of day, opened my eyes to how much sunshine enters the room.

Right now, we all would benefit from such a new perspective a shake-up in our thinking, a revitalization in our own lives and a much-needed boost to the collective well-being of the country. If only it came as easily as a few fresh coats of paint on imperfect walls.

Shirley Salemy Meyer, a Maplewood resident, is a part-time lecturer in the Writing Program at Rutgers-New Brunswick.

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Painting is slow, meditative and a way to bring change | Opinion - NJ.com

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The main stained-glass windows at St John's Anglican Church in Reid have served as a reminder to the church's parishioners of the story of John the Baptist for nearly 150 years, but time can take its toll on the delicate assembled panels of glass. Now, a $10,000 heritage grant from the ACT government will see the church develop a conservation plan for the building's windows. The church's rector, Father Paul Black, said no conservation work had been done on the windows for 25 years, and the church did not know what condition the windows were in. Stained-glass window experts from Brisbane will be brought in to assess their condition and make a plan to best care for them. Father Black said he and the parishioners hoped the windows were in good order and little needed to be done to maintain them well into the future. He said the church's heritage was part of its attraction to its parishioners, who were drawn from a wide social circle. "There are a lot of people right across the generations who are attracted to a sense of history: a church that actually looks like a church rather than an auditorium, and so on and so forth," Father Black said. Apart from the main windows, the church has stained-glass placed in memory of members of the Campbell family, some of the earliest settlers on the Limestone Plains. Two small windows composed of fragments collected from ruined churches on the First World War Somme battlefields in France by Chaplain F.G. Ward were installed in June 1929. Last year, the church, which predates the establishment of Canberra by more than 70 years, replaced its shingle roof with Welsh slate, raising $360,000 to complete the project. Father Black said when the original wood shingle roof came to be replaced in 1960, the new wonder material chosen was asbestos. Although the church was spared from the January hailstorm, which lashed Canberra in a band from west to east wreaking havoc on many of the city's heritage buildings, Father Black said it was a difficult church to maintain. Father Black, who has been rector at the church for more than a decade, said there was a lot of community support for the church as a piece of Canberra's history. "This precinct is wider than say Christianity. It's to do with who we are as a Canberra community," he said. The coronavirus pandemic has meant the church's services have shifted to accommodate more people. It can comfortably fit 120 people normally, but is presently limited to 40 people. On Saturday, the first wedding since March was set to be held in the church. "It's very difficult to disinfect historic pews and all those things," Father Black said. Other projects to receive grants include more than $11,000 to help conserve murals at the Free Serbian Orthodox Church St George in Forrest and nearly $30,000 for conservation works at Cuppacumbalong Homestead near Tharwa. Expanded audio and augmented reality experiences will also receive heritage funding. Grants will be made to individuals, schools and local historical and residents' societies. More than $370,000 will be awarded under the scheme in 2020-21. Heritage Minister Mick Gentleman said the grants would help support new tours, signage and digitisation projects, as well as conservation work in private, heritage-registered homes. "All the projects celebrate Canberra's wonderful heritage and will help preserve our local history for future generations," Mr Gentleman said.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc7c3cu7aullv1l98x8f47.jpg/r6_192_4100_2505_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

The main stained-glass windows at St John's Anglican Church in Reid have served as a reminder to the church's parishioners of the story of John the Baptist for nearly 150 years, but time can take its toll on the delicate assembled panels of glass.

Now, a $10,000 heritage grant from the ACT government will see the church develop a conservation plan for the building's windows.

The church's rector, Father Paul Black, said no conservation work had been done on the windows for 25 years, and the church did not know what condition the windows were in.

Stained-glass window experts from Brisbane will be brought in to assess their condition and make a plan to best care for them.

Father Black said he and the parishioners hoped the windows were in good order and little needed to be done to maintain them well into the future.

A stained-glass window at St John's in Reid. Picture: Elesa Kurtz

He said the church's heritage was part of its attraction to its parishioners, who were drawn from a wide social circle.

"There are a lot of people right across the generations who are attracted to a sense of history: a church that actually looks like a church rather than an auditorium, and so on and so forth," Father Black said.

Apart from the main windows, the church has stained-glass placed in memory of members of the Campbell family, some of the earliest settlers on the Limestone Plains.

Two small windows composed of fragments collected from ruined churches on the First World War Somme battlefields in France by Chaplain F.G. Ward were installed in June 1929.

Last year, the church, which predates the establishment of Canberra by more than 70 years, replaced its shingle roof with Welsh slate, raising $360,000 to complete the project.

Father Black said when the original wood shingle roof came to be replaced in 1960, the new wonder material chosen was asbestos.

Although the church was spared from the January hailstorm, which lashed Canberra in a band from west to east wreaking havoc on many of the city's heritage buildings, Father Black said it was a difficult church to maintain.

Father Black, who has been rector at the church for more than a decade, said there was a lot of community support for the church as a piece of Canberra's history.

"This precinct is wider than say Christianity. It's to do with who we are as a Canberra community," he said.

The coronavirus pandemic has meant the church's services have shifted to accommodate more people. It can comfortably fit 120 people normally, but is presently limited to 40 people. On Saturday, the first wedding since March was set to be held in the church.

"It's very difficult to disinfect historic pews and all those things," Father Black said.

A stained-glass window at St John's in Reid. Picture: Elesa Kurtz

Other projects to receive grants include more than $11,000 to help conserve murals at the Free Serbian Orthodox Church St George in Forrest and nearly $30,000 for conservation works at Cuppacumbalong Homestead near Tharwa.

Expanded audio and augmented reality experiences will also receive heritage funding. Grants will be made to individuals, schools and local historical and residents' societies.

More than $370,000 will be awarded under the scheme in 2020-21.

Heritage Minister Mick Gentleman said the grants would help support new tours, signage and digitisation projects, as well as conservation work in private, heritage-registered homes.

"All the projects celebrate Canberra's wonderful heritage and will help preserve our local history for future generations," Mr Gentleman said.

Read more:
St John's at Reid will receive heritage grant to help maintain stained-glass windows - The Canberra Times

Bassem Mroue, Associated Press

Beirut residents determined to save heritage lost to blast

BEIRUT (AP) For the past decade, art collector Nabil Debs has been working on turning his 19th century ancestral home in a historic neighborhood of Beirut to a hotel and art gallery. He planned to open it to the public in mid-August.

Within seconds, his lifelong dream came crashing down, along with the two-story buildings stone facade and front balcony as a massive explosion tore through Beirut, shearing off facades, blasting holes in buildings, doors, stones and shattering glass across the capital.

The Aug. 4 blast resulting from nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrates igniting at the port of Beirut killed more than 180 people and wounded nearly 6,000. It also damaged thousands of buildings, including dozens of charming Ottoman and French mandate-era structures which had been among the few survivors of a years-old construction frenzy replacing traditional houses with modern buildings. They include old homes, restaurants, museums and churches.

In the streets of two Beirut historic neighborhoods, Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael, workers are erecting scaffolding to support buildings that have stood for more than a century - now at risk of collapse.

Among them is the house of Debs, who says he is more determined to go ahead with his project, called Arthaus, that consists of 25 rooms. Days after the explosion, after hed recovered from the shock and workers started renovation works. Now he plans the inauguration for mid-September.

We have been working on this project for the last 10 years. For us it is a labor of love, said Debs, standing in a yard between his ancestral red-brick house, which was built in 1860, and another family home built in 1780. We love the project, we love Beirut and we love Lebanon and thats what we are.

The day of the blast, Debs was at the house. He stepped outside into the backyard with a friend who wanted to smoke a cigarette. They were lucky. Had they gone to the front, the whole facade would have fallen on them. They miraculously escaped without a scratch.

It was a horror story, Debs said.

He estimates his losses to be at least $250,000 and could reach $1.5 million, as some art pieces including sculptures were damaged.

Naji Raji, an activist and spokesman for Save Beirut Heritage, said the blast damaged more than 600 historic buildings in Beirut, of which about 40 are at risk of collapse. He said out of the 40 buildings, work has begun to support 17 of them. Raji said some estimates put the cost of renovating old buildings at about $300 million.

The renovation work is being carried out by the Beirut Heritage Initiative, a coalition that includes among others the U.N. culture agency UNESCO, the French embassy and the architects syndicate, Raji said. The state is largely absent, apart from producing licenses for work.

Many of the buildings destroyed in the blast were proud holdouts. Since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990, many old buildings have been demolished and replaced by modern high rises, as speculators stepped in to make fortunes. Since the blast occurred there have been reports of middlemen scouting destroyed neighborhoods and making offers to buy old buildings.

That appears to have provoked a determination by owners to save their buildings.

A giant banner placed on a damaged historic building reads in Arabic and English: We are staying. Another banner hanged on a street in Gemmayzeh reads: Our history is not for sale.

National heritage should be protected. It is very important heritage for the identity of the country, UNESCOs chief Audrey Azoulay told journalists in Beirut on Thursday. She added that UNESCO launched a campaign titled Li Beirut, or for Beirut, and called on states, the private sector and individuals to donate money.

She called for preserving the historic districts of Beirut through laws that prevent selling buildings by taking advantage of weak owners.

Earlier this month, caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni issued a decree preventing the sale of any historic building without permission from the Culture Ministry, a move that aims to prevent exploitation.

In Gemmayzeh, Aida Qazoun, 80, moved around her four-room apartment on the ground floor of a century-old three-story building as workers fixed broken windows and cemented holes in the walls.

She returned from her sons home in the mountains, where she moved for two weeks after the blast along with her daughter who suffered an arm injury from flying glass and who also returned home.

I got married and moved into this apartment 60 years ago. I will stay here, said Qazoun as she prepared a pot of Arabic coffee for the workers to take a rest during a hot and humid summer day.

Read more:
Beirut residents determined to save heritage lost to blast - The Herald Review

After looters crashed through his floor-to-ceiling windows and stole $1 million worth of booze in May, Chicago-Lake Liquors owner John Wolf wanted to protect himself from a repeat occurrence.

Like property owners throughout the world, he wanted to install security shutters on the outside of his building. The investment would not only prevent rioters from entering his store, it would protect his windows which cost $50,000 to replace.

But Wolf ran into a big obstacle: The city of Minneapolis has barred security shutters on building exteriors since 2004.

Unlike St. Paul, which allows external shutters as long as owners request a permit, Minneapolis limits security shutters to the inside of a property, leaving windows vulnerable to attack. In a report justifying the rule change, Minneapolis officials argued that external shutters "cause visual blight" and create the impression that an area is "unsafe" and "troublesome."

But in the wake of the riots, when police failed to prevent widespread looting and damage to more than 1,500 businesses in the Twin Cities, property owners said they can no longer count on the city to protect their property.

"Times have changed," Wolf said. "I am going to spend millions of dollars to bring my business back, and I don't want to buy 20 window panes and have them broken the first day. Property owners should have options on how to protect themselves."

Wolf is one of many small-business owners who have taken a sudden interest in security. At QMI, an Illinois company that bills itself as the largest provider of security shutters in the U.S., orders have doubled since this spring, when riots broke out across the country in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Tom Miller, QMI's vice president of marketing, said the company is hearing from restaurants and mom-and-pop stores that never expressed an interest in shutters before.

"It's nationwide, and it's impacting the whole industry," Miller said. "We have more business than we can handle."

Miller said Minneapolis is one of the few big cities that ban external shutters, noting the shutters are widespread in Europe and many major American cities, including New York. "It is usually the landlord that restricts their use rather than the cities," Miller said.

Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins, who represents many of the businesses destroyed in the riots, said any property owner who wants external shutters can seek a variance from the city. She said the city would show "flexibility" regarding the rule.

"In general, I think people should be able to protect their property," Jenkins said.

Since Minneapolis put the rule into effect 16 years ago, just one business owner has sought permission for external shutters, city records show. The property owner said he needed the shutters to protect his retail shop, which had been burglarized several times after criminals broke in through the windows. The request was denied.

"While someone is authorized to file a variance, it is challenging to meet the legal findings that are necessary to grant a variance from this type of provision," said Sarah McKenzie, a spokeswoman for the city.

Quality Coaches owner Mark Brandow, who wants to install shutters on his car-repair shop on W. 38th Street, said Minneapolis officials told him his property wasn't "eligible" for a variance when he tried to file the paperwork in July.

McKenzie acknowledged the "miscommunication" in an e-mailed response to questions. "We apologize for the error," she said.

Brandow said he is glad city officials will now let him make his case because he was prepared to install a set of interior shutters for about $25,000. Brandow said even though his business wasn't damaged in the riots he is concerned that another round of rioting could break out if one of the police officers charged in Floyd's death is acquitted.

"I have never felt so vulnerable," said Brandow, whose shop is two blocks from another car-repair business that was destroyed in the May riots.

Brandow has been fixing imported sports cars and other vehicles in south Minneapolis since 1975. Though his shop was burglarized once, about 10 years ago, Brandow said he didn't consider barricading his windows until this year. Now in his 70s, Brandow said he needs to protect his business, valued at $860,000, because he can't afford to rebuild and won't be able to retire if his shop is wrecked.

In 1992, Brandow received an award from the American Institute of Architects for rehabilitating a historic building. But the property now looks like an "orphanage in distress," he said, because he has not removed the plywood he used to protect his windows during the riots as a protest to the city's stance on shutters. The boards are covered with graffiti.

"People in the neighborhood have asked me to take the boards off because it is ugly," Brandow said. "But I don't need to be pretty. I'm going to leave it ugly until I get some satisfaction."

Some business owners said they can't wait for the city to act on a variance request, so they have moved ahead with other forms of protection. Last week, Wolf traveled to Broadway Liquor Outlet in north Minneapolis to inspect a new system installed by store owner Dean Rose, who spent $12,000 for metal gates that sit inside his giant windows.

Though the gates won't protect the glass, they are designed to keep intruders out, Rose said.

Wolf was not impressed. "How long would it take to get through here? Two minutes?" he asked, as general manager Travis Smith showed him around the store.

Smith agreed that anyone with bolt cutters could probably make short work of the barricade, but he said it was the best the store could do.

"I didn't have much choice," said Rose, who reopened his store in July. "I know there is an ordinance against shutters, and I couldn't wait."

Rose, who estimates he lost more than $500,000 when his store was looted during the riots this year, said he spent about $30,000 to replace his 14 window panels. He said he is preparing to petition the city for a rule change that would allow many business owners to install external shutters.

"I think there is a way you can make an aesthetically pleasing security barrier that doesn't give a derogatory impression to somebody," Rose said. "The reality is, certain businesses needed to be protected because they are hot spots that people go to loot because of what's inside."

Jenkins said she is willing to consider changing the rule at the City Council.

"New York has metal shutters that come down at night, and it really does look like a fortress, so I think there were some valid reasons for instituting that ordinance," Jenkins said. "But everything is subject to change. So I would be open to looking at it given the new realities we are in."

See more here:
Minneapolis businesses fight ban on exterior shutters owners wanting to protect their windows after riots face obstacle - Minneapolis Star Tribune