A motion to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion? Thank you. Now, we're going to move on to item 2, which is the introduction of the committee members. I can go first. My name is Taisha Green. I am the Director of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging for the City of Burlington. I report directly to the mayor, and I am excited to be here and get this started. Anyone can jump in. I can point people out. How about you, Representative Colston? Sure. Hal Colston. Livin Wynuski, I serve as a State Representative, as well as a City Councilor. Thank you. Pablo? Hi. My name is Pablo Bose. I'm a Professor of Geography at the University of Vermont. I live in Burlington, and I also serve on the Public Works Commission. Thank you. Rebecca? Hi. I'm Rebecca Zitlow, and I live in Burlington, although I'm a professor at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. I'm a Professor of Constitutional Law, and I specialize in Reconstruction, the 13th Amendment, and the impact on slavery on our society, especially on workers' rights. So I'm very excited to be part of this commission. Thank you, Rebecca. Christine? Hi, everyone. I'm Christine Hughes. I'm joining you as a representative of the Racial Justice Alliance and Foundation. I'm glad to be here. I'm actually in transit, so I'll turn my video on in about five or 10, maybe 15 minutes. Thanks. Thank you, Christine. Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. To the task force members, I'm really mostly here to say thank you for agreeing to serve on this really critical and important body. I think you've signed up for a big job, and it is a job that is made bigger by how unique it is and really something of a pioneering effort, I think you have before you. My understanding is that we are, Burlington is with the commencement of this meeting, the first city and only the second governmental jurisdiction in the country to be taking on the task of really trying to understand what our city's relationship was with the institution of slavery and to grapple with what implications that has for us today, given just the horror that the institution was, and the fact that when it was ended, it was ended in such a incomplete and unjust way without recognition of the damage that had been done and the duties that any institution, any organization that had an association with it without any recognition of any duties or obligations on those organizations. I think it may strike some people that they may have questions about this exercise and wonder, I think in the popular imagination, Burlington seems geographically distant from the states that are so infamous for the forced slavery. I think the fact that Vermont did take early steps is widely known as the first day to abolish slavery may, in some people's minds, raise questions about why this exercise is necessary. I think there's been a couple of events recently that really, in contrast, show the importance and the why our comfort with that history might be inconsistent and out of whack with our understanding of what our understanding of history should be. We just a couple of months ago had a remarkable event on Main Street where we put in place two markers to note that the daughter of Ethan Allen lived in this community, just blocks from where City Hall now lies and owned slaves in this community well after the institution had been abolished in the state. Similarly, just this week, I was struck with the new reporting about the life of Alexander Hamilton and the new information that has come to light that has made clear that his, as really called into question and serious doubt is the understanding of him as an abolitionist and this recent study suggests he did own slaves, concludes that he owned slaves. And one of the reasons that that has remained obscure for so long is that very little is known about Northern slavery. It's not a topic that has been studied. The way in which slavery was phased out in the North is not well understood and it was incremental and gradual. And so I think you may well uncover surprises and real new information that has not been part of our understanding of this city's history. I don't know what you're going to find. I do know that we have to do this work and we have to really reckon with what our connections as a city were to slavery and what our responsibility is for that today if we are ever going to move past this wound at the heart of this country. And if we're ever going to really fully advance I think this is an exercise that we need to do. So I'm deeply appreciative that you have taken this on. I will be doing my best as you conduct your work to stay in touch with what you are finding. Taisha does report directly to me and we speak frequently and you are in very capable hands with her leadership as part of this task force. And I'm very much looking forward to you completing your work and the recommendations that you make to me and the council and the public when you're done. So thank you and good luck. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, so we're going to move on to public forum. Is there, if there is anyone here from the public who would like to speak if you would just raise your hand and I will call on you to speak. And another thing, thank you for everyone for muting yourselves. We don't have this in a webinar form. Our next one will be such, but this one is not. So thank you for muting yourselves. If you have anything that you'd like to say or speak during the public forum, please raise your hand. Okay, seeing none. Oh, it says we can't. Okay, with the racial justice alliance would you like to speak? And if so, you can feel free to unmute yourself and for it. Thanks, Director Green. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I just want to just express my appreciation for the work that the task force is undertaking and the mayor's willingness to lean into it and as well as the administration's work towards these efforts in the wake of Operation Phoenix Rise, the proposition that we put forward and as well as the right high tower council or high towers work on the June 29th resolution. And also the budget that was set forth the following day on the 30th of June. So I want to just thank the mayor for that and also charge the, charge the group as well. I want to just give a shout out to Representative Colson, I know who's been working at the statewide level on H-478, which was a statewide bill that died a quiet death in house government operations. This last biennium, it was reflective of HR 40, which has died 31 quiet deaths at the national level the task force. So yeah, I think the work would be good. It'll be exciting. I just want to also point out for clarification our work with PR2, the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery from the state constitution of Vermont state constitution. Despite rumors of abolition of slavery, we do indeed 30 seconds read into our constitution, allows slavery for the punishment of crimes and debts and fines and the like and also under the age of 21, we are halfway through that process and getting our constitution amended. So I'm looking forward to this next biennium, Representative Colson, to move that policy further down the road so we can get it as a general referendum on the ballot for November of 2022 again. Thank you all for your work in this effort. It is truly historic and I appreciate that you are here and I'm sure that you are all up to the task. Thank you. If anyone else would like to speak for public forum, please do what the Racial Justice Alliance did and put it in the chat and then feel free to unmute yourself at that time. Seeing none, we're gonna move on. Like I said before, I am Tyisha Green. I do want to thank the Racial Justice Alliance for their work, their intellectual work and their physical work on ensuring that this resolution was pushed forward. I want to thank all of the city counselors who were involved in making sure that this resolution came to pass, specifically the sponsors of the resolution, Counselor Freeman, Hightower, Stromberg, Tracey, Hansen and Pine, this resolution did pass unanimously by the council and it did have a lot of input put into it from Counselor Karen Paul as well. So I do want to say thank you for that. I know that this work would not have been done without the council and without the Racial Justice Alliance. So I will feel remiss if I didn't acknowledge that. So what I would like to do now, I know we have two professors on the panel here. What I would like to do now is to go through the resolution and if either of you would like to read the resolution for our audience here, that will be great or we can split it up however you decide to do it. I wouldn't mind taking a page if you didn't want to read the whole thing or if you didn't want to split it up between you two but I feel like having professors on the task force might as well have them read. So I see Rebecca has grabbed hers already. So I will share my screen with the resolution on it and I will follow along as Rebecca reads it. All right, I'll get started. And then someone maybe you can jump in or Pablo you can jump in whenever you want. City of Burlington in the year 2020 resolved by the city council of the city of Burlington as follows that whereas each year since 1989 and up to on June 19th, 2019 a bill known as HR 40 commissioned to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives and whereas on February 27th, 2019 bill H 478 relating to establishing of a task force to study and consider a state apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery was introduced in the Vermont legislature and whereas in both HR 40 and H 478 it is stated that approximately 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865. The institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the government of the United States from 1789 through 1865. The slavery that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans life, liberty, African citizenship rights and cultural heritage and denied them the fruits of their own labor. A preponderance of scholarly legal community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the ongoing effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African-Americans and society in the United States. And following the abolition of slavery the United States government at the federal, state and local level continued to perpetuate condone and often profit from practices that continued to brutalize and disadvantage African-Americans including sharecropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, unequal education and disproportionate treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system. And as a result of the historic and continued discrimination African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, educational and health hardships including but not limited to having nearly one million black people incarcerated yearly. And whereas the Vermont Senate and House approved into law 2020 PR2, Declaration of Rights clarifying the prohibition on slavery and indentured servitude, a constitutional amendment replacing exceptions whereby slavery is permitted for persons under 21 years of age and in instances where persons are bound by the owner's consent, own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs or the like with language stating that slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited. And whereas black generation exers born after April of 1968 were the first generation of blacks of African-American descent to be born free in the United States with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 giving African-Americans the right to education, patronize public facilities and places, apply for jobs, act as a juror in state courts and voting, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 also made hate crimes based on race, a federal offense. And whereas systemic racism is at the heart of our economy and continues to adversely impact BIPOC people but most strikingly black Americans across all systems of society including employment, housing, education, access to health services, the justice system, economic development and across all systems of government and whereas the medium wealth of a black family is one-thirteenth the medium wealth of a white family and according to a report by the Public Assets and Institute and Burlington African-American people and families are most disproportionately impacted by poverty with an estimated 32.5% living in poverty. And whereas unemployment rates for African-Americans have averaged twice those of whites since data has been on record, the turn of a rate for the state of Vermont is three times that of whites and blacks are underrepresented in leadership positions and whereas black students are disciplined at far higher rates in our schools are far more likely to come in contact with the school resource officers and numerous reports speak to the racial disparities in schools in disproportionate police contact with black children. And whereas black Burlingtonians are exponentially far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and be the target of police use of force, incident and their white counterparts and whereas per the council resolution, racial justice through economic and criminal justice which passed on June 29th, 2020 that declares racism a citywide health crisis and the city's declaration in conjunction with the Racial Justice Alliance that racism is a public health emergency. We remain mindful that stark and persistent health inequities exist in the United States based on race which are caused by systemic racism and whereas systemic racism is a principle social determinant of individual and public health impacting economic and employment, education, housing, justice and health opportunities and outcomes all of which further adversely impact the health of blacks and whereas the coronavirus is now exacerbating these disparities and black and Latino people in the US have been nearly three times as likely as white people to become infected with the virus and nearly two times as likely to die and those disparities are even more marked among younger age groups and whereas these same disparities exist in Vermont and during the current pandemic though black residents comprised just over 1% of Vermont's population they account for approximately 10% of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases as of July 8th, 2020 and whereas in housing only 4% of homes in Burlington are owned by blacks though people of color comprise 18% of Burlington's population and potential home applicants who are black are four and a half times more likely than white applicants to be denied for a home loan 83.3% to 18.2% and whereas in Chattenden County 26% of black residents are in poverty compared to 10.6% of white residents 8.1% of black residents are unemployed compared with 4.3% of white residents and 39.6% of black residents have a bachelor's degree or higher compared to 49.9% of white residents whereas the resolution racial justice through economic and criminal justice resolved that the city established a task for us to consider an apology and our reparations for the role that Burlington has played in chattel slavery and this council is committed to carrying through on the directives of this historic resolution. I think someone else maybe could take over now. Taisha or Pablo or anybody? Yes. I can take over. I was going to have you stop at 109 but I will take over now. Oh, okay. Do you want me to keep going to 109? I'm happy to do that if you want me to. Sure. Okay. Thank you, Rebecca. All right, sure. Now therefore be it resolved that a task force is established to study reparations and consider a proposal for reparations and consider a city apology for the institution of slavery and be it further resolved that the task force shall consist of five members. One member shall be appointed by the mayor or designee. One member shall be appointed by the president of the city council or designee. One member shall be appointed by the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. One member shall be appointed by the Vermont Human Rights Commission and the final member shall be the racial equity, inclusion and belonging director or designee and be it further resolved that members shall be drawn from diverse backgrounds to represent the interests of communities of color throughout the city, have experience working to implement racial justice reform to the extent possible, represent geographically diverse areas and shall serve as members for the life of the task force. Vacancies in the task force shall not affect the powers of the task force and shall be filled in the same manner that the original appointment was made and be it further resolved that the task force may consistent with all city procurement and other policies and all applicable laws and rules, recommend to the administration and the council the appointment of such personnel as the task force considers appropriate to carry out its mission, request that the REIB director procure supplies, services and property by contract in accordance with the task force budget below and the city's procurement policy and may recommend to the administration and the council that the city enter into contracts with departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the United States, agencies, private firms, institutions and agencies for the conduct of research or surveys, the preparation of reports and other activities necessary for the discharge of the duties of the task force and be it further resolved that any subcommittee member I'm sorry, any subcommittee or member of the task force may, if authorized by the task force, acquire directly from the head of any department agency or instrumentality of the city, available information that the task force considers useful in the discharge of its duties and all departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the city shall cooperate with the task force with respect to such information and shall furnish all information requested by the task force to the extent permitted by law. The task force shall keep confidential. Any information received from a public agency that is confidential or exempt from the Public Records Act and it further resolved. Rebecca, I wanna stop you right there. Okay, good. Thank you so much. Sure. I know that that was a lot to listen to and to hear. I'm gonna stop sharing. But I thought that it was important that everyone understands, everyone on the call understands why we're here and what the history, historical context of chattel slavery has been in this country and specifically here in Vermont. I had Rebecca stop at that point because the be it further resolved that the task force shall is what we're gonna be kind of delineating together and trying to figure out together what that means. As far as I understand this resolution, this portion of the resolution would be for persons or a person who is going to actually perform the work, who is actually going to perform the study itself. And that is something that we will have to discuss as a team, how do we create an RFP for that process? How do we select? What are the guidelines that we're looking for to select those people to perform these tasks? These are a lot of tasks. It's not something for the light at heart. It's definitely something that academic professionals would have to undertake. It's not something that someone randomly can do. And because of what the study is based on, that person or persons will have to have research backgrounds, research studies in chattel slavery, reconstruction, even as far as like the civil rights era that often looks back to the slavery era for answers to what was happening in the 60s. So that's where I am on that. I know that you probably haven't had a lot of time to read through the resolution, but does anyone have any other ideas about what Rebecca just read to us and any ideas about how do we push this work forward? Taysha, I have a question. So with what you were just talking about about people that we would consider qualified to do that work, if by some reason we're not able to find somebody or people who fit the bill locally, would we look outside of Burlington or Vermont or what are your thoughts about that? Definitely. There has been a lot of interest in this from academics from the Boston area, from where I am from, the University of Minnesota, from another town here in Vermont that's not in Burlington. Some from Maine. There's been academic professionals reaching out from Washington, D.C. So there's a lot of academic professionals who are interested in engaging on this work and have the resources, the time, which is most important, not only the resources, but the time to put in to ensure that we are conducting a sound study. I would also say that the Vermont Law School normally has a lot of really brilliant, young black law students that for some reason we never see in Burlington, but they are there. So... Yes, and they were very interested as well. So I have been in contact with black lawyers from the Vermont Law School who are interested in throwing their name in to be a part of this study. Oh, good. I think it's a great thing. That's good to hear. Thank you. Representative Colston? Yes, thank you. I think it would be interesting if we look outside the state to seek potential contractors who are in a community where they're undergoing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and there are a number of them around the country. Many of them are funded by the Kellogg Foundation. So that could be an interesting mix. I agree. I agree with not just having academics from this area. We did try early on in the process to reach out to academics in this area to see if they were interested or if they had the time. Most of them did not have the time to do a task as big as this. And so we started looking outside of Burlington at that point. I mean, I think you've probably already reached out to him and he may be one of the people who didn't have the time, but the first person who came to mind for me is one of my colleagues, Amani Whitfield, in the Department of History here at UVM who has worked extensively on this question in Vermont. And I hope we can twist his arm a little bit to at least get him to contribute in some way. I will reach out to him as well and hopefully get him, just given his expertise, I would hope we could get some kind of input from him. We can see if that's possible. I know that two people have reached out to him already and the mayor being one of them and the Racial Justice Alliance being the other. So he said no both times. But yeah, I would love to have him contribute in any way possible. I just know that that's something that he said no to. So I know. Fair enough, I'll throw my encouragement to him as well, but I hear you. Thank you, thank you. I wonder if Professor Whitfield or other professors have graduate students, but he might not have time to do this work, but they might be interested in it and have the time and it might be relevant to their research. Yeah, for sure. I want this process to be a little different than the regular RFP process.  Everybody has equal weight here. But the RFP process, I didn't want it to be the similar type of RFP processes that we typically go through when you get like a thick stack of, you know, all of this, all the answers that you would need. I'm really just interested in what are your academic literature publications in regards to this topic? What are your focus areas as an academic? What is your interest level? Like a cover letter, a CV and just showing us with the work that they've already done how that applies here. And I think that that's an easier way to pick the people instead of going through, you know, 30 or 40 page decks depending on how popular this is and how many applicants we get. I would rather us to have something a little bit more limited to choose from. They're all academics so they're all going to be strong. I would go to you next Pablo, Representative Colston raises hand first. I'm sorry, I thought I lowered it. Okay. All right, okay, Pablo. The question I had was just looking at, I mean, you've already sort of said this, that the be it resolves, the actual work that is meant to be undertaken is extensive and to some degree, it's different kinds of work. There's part of it that's really looking at the specific history, the specific sort of evidence around Burlington. There's the other work that as Representative Colston pointed out is really more about looking at models of reparations of different mechanisms, things like that. So are we thinking also of potentially, I know this sounds like more work but breaking it into sort of sub RFPs that there might be different parts of this work that could be taken on by different consultants? I mean, we definitely could do sub RFPs. I was thinking of doing one RFP and having people explain their point of view and how they will contribute. So I was thinking definitely qualitative and quantitative researchers, definitely economists, definitely constitutional law, definitely those things. And so you're not gonna find all of that in one person. I mean, you could, but that's kind of crazy but you're not really gonna find all that in one person. So I was thinking that it would definitely be more than one person that is doing this work. There's no way that one person can do it. And there's no way that we should have one genre of academia focusing on the work either. I think it'll do an injustice to the project as a whole. And so having all those different points of view and coming at it in different ways to build a cohesive living document is what I was envisioning. Rebecca? Can you explain a little more sort of what our role is as our commission in relationship to this work that these people, you know, that we are anticipating people doing? You know, it took me a while to understand it myself. So as far as I understand, the way that we will be doing this work is overseeing the work that's being done and giving our input as to, hey, have you thought about this? Getting frequent reports from the people who are being paid to do the work and being able, like I said, to give a different lens to the work and asking for different things of the researchers and the academics. So as far as I understand, we will get that report ourselves. We will speak as a group about what it is we have read and what would our recommendations be based on the recommendations that are in that report. And we will be the ones that will be presenting that information to the mayor and to the city council. So I would also say that one of the ways that I envision my role being like useful and relevant is that I'll be bringing, you know, reports back to the Racial Justice Alliance, you know, as, you know, as I can. Okay. So would it, oh, I'm sorry. Would it be appropriate for me? So I'm thinking of kind of two groups of people that I know that maybe might be interested in doing some of this work. And one would be legal scholars who are critical race theorists who've written about issues of reparations. And the other would be historians who, I have some contacts in the society, with the Society of Civil War historians, which I know have been very, very interested in sort of both public education and sort of working on the, how does the history affect the now? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, definitely. I think that, you know, to limit ourselves would be a disservice. So historians for sure, you know, constitutional law scholars for sure. Like I think that we need to have all hands on deck in order to make this happen and make this not believable, but sound. And so I never envisioned this being done by one person or one entity since it first landed on my desk, not one time have I thought, yeah, this is gonna be just one person. This is a lot of work. This is, you know, kind of like, and I don't have my PhD, but it is kind of like doing a dissertation in a year. And that's a lot of work. And I would not expect one, even an academic who has gone through that process to be able to do that by themselves. So, Pablo? So would it be helpful? I mean, we've already started to mention people who are coming to mind that we either know or that we know of, you know, I was thinking about William Garrity's work in North Carolina on reparations. And we've had him here at UVM before William Garrity. I'm sorry? Yeah, yeah. Before William Garrity. Right, right, right, fair enough. But I mean, there's, you know, you can even think of some of his students who've done some of this work, right? I mean, I'm just thinking, would it be helpful for us to just start listing people that we either know or that we know of? And we can then start to whittle down, like thinking about reaching into those networks and seeing, you know, whose expertise we can draw on. So just as sort of an initial step. I think that's a good idea, but we do have to follow the rules of our procurement process. So it does have to be RFP. They do have to like submit themselves. And it's nice to have names and it's nice for us to be able to reach out to those people and say, hey, this is what we're doing, but you have to like do this section, send this in, send it to any of us at this point. And then we'll come together as a group and we'll decide which team of people would be best to push forward the work. We do have a budget that will be limiting in our efforts here. And that's something that we could possibly go back to council and say, hey, we need more money. Or, you know, cause right now we have $50,000 and that is not a lot of money to do this type of work. So if you're looking at the younger PhDs that might be good, I know that there's a person I have in mind from University of Minnesota that is all, is he's ready to do this work?  So I don't think the pay will be issued for him. A person like William Dr. Darity, who I followed intensely during my graduate degree. I would love to have him. I just don't think that that is possible. But if he can come and speak or do something like that, that will be great as well. I would love that. That would be a dream come true actually. So, but yeah, I think that we have to keep in mind that there is only $50,000 and if we can have five people and divvy it up in that way and say, okay, there's a $10,000 maximum for each person or submit another proposal to the city council to get additional funds to make sure that this happens properly. Christine. Can we use other sources? I mean, what if there was somebody else outside of the city that wanted to contribute to this effort? Fund-wise, you know, funding for funding, for a funding source? I would have to check into that. I don't know if that's okay or not. And so on our next meeting, I'll make sure I have someone from legal to answer these questions from the city standpoint to make sure that we're doing, following the city's procurement policies. And so are we as a group gonna be meeting once a month? I'm not sure if I might have missed that or how are we working together? You have not missed it. We are, that's the next agenda item to talk about what our meeting schedule is gonna look like for us as a group. I think that the most important thing is making sure that we get this RFP going and get that posted and having people that we know will be interested, apply to that. And then coming back as a group and looking at those. So we can discuss that. And then after we get the RFP going and we select that person, maybe we don't have to meet as often. But that's something that we can decide together. Okay. I also need to decide picking a chair for this task force as well. So that's something that I would like you all to think about as we go forward in this process, we should have a chair before our next meeting or have chair nominations, at least before our next meeting as well. Okay. All right. Any other questions surrounding the, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Representative Costa. Sure. Just another potential resource. I've been doing some work recently with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they're actually doing our deep dive around the racial wealth gap in our region. So they have a lot of data and it could be a free resource just to tap into in terms of how we pull together the kind of data we need to look at. Oh, fabulous. That'll be great. And I have the name of a contact if you wanna connect offline. So. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. All right. Any other comments, questions? I know that I stopped us before we got to the be it further resolved. And I did that because I want us to really like just digest the the whereas clauses and understand that in these be it further resolved, it's not going to be us that's doing it. It's going to be the people we bring about to do this work. So without any objections, I will move on to the next agenda item, which is committee meeting schedule. How often would we like to meet and does anyone have any thoughts on that?  But I am curious to think what, I mean, to hear what your thoughts are about how often, what's your recommendation about how often we would meet? Well, I think that it solely depends on who's writing the RFP and are we gonna be able to collaborate on that together? I'm gonna assign that to someone. If you want me to take the first crack at it and send it out to people to readjust, I'm happy to do that as well. But once we have that RFP and we have that posted, I think that we could meet a little less often. So going forward, I would say for the first month or two until we are actually bring the people on, which I would hope would be in December sometime. So I want this to go really quickly. Like by the second week of December, we have our team, we have our research team and they have been, you know, operationalized to do the work. And then we can meet less often at that point. That's what, but I think, but I think bi-weekly maybe until we get to that point. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay. I agree. You don't want to agrees with that? All right. So we're gonna meet bi-weekly. I will have my staff with me at the next meeting and they will be able to help us out with anything that we need. And I will say that by our next meeting, so if we do this bi-weekly, I will have to at least by next Friday a first draft of this RFP. And then by the time we meet the next time, we can, you know, decide together that we have a solid draft to post and then we can enjoy Thanksgiving or maybe it'll be after Thanksgiving. And then we can post it and have our responses and choose at that point. Does that sound like a good timeline to everyone? Okay. So the discussion of selecting a task force chair. Does anyone have any thoughts? Do you want to do it? Do you want to nominate someone to do it? I'd like to nominate Hal. Okay. Hal, are you prepared to chair this task force? I will consider it. And certainly, you know, the floor has opened any other thoughts. So, but thank you, Christine. Absolutely. Any other thoughts on who can be the chair? Hal said he will consider it and then we can either vote today or we can vote next time we meet. Yeah, let's give Hal a chance to think about it. Okay. Hal and I, we used to, we did some work the way back in the day with the Uncommon Alliance and trying to get some data. That's right. So Hal and I have great history. Awesome. You're the pioneer, Christine. You're the pioneer. I was going to say you are Hal. Great. All right. So let's take it from there. And the next time we meet, we'll have another discussion. I'll make sure that that's on the agenda to nominate and select a chair of this group. And it will move forward from there. How does that sound? Sounds great. Good. All right. Are there any questions? And I do want to give, I know that this is not something that other committees typically do. I do want to give the people who have joined us and an opportunity to ask any questions or make any, have us clarify something. If you would like, just put it in the chat and then I will call on your name if you want to do that. Here's the next meeting on the 25th. Isn't that Thanksgiving? It's the day before. It's the day before Thanksgiving? I don't know about that. What does everyone think about that? I mean, it's not like we're going anywhere, but I'm going to be here. It's not like we're going to be anywhere. So it could be the 25th, yes, RJA. Marsha Johnson asked, just wondering if there's a link to the document you all were reading from earlier. Yes, that document should be on board docs. It was a resolution that was passed. Let's see if there's a date on here. August or something? Yeah, sometime, August 4th. So it is on board docs and I can make sure that it's also on this page on board docs as well. Stand up a web presence with updates. Yes, as soon as I get my, the question was, can you stand up a web presence with updates? As soon as I have my staff on board, which will happen on November 16th, one of their first tasks would be to set up a website including a web presence for this group as well. No problem. Okay. Any other questions before we adjourn for the evening? Any comments or questions from the task force or from the audience? Are you feeling better, Taysha? I am. Good. You know, antibiotics work. They kill everything though. They kill the good stuff and the bad stuff. Right. But yeah, I'm feeling okay. I was gonna say, I love how you run a meeting. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Whoever said that. Me too. Oh, thank you. Thank you. RJA, you have your hand raised. Just wanna thank everybody again for what y'all are doing. This is a really big deal. A really big deal. I see that it's being recorded. I'm hoping that maybe there will be some place where that'll be posted. I see that. Tom meeting is here. So it'll be on television, but I'd like to know, hopefully we can get it put somewhere where folks can pull it down so they can show their grandchildren because it's a really big deal. So again, I just wanna thank everybody for signing up because I know it's a huge commitment. It's a sacrifice that you're making to do the work. So I just personally appreciate it. And I just wanted to twist Representative Colson's arm just a little bit and let him know that it would be awesome if he was the chair, but I'm just meddling now, Hal. It's good to see you. Guys, have a good evening. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all Marsha Johnson as well. All right. Well, I appreciate everyone coming. I guess I have to ask for a motion to adjourn. Is there a motion to adjourn? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. We'll see you on the 25th. See you soon. Okay. Thank you. Great to meet y'all. You too. I'm hard to working with you.


I'm Grace Oroz and I'm the Integrative Health Nurse for Hackensack Meridian Integrative Health and Medicine. Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of essential oils that are extracted from plants or plant matter. They have a therapeutic value based on the chemical makeup of each oil that's extracted from the plant. It can be from the stem, it could be from the leaf, it could be from the flower. Each part of the plant can give you a different therapeutic value. Aromatherapy can help manage symptoms, particularly pain, anxiety, depression, insomnia, digestive issues. Anyone can benefit from an aromatherapy consultation. It's important that you have a good assessment of what your medical history is and what medications you take and any disease process that you might have that the certified clinical aromatherapist would need to know in order to find the best match to help you, to help your healing and to support your immune system, to alleviate pain. It's also important to know what are people's dislikes and likes as far as scents are concerned because some people have aversions to certain scents and wouldn't want anything to do with them even though they may be therapeutic. There are several ways that you can use the essential oils.  Topically, using it in a carrier oil or in a cream, for example, to an area maybe you have an aching muscle and you want to put some pain relieving essential oil into a carrier oil and rub it into the muscle. You can use it like that. I also use diffusers just for your general, in your space, that you would want to be diffusing a specific oil maybe before bedtime for sleep or just to keep your house kind of smelling fresh and light and uplifting spirits. It's nice to have something. I think if it's something you're interested in looking into for yourself that it's advisable to get assistance or direction from a certified aromatherapist who can get the information needed to prevent any kind of untoward effects that might happen if you maybe used the wrong oil with the medication that you take. It's important to know what you're doing as far as safety. I really focus on safety. The other thing that's important to know is that some people go to the home goods store and they purchase a nice candle that smells or they purchase a spray or a plug-in and they may smell like lavender or gardenia, but they're made of chemicals and they have no therapeutic value so they are of no value to you if that's something you think is aromatherapy. Don't be confused by that.


Members from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus held a private performance for pediatric patients and their families at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. Performers dazzled patients by performing juggling, jump rope, and comedic acts in the base gymnasium. After the performance, the ringmaster presented Captain Darren Villa, commanding officer of NMCP, a donation of $10,000 on behalf of the circus. The circus will be raising awareness for national cancer research to help develop new treatments for pediatric patients. The circus held another performance honoring NMCP and invited 100 special hospital guests to attend. NMCP is one of 50 hospitals across the country to receive a donation from the circus as they travel to different cities throughout the year. For more information on Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit navy.mail.


Let's go to the hardwood, but Midget Girls hosting Brainerd. Second half, Warriors up double digits. Lexi Roby spots up top of the key and puts it away. Lead is 16, Lumberjacks tried to answer. Kennedy Mills goes coast to coast all the way to the bucket for the easy two, but this one was all Brainerd tonight. This time, Lily Hardy gets the kick out to the wing and she's nothing but the bottom of the net for three. All Warriors in this one tonight. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here So today we actually got an update on the Chucky TV series or the child's play TV series rather It seems that it's going to be airing on the sci-fi network This doesn't come as a surprise to me only because I do believe Don Mancini was involved in a sci-fi original series in the past I think it was channel zero So I don't know why this never really occurred to me to think that they could land on sci-fi But then when I saw the announcement today that it was going on sci-fi I recall that Don Mancini was involved with something on the sci-fi channel Already, so I don't know why I never really thought about that or I don't think anyone really thought about sci-fi being an option Or if they did no one actually made it public Uh, but Chucky the TV series is going to be airing on sci-fi It's going to be continuing after cult of Chucky is not going to have anything to do with mgms upcoming reboot Which still we do not have a trailer for we don't know who's going to be doing the voice of Chucky Or if there is even going to be anyone doing a voice at all Uh Is going to be taking place right after cult of chucky. We're going to have uh, jennifer tiller. I think she's already stated She's going to be involved. I don't know if alex vinson to say that he'll be involved But I know brad dork is a hundred percent going to be returning and reprising his role as chucky for this He's not going to be involved with the reboot. He's only going to stick to the continuity to Don Mancini started all the way back in 1988 I think this is very exciting news for the franchise because a lot of people uh A lot of people or just fans in general who've been with this series since the beginning Uh, it seems that this that the series has been getting progressively worse With like each entry after each entry after bride of chucky Seat of chucky was kind of like the biggest downhill you could go Curse of chucky was again showing signs that okay. We're getting back to the groove of things then cult of chucky came and While the only one that's actually been complete utter trash is seed of chucky cult of chucky was showing those habits of what what may seed of chucky so hated uh And then with them going to sci-fi for the tv series and then cult cult of chucky ended in such a weird spot For the uh future of the future of the franchise in my opinion So I it'll be interesting to see how that gets acknowledged in this upcoming tv series Or who will be showing up again that was added into Cult of chucky a spoiler alert for those of you who have not seen cult of chucky. So if you haven't seen it Uh skip ahead a few seconds, but Andy Barkley stepped sister or foster sister. I believe she was in cult of chucky She had like a small cameo So it'll be interesting to see if she has any any factor into the child's play tv series I don't know if that was even made made known yet Uh, I think the official title for the series is going to be called chucky I think that's where they're going to go with calling it as far as like what I think about them ultimately landing on the sci-fi network I think this is going to be good for them because if it would have gone to netflix, which is still something I would have minded Since they're on cable television, they're going to have to censor themselves A bit more which now means that they're probably going to put the focus more into developing a good coherent story And put it on the focus is now going to be turned to the storytelling because I feel like if they would have just gone to netflix The main focus would have been Telling a somewhat decent decent narrative, but then focusing on A lot of explicit when really what you need to be focusing on is getting chucky back to his roots Making him scary again making the whole concept of this whole idea scary again That's not to say we can't have comedy here and there because I do expect this series to be kind of goofy I'm expecting it But still have those serious moments make them believable Make it all blend and work together because diamond seni has done this in the past with the other entries. He's done it plenty of times Bright of chucky was a good example of something you could see from a tv series Maybe go a bit more dark with this route since we are landing on sci-fi And I know sci-fi has they've had a few successful horror series in the past So I think this would be a good addition for the sci-fi channel. It'll be good exposure for them Because a lot of the stuff on sci-fi as far as like their original movies I think it's I think everyone agrees that those movies are utter trash So it'll be nice to see something different But they always they always have like they've had like some decent television series in the past I haven't watched all of the television series on sci-fi Um, but I've enjoyed a couple of them the ones that I have watched. So I think chucky the addition of chucky to their Series lineup will be a good spot for them and it'll be a good spot to get some exposure for this tv series I'm excited to see The uh return of chucky even though it's going to be on the small screen I am going to see the reboot when it comes out this summer and I will be doing My review and my thoughts on it when that comes out as well Uh, what do you guys think about chucky going to the sci-fi channel? Let me know down in the comment section below if you enjoyed this video Make sure you give it a like or a thumbs up Rather if you haven't already subscribed to our post notifications in the description I'll have links on my social media accounts on my facebook twitter and instagram You can message me there to let me know what movies or news you would like me to cover in the future With all that in mind guys. I will see you in the next video


It's a breakfast and plus CV Africa. Thank you for joining us and staying with us as well. We're heading straight to the next conversation and the possibility of having the APC having a Muslim Muslim ticket, Nika Agulay, a public affairs analyst joins us this morning. Nika Agulay, it's good to have you join us. Well, we also- Thank you very much for having me and good morning to our viewers. All right, thank you so much Nika Agulay. We also have in the studio Adeyemi Saka. Thank you for staying with us as well. Yeah, I'm moving away. So we'll just get straight to it if you can hear us. There are a lot of concerns as the possibility of the APC that has not been confirmed and so of the APC having a Muslim Muslim ticket. Now you have on the other hand, the Christian Association of Niger and the Catholic Society of Nigeria wanting political parties against, I mean, having a Muslim Muslim ticket in 2023 presidential elections. Now what would happen if, you know, political parties decided to this line, Muslim Muslim tickets or maybe Christian Christian tickets? What will be the implication? Thank you very much for that question. I think this discussion is taking national prominence because the two major parties have a Nodena and a Saldana and both Muslims on their presidential tickets. This is what is causing this topic to gain national prominence. And the bottom line here is that people feel that with Atiku Abu Bakar, being the PDP presidential candidate, a Nodena and a Muslim, and Bola Ahamed Tinubu, a Saldana and a Muslim, the APC is disadvantaged. I am not saying so, that's what people feel, that the APC is disadvantaged if they field a Noden Christian. To their thinking, they believe that the Nodenas will not vote for that Noden Christian. They will rather vote for Atiku Abu Bakar, who is a Noden Muslim. And this is the reason why it looks like the APC are being made to consider a Noden Muslim to checkmate or balance the voting dynamics of the Nod. But the people who are making these postulations are wrong on various counts. Firstly, they assume that the whole of Noden Nigeria are Muslims. But that is not the case. Noden Nigeria is split between Muslims and Christians almost on a 50-50% basis. I mean, at the risk of contradiction, if I look at states like Benwe, Kogi, you know, Plato that are also classified as one of the 19 Noden states that are almost 100% Christian. I can say, like I said at the risk of contradiction, that there are more Christians in the Nod, even the Muslims. So those who are making these postulations either are ignorant of the population statistics of the Nod, or they are just trying to be mischievous. Because let me say one thing up front. Like I did say on this program some time back, a Muslim-Muslim ticket had worked in Nigeria before. In President Buhari's time as a military head of states, he was from, I mean, he is from a Katrina state, a Muslim, and he beat Tunde Jiyabon from Qwara, which is also not, and also a Muslim, as his vice. So during that time, we had the two leaders of Nigeria were both Muslims and Nodenas, nothing happened. Fast forward to 1993, we also had a Muslim-Muslim ticket between Abyola and King Ibe, even though there was a North-South representation on that. Again, Nigeria didn't have a problem with that. But in 2023, it's a different dynamic because the past seven years, Nigerians have never been polarized along religious and ethnic divides like in the last seven years.  So a ticket that has a Muslim-Muslim candidate or need in Nigeria is not going to fly. Let everybody be aware of that. It's not going to fly because at the point where we are now, there is a lot of mistrust within the polity. And there is no way Nigerians are going to back that kind of ticket. I can assure you that if the APC fields a Muslim-Muslim ticket, they are going to lose majority of the votes in the South and they are going to lose a significant number of votes in the North. Like I am from Benwell State. I am classified as a Nodena. I will never put my vote for such a ticket. And I know millions of people will not put their vote for such a ticket. So that is the situation where we are in now. All right. Nikagule, your statistical analysis there stands to be tested. I do not know if you said majority of the populace Nigerians in the Northern Nigerian Christians. I don't know how that can be true when, as according to the World Bank, as recently as 2018, Nigeria was 53.5% Christian, a Muslim rather, and 45.9% Christian. That is 53.5% Muslim and 45.9% Christian.  It could be said that it is a slight majority in favor of Muslims. So are we sure that we have more Christians in Northern Nigeria than Muslims? That is doubt. That is something we need to check, by what the World Bank is saying on the balance in the entire country. But are you sure? You need to look at the demographics of the Northern States. There are states in the North, even Boronu, that has a significant amount of Christians, number of Christians. When it says significant, what is the percentage? What's the percentage? We know when it's a significant. Is it 50, 50, 60, 40, 30, 70? What's the percentage? So the percentage of Christians in what is classified as the core Muslim states will be close to 30, 40%. But then when you not come to some states in the North, or which are classified as North, like Adamawa, like Karaba, like Benway, Benway is almost 100% Christians, like Kogi, you know. Then of course, you look at states like Nigeria, you look at all of these states, there are a significant amount of Christians at the 40, 50% basis. So even if you have more Muslims in the North, that percentage is not dominant. It's not going to be anything like 60 to 40 or 70 to 30. It's going to be more to something like 55 to 45, if not 50, 50. So what I'm saying is that you only need to win 25% of the votes in every state and then have the overall advantage nationwide to win a presidential election. And in every state of the North, there are more than 24% of the population that are Christians. So this is not the dynamics. But according to the World Bank, according to the World Bank, majority of Christians are found in the Southeast and Southwest and Middle Belt. But you have majority of the Nigerian Muslim population are found in the Northern part of the country. And as Fabak has 2018, we're told that just under half of those in the Northern part of these states, we talk about Middle Belt Christians. But in Northern urban centers, in Northern urban centers, however, we're told about 95% of the population is Muslim. I'm just going to read something, all right? I said it from an online source. Please permit me to go through this. It says the majority of Christians are now found in the Southeast, South-South, Southwest and Middle Belt region. That's most of the Christians. It didn't say the majority of people in Middle Belt as Christians. But majority of Christians in Nigeria are found in the Southeast, South-South, Southwest and Middle Belt region. It is estimated that around half the Nigerian population today are Muslim. It's about 53. something percent, all right? Over 53%. While just under half, just under half, that's about 47. something percent are Christian. Now, in Northern urban centers, however, 95% of the population is Muslim. You're talking about urban centers. So if you're going to, Bono, you're talking about Medugri, if you're going to Camelot State, you're talking about the Camelot Metropolis and adjoining areas, 95% of those in these urban centers we have the most population are Muslims. Nick. Well, I think the World Bank statistics lacks empirical evidence. And we can debate these demographics because the Nigerian government has not even conducted a census for the past how many years, probably getting to 20 years. I think the last census that was conducted in Nigeria was in 2006. I remember that census. I was in my house. I was not even counted. So for 16 years, the Nigerian government does not even have an idea of how many people we are in Nigeria or the demographics in terms of the gender balance or the youth population vis-a-vis the age population and all of that. We don't have that. Neither do we have any statistics organized as statistics about Christians and Muslims. But the statistics that says Nigeria has more Muslims than Christians is very debatable. It's very debatable, it's not something that we are going to crack here. The point we're making here is that if the APC attempts a Muslim-Muslim ticket, they will put themselves in a huge disadvantage position. Why? Because there are so many, so many Christians, not south of Nigeria that will not put their votes for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the Nigeria of today. In the Nigeria that has been so polarized in the last seven years along religious and ethnic divides. So the advice I will give to the APC is the APC should look for a competent northern Christian as vice presidential candidate. Once they do that, first and foremost, let us assume that the south-west is going to- Nick Agulet, we need to get back to our day, I mean, Sakha who's in the studio here with us this morning. Let's get quickly to it now. I know that you have a lot to react to what he has said, but just before then, he's made reference of the Biola and Kingi Bay ticket which was a Muslim-Muslim ticket. And it feels like that's also been on top of the front-bone and people are asking. So if we had that time in 1993, I mean, it felt like Nigerians, or it is, Nigerians accepted that ticket, embraced it wholeheartedly. What's different now? Why are we- Why if that was the reason they didn't even get into office? You can never say. Why if that was the reason that the election was announced? Maybe they put into constitution the unit of the country. Is it 1983? We had the Shagaya and the Kweme. In, when Obasanjo was there, Obasanjo-e-Kristain, it went for Yadavah. Though we want to observe Bari Diagmo. Maybe that was in why the government was disconnected from the society, reality was on ground. And in that was a dictatorship. There was no position. It wasn't a democracy. And every time we had a democracy, we've tried to balance things along tribal and religious line. And when people say APC's problem is because of antiquity, emergence as PDP, PDP. No. The APC's edict is Kwan Kwan Suu in Kano. But I would like it to. That's the person that's giving them edict. And you know, when my last effort, at some point said, in Jena Arabi, Moussa Kwan Kwan Suu would divide the votes of PDP in the North. I was laughing. I had not announced, is it not going to be put in- I had not announced that we're going to vote for him. No, we're not supposed to vote for APC. But I mean, is it not there for, does it not there for follow, Remy, that if APC's edict in the North, especially in the Northwest is Kwan Kwan Suu, who is a Muslim, should they not get somebody from either North East or Northwest who is also Muslim to eat into his votes? But Kwan Kwan Suu would divide the votes of Muslims. But why don't you go for the votes of Christians that are not protected with you and vote for you?  Tend them to. But what exactly? That's interesting. But we constantly are in this conversation of the fact that religion has never been, I mean, let's not be divided towards, let's not, I mean, we constantly say- Why does religion not have religion? No, we're just saying that let's not be divided. Let's not go towards religious or ethnic differences. I mean, because that's the message we've been preaching. We've been preaching competence. We've been preaching unity. It doesn't really matter. However, wherever anybody comes from, as long as you know, is a person that we can accept wholeheartedly. Why are we different now?  It shouldn't really matter. Shouldn't it matter where anybody comes from? No, we should have gone beyond these. And the greatest disservice the political elites due to Nigerians, especially those from Southwest, was to kick against the draft of the 1995 constitution. That draft guaranteed about in a 30 year cycle. Cycle, in a 30 year cycle, the 6th geopolitical zone would have had it shorter than the presidency. And the constitution says after this 30 year cycle, we cannot decide either to jettison the arrangement or move forward. If somebody from Southeast has become the president, if somebody from North Central has become the president, if somebody from North East, North West, everybody will have a say. Anybody will believe and will see themselves as equal stakeholder in this entity called Nigeria. But some people just decided that no, we should not. That's why we're here. It is singly a five-time, then-proposer in the draft. And it says, in case of what happened with president, who led to president Mao, yeah, that happened. If somebody from that region and elected vice president from that region will complete his term, and the thing goes to the next zone. So I think, and we should look at this, we shouldn't lie to ourselves that religion and ethnicity is not playing a key role in our politics. It is. So to resolve this issue, why don't we just put it there in black and white in our constitution? All right, we have to go. Very interesting. I think that Expo you gave is quite... I'm paint. We'll send an invoice to the party. But it's quite a very interesting one. Nick Agulia has been a guest joining us via Zoom. Nick, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Let me leave here with a message to Nigeria's that all these justlies that are happening now, all the Nani guys, this is the politicians time. Nigeria's time is going to come next year, in February, in March, where we are going to make our voices heard. All right. And we can only do that with a voter's card. Thank you. So let everybody get their voter's card ready and back to what happened in 2023. Thank you very much. And of course, our name is Sakahos Grecius. They've given us his time over two topics. Thank you very much for your time. Yeah. Muslim-Muslim tickets was not a fly. This shouldn't be a battle. Why are we talking about... I mean, Nick Agulia is talking about having to battle. She doesn't like... Anyway, that's the size of a package. We'll return to more right here with the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Don't forget, you can always follow us on social media, Plus TV Africa. And of course, on YouTube at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa, live style from all of us here. That's the journey. My name is Kofi Bartels. And I am messy, but we'll have a fantastic day.


Greetings from Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, and Dr. Sanjay, a concerted nephrologist and transplant patient for Manipal Hospital. The incidence of kidney disease is increasing in the general population, mostly because of many people are developing diabetes, hypertension, and people are living for longer years, and people are taking many unwanted medications, over-the-counter medications, painkillers, native medicines, and herbal medicines. Anyone who is more than 40 years of age and is hypertensive or diabetic and with a strong family history of kidney disease, leg swelling, or protein the urine should get tested for kidney disease. Testing of kidney disease is very easy. It is easily done by one blood test called serum creatinine. It is easily available in all the most of the laboratories, and the kidney disease can be treated even though the creatinine is normal. In very early stage, kidney disease can be treated by testing. Minute amount of protein in the urine called microbulinary. So, that will tell us very early kidney disease. More than 80% of kidney disease develops in patients with left-hand disease, like chronic diabetes, hypertension, and then who use over-the-counter medications, painkiller for a long time, who use herbal medicines, and you don't take care of their kidney stones, and repeated developing and attack infections, all these things which are preventable. So, more than 80% of patients with left-hand kidney disease are preventable causes. So, how to prevent kidney disease in a patient with all diabetes, hypertension, all kind of kidney stones is, one is controlled blood sugar is very important. So, sugar should be controlled very well in the range of fasting 90 to 110, and first point blood sugar between 120 to 140, and hemoglobin A1 should be maintained between 7 to 7.4%. And people with high BP should maintain their BP less than 140 to 190. So, throughout the year, many, many years. So, my constant measurement of BP, blood sugar, and maintaining that then the trains will prevent development of kidney disease in many patients. Regarding patients with kidney stones, any person developing kidney stones has more chance of developing kidney stones repeatedly. So, they should be careful.  And lastly, is patients with the unit attack infection. So, unit attack infection also develops in patients who are susceptible to that, like patients who are having diabetes, patients who are having a prosthetic enlargement, kidney stones. In all these patients, unit attack infection is very common, and if they develop an attack infection, they have to be treated immediately, and repeated infection should be avoided. So, between all these measures, like controlling BP, sugar, avoiding infections, taking care of stones, and avoiding unwanted medicines, and painkillers, most of the kidney disease can prevent it. That means 80% of the kidney diseases are due to these well-known factors. Only 20% of kidney diseases are due to genetically inherited diseases, like autosomal positive kidney disease, what we call assist development inside the kidney. Some patients are born with one kidney only, but other kidney, the one kidney also may be abnormal. Some patients are born with small-sized kidneys, both kidneys. So, any genetic abnormalities, or familiar diseases, they constitute only 20% of the kidney patients. More than 80% is because of left-hand diseases, and then which is preventable. If we take care of diabetes, hypertension, and avoid unnecessary medications, 80% of the kidney diseases can be prevented.


This is a Witchspace news Odyssey bulletin, I'm CMDR Buur. In this week's show, Frontier livestreamed an interview with lead designer on Elite Dangerous Odyssey Gareth Hughes as well as an 8 minute Odyssey gameplay trailer last night. In today's show we're going to run through what we've learnt from that interview. If you enjoyed this video remember to hit like and subscribe and if you'd like to help support the work of this channel you'll also find us on Patreon, links to everything you need are in the description below. During the interview livestream last night the team were at pains to point out that that mission shown is just one mission type on one specific planet in one specific settlement type and importantly is being executed in one specific way. Odyssey as with all things Elite is all about choice and as such in Odyssey there is usually more than one way to relieve a hapless feline of its winter coat. The settlement shown was one of 27 different types and layouts of settlements that spans a total of 6 different themed installations. Those themes are industrial, agricultural, military, extraction, research and tourism. Populating these settlements are a number of AI NPCs but they essentially break down into two categories civilians and guards. The background simulation will be ever pervasive as with the rest of Elite and how you sit with the faction that owns the installation you're walking through will determine how they react to you. If you're standing with them is perfectly cordial then they're less likely to treat you with suspicion.  If you do have good standing with the faction however there's a chance that you'll also find more unique mission givers in a settlement offering less generic missions that have a little more flavour to them. Your reputation with the faction can of course change significantly while you're in the settlement which will change things up again people do get funny about murdering or stealing. It's important to note however that the settlement AI don't have what Frontier called a Hive Mind just because one individual guard knows that you're a no good type that doesn't iron their socks or wash up their mug in the work canteen if you can quietly stop them from making a radio call to their colleagues then well that guard will be the only one that ever knew about Sockgate. The guards and civilians won't react well to a number of stimuli as well continually pointing a gun at someone's face for example will raise their eye significantly but they will issue warnings and tell you to stop rather than just reaching for the automated lead dispenser and then letting RNGs sort it out. As was shown in the playthrough heist video access to some buildings and equipment is gated by an authority level a large number printed on the readout for a door or console and you can gain access to those gates via a number of different means all of which come with their own plus and minus points. The heist video shows a door access panel being cut away with a new cutting tool and then the door mechanism overloaded with another new power siphon and delivery tool but you're not restricted to that to gain access. Every AI you encounter can be scanned in a similar way to how you scan a ship in the main game currently and in doing so you get to see their access level it's possible to clone their credentials and then use them to gain access to areas or kit that were locked off to you previously don't get caught cloning them or get caught with the cloned credentials however they won't react well and you may be forced to flee prematurely or persuade them to quietly lay down and take a long duration dirt nap while you continue your dubious deeds. Likewise if the AIC's evidence of your ill-doings like the cut panel and overloaded door or frank from accounts taking a sudden and unexpected horizontal perma sleep they will react adversely to your presence and attempt to negotiate your forced ejection from the universe. Overall the vibe frontier we're attempting to convey is that despite the predominantly run and gun approach shown in the necessarily action packed promotional video there are in fact a number of different approaches you can take and Gareth also described how it would be possible to for example modify your weapons and equipment for a more stealthy approach infiltrate the base deactivate alarms and defences etc and then perform your nefarious actions without anyone ever knowing you were there. Until of course they go to get their salad from the shared canteen fridge and someone has clearly had a dip in their mayo already. Oh and Jeff the maintenance guy is slumped next to the coffee machine with a brand new still smoking third eye socket in the middle of his forehead. When the team went on to describe more of the mission types we'd be engaged in one of the more interesting to me personally was in fact the exact reverse of what was shown in the heist video instead of infiltrating and disabling a perfectly functional installation after stealing a power regulator will be given a power regulator and tasked with installing it in a disabled damaged and abandoned base to bring it back online. These installations may be on fire or may have criminal types ransacking them or be visited by scavengers half way through your mission. But if successful you'll be bringing the installation back to life again which sounds like a really cute twist on the usual video game trope of make that thing not work anymore. The subject of death in Odyssey was finally addressed last night and the solution is actually simple. If you're on foot and don't own a spaceship if you didn't know by the way you don't need to own a spaceship to play Odyssey then you'll be respawned at the nearest starport or space station. If you do own a ship then you'll get the starport choice or the choice to spawn in your ship. If your ship is in a station you're spawning the ship there, if the ship was on the ground it'll be pushed to orbit and then you're spawned on the ship there instead. If you had anything in your backpack the on foot Odyssey equivalent of your ships hold then unsurprisingly you'll lose it. We've seen some comments online that the AI shown in the demonstration had a weapon accuracy that seemed to imply that they've learned to shoot at the same place as the stormtroopers from Star Wars and that they didn't evade fire much if at all. Fair criticism but the community team were keen to stress what we suspected that for the purposes of the demonstration they didn't spawn in the most competent and deadly AI and that in the final game you can expect all sorts of different levels of AI competency driven by the nature of the installation, the faction in control and various wobbles in the BGS etc and scanning the AI before you engage with them will tell you what you're up against. Other details that came out in the discussion, rewards as you'll expect will scale with mission difficulty, the hacking into systems that were shown uses a consumable called an e-breach and these are apparently quite expensive to buy which will need to be balanced against the mission rewards to determine how you'll approach the mission. Players will be able to take on diverse roles based on the balance and modification of their suits, weapons loadout and equipment and the team reiterated that base anti ship defences are very strong and a full frontal aerial assault on the base that was shown would mean your ship lasting between 15 to 20 seconds or so before becoming an expensive fiery lawn dart. And two very cool final details, as we reported yesterday your ship's docking computer will have the ability to auto land you on a planet's surface, not just a landing pad, doing away with the embarrassing dirt shuffle that often accompanies that particular manoeuvre. And whilst frontier have stated before that certain ambient conditions on a planet that are lethal will prevent you leaving your ship entirely, I'm speaking particularly of temperature, those conditions can change and whilst it might be safe to leave your ship on a given planet in darkness while the sun is down you are still orbiting a star and as we know daylight can cause things to warm up considerably in elite and if you don't pay attention to the conditions and where you are in those conditions daybreak could mean you becoming a charcoal flavoured french fry. So there you have it that's one very small portion of the Odyssey experience expanded upon, we still know almost nothing about exploration and scavenging in the upcoming paid expansion and I suspect there's a whole bunch of stuff that we don't yet know that we don't know. How are you feeling about Odyssey now that you've seen this slice, what sort of approach can you see you taking when assaulting a base like the ones shown and what sort of mission type has you most excited, let us know in the comments below. The Elite Dangerous Odyssey Alpha launches on the PC on the 29th of March, this is going to be a very long month indeed. That's it for now, thanks very much for watching, we'll be back later this week with more videos until then, O7 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack, we very much look forward to seeing you next time.


Thank you. Right, so I will be talking about Fiat Show Me Bulletproofs being non-malable in the AGM model. In this work, we give a modular security analysis to show how to prove simulation extractability for multi-round protocols. And in particular, we show an application towards one specific proof system that being bulletproofs. So to start with, what is zero-knowledge proofs? It consists of two parties, prover and a verifier, and the prover owns a secret input witness, W, and he claims that public statement X, column W, isn't some relational. And then the prover and the verifier go through this interactive protocol where the prover sends messages and the verifier tosses coins and sends back challenges. And then in the end, we want the following properties. We want it to be complete, which means that if the prover is honest, so he knows the witness, in that case, with very high probability, he should be able to convince the verifier. We should have, the protocol should be proof of knowledge, which means that there exists an extractor that can extract the witness. And then in the real world, it means that if the prover manages to convince a verifier, the prover must know the witness. And finally, we want it to be zero knowledge, which means that there exists a simulator that can simulate a verifier's view. Again, in the real world, this means that the verifier could have generated the transcript by herself, and so the whole interaction with the prover, she's not really learning anything extra. Right. But in the real world, we like to make the interactive protocol non-intractive because it reduces communication. Well, the number of interaction with the verifier, and the way we do it, one way to do this is using Fiat Show Me Transform. So if you notice, all that the verifier was doing in the previous slide, and like any public coin protocol, is that it tosses coins and sends it back to the prover. There's no internal secret. So we can replace that with the random miracle, and the prover instead pings the random miracle for the challenges by asking for hushes of the statement on the transcript so far, and then towards the end, send the entire transcript to the verifier. One additional advantage that the prover has in the interactive case compared to the non, sorry, the non-intractive case compared to the interactive case is that the prover gets to ping the random miracle for multiple challenges, and then pick the one that it likes to complete the proof. Okay, so the standard security definition that is considered as proof of knowledge are, since we are in the non-intractive world, Fiat Show Me extractability. So we see, we want an extractor who has access to the prover and initiates an interaction with the prover, and the extractor is also sometimes responsible for simulating the random miracle queries that the prover might make in the real world. And then it takes the final forgery, which is the statement on the proof-file star, and it outputs a witness, such that if the final proof-file files, then the witness is a valid one. But as it turns out, this notion of security might not be enough in practice. One example can be, so Tali is a non-is-prover, and he has some amount of money in his bank, and he makes a public statement claiming that he has at least $100, and he has a public proof file. And then Lucy is a card prover, and if Pi is valuable, she can take Pi, model it locally, generate a different proof-file star, and claim that she also has a certain amount of money when she really doesn't. And then the third party has absolutely no reason not to trust Lucy. So what is happening here that is not captured by plain extraction is that Lucy, who's corrupt, gets to see a bunch of honest proofs before she gets to make her forgery. So that is captured by something stronger, which is simulation extractability. So in addition to the random miracle, there is also proof-forgery, or a simulator, that the prover gets to pay a bunch of times, and then the prover gets to make its forgery. And even in the stronger case, we want that the extractor should extract a valid witness in case the final proof verifies, and if it was inquired earlier to the simulator. Okay, so in this work, we consider, we study simulation extractability for bulletproofs. And a little bit about why bulletproofs, well, it's a very attractive proof system. It has lots of good properties that we like. It's public harm, it has transparent setup that can be removed in the random miracle model. It is extremely efficient communication-wise, and it's deployed in the real world. So we care about whether or not it's secure. Right, but there's one challenge while considering simulation extractability here. Bulletproofs has a non-constant number of rounds. And at the time of writing this paper, one, well, the only way we knew how to prove simulation extractability, how to approach it, was to go from the interactive version to the non-intractive via a naive production, and that would result in an exponential blow-up in terms of the number of rounds. So of course that's not good when it comes to bulletproofs, or any non-constant round protocol. But recently there was this work by Gershaw and Tessaro in crypto last year, where they circumvent this blow-up by considering a stronger definition of online extraction, and they do this by proving it in the AGM model, but note that this work only addresses extraction. It doesn't satisfy the stronger property of simulation extractability. But this is already a good starting point. All right, so what is online extraction? It's a stronger brilliant of the plain extraction that we saw, and one caveat or one constraint that we have here is that the extractor does not have this additional power of rewinding the adversary while it's trying to extract the witness. To prove this stronger property, like Gershaw and Tessaro, we also consider AGM, which means that all the algorithms are algebraic, and they can only do group operations, and moreover, if an algorithm outputs a group element, it must also output the way this group element was generated. So if it outputs y, it must also output e1 to en. Right, the way it's formally defined is to consider a real and ideal world. In the real world, of course, we have the random miracle, the prover quo is the random miracle, and then outputs the proof. In the ideal world, we have the extractor, and the extractor is internally split into two parts, easy one even. The first part is responsible for answering the proof, the random miracle queries in a consistent way, and the second part takes this final output and outputs the witness. The crucial thing to note here is that e1 does not have any additional power over the adversary, the prover, and all it does is it just takes this final output and outputs the witness. And the conditions remain the same as before, but in addition, we also wanted the real world and the ideal world view for the prover are indistinguishable. To extend this to simulation extractability, in the real world, we also have the simulator, and then the prover outputs the proof, and in the ideal world, we have this additional part to the extractor, which is responsible for taking care of this simulation or the proof of the queries. And the conditions remain almost the same as the previous case. So this, like starting simulation extractability has been done before, I do not remember the name, I'm sorry, but it has been done before, and the crucial central idea there that is exploited is, well, what if the simulator does not give any additional power to the adversary? In that case, it's enough to rely on the extractability definition, extractability property of the underlying protocol. And in fact, if the protocol has unique responses, we can say something of this form. So what is unique response? Consider two transcripts that have the same prefix, so I want to challenge CI minus one out of the same, and then it splits at the id prover message. So MI and MI prime are different. And we say that for protocol pi, it is very hard for the adversary to come up with such two transcripts. They have the same prefix, and then they split at a certain point. And in particular, if a protocol has something like this, it would imply that the adversary cannot reuse a simulated transcript. So the theorem that is the variant of the theorem that is shown by these prior works goes a bit like this. If the interactive protocol has extraction on its verifier zero knowledge and unique response, then the non-intractive protocol has simulation extractability. And the proof would, well, for the proof you would construct an extractor for simulation extractability, and that extractor would answer the proof queries by running the HVZK simulator internally. And that extractor would take the final forgery made by the prover. It would check if this forgery has a matching prefix with one of the simulated transcript. If it does, reduce it to the unique response property. Otherwise, just use the extractor that we have from EXT. So we can use this, well, the question is can we use this for bullet proofs because we already have something similar in the prior works. We have for this verifier zero knowledge for bullet proofs, but do we have extraction and do we have unique response? And while we need something stronger for extraction, we need online extractability. And one of the reasons we need this is because we rely on a prior work by Gershal and Tessaro. So yeah, the first question is answered. Bullet proofs does have a non-interactive version of bullet proof is online extractable in the AGM. But does it have unique responses? To see that, this is a very rough sketch of bullet proofs. In the first round, the prover comments to the witness. In the second round, the verifier sends back challenges. And then the prover computes some polynomials based on the first two rounds. And commits to it using randomness R. So of course, the prover could use the same first two round messages, use different randomness to commit to the same polynomials, and come up with these two transcripts that have the same prefix, that is the first two round messages, and a different third round message. And more generally, any protocol that has an intermediate randomized round will not have unique response. But let's take a step back. All we needed for the proof to go through was that the adversary should not be able to reuse a simulated transcript. So in fact, the observation is that the definitions that we have in the literature are way too strong, and it suffices to fix one of the transcript. It suffices to fix another transcript pi, and then ask the adversary to come up with a pipeline with respect to this pi. And in this work, we introduced this notion, and it's inspired from state restoration soundness, which was introduced by Ben Sasan et al. And so state restoration soundness captures this additional advantage that the prover has in the non-intractive case very nicely. The additional advantage being that the prover can in some sense, rewind the verifier a bunch of times and ask for different challenges, and then pick the challenge that it likes. So the way we define unique response is, well, first of all, the prover must have the proof with respect to which it has to create this fork. So first the prover is provided with a proof from the simulator with respect to the statement of its choice. Then it gets access to a state restoration oracle that behaves in some sense as a verifier in the real world. So the prover can send messages to the oracle and in response, get back challenges just as it would in the real world. And the oracle would maintain everything that it sees from the prover. And now the prover can send this rewind message to the oracle so that it can send a different N2 prime to receive a different C2 prime. And the oracle also maintains this fork that was made from N2 to N2 prime, N2 star. And in the end, the prover summits a pi prime which would correspond to some part in the execution tree that is maintained by the state restoration oracle. And the winning condition is, well, the pi prime should be accepted and it should have a prefix, matching prefix with pi, but it should defer at some point. And intuitively this should be hard for the prover to do because if the prover doesn't know the witness, because the challenges are picked at random. And so, okay, so this definition is an interactive version of the definition. But towards the end, we want to argue something about non-intractive protocol. And in the paper, we show that if the interactive proof system satisfies this legal version of unique response, the non-intractive version via Fiat Shamir also satisfies weak unique response. Okay, so we have this from prior works. If we have these three properties, in some ways we can show simulation extraction. But we begin with interactive properties and then we go towards non-intractive. The first part that is extraction is already shown by Gushal and Tessaro. And I'm not gonna talk about SOSV which is State Restoration Witness Extender Demolition which is a property that they consider in that paper. We know this, we've known this for quite some time. So if we can show for the interactive proof protocol, if we can show that it has unique response, then because of the reduction which I will talk about that we have in the paper, we have this. And then given these three things, we finally arrive we can say that bullet proofs are simulation extraction. So all that remains now is to see that bullet proofs has unique response and then we're done. So at a high level, we have a simulated transcript and the adversary summits pi prime with respect to pi. Since we are in the AGM world, we assume that the simulator is algebraic and in fact it is for bullet proofs. So we assume that the simulator along with pi it also summits the way it was generated. So it outputs A1, B1, AI, BI and so on so forth. And then the adversary is algebraic and so it also summits its representation. So XI, YI and et cetera. And you might guess it, but we would use Schwarz Palema on the given these two transcripts and their group representation to break discrete log at some point. A little bit more in detail. So for bullet proofs either we can break discrete log directly by analyzing the verification checks. So the first one we have because pi verifies which is the simulated transcript. And the second one is because the adversary transcript verifies. And R here is some value that only depends on the shared prefix. Or in a slightly complicated analysis, we can say because the adversary transcript verifies and because of the verification check, we can say something of the form that the first equation should be zero. And since CIs are picked by the state restoration oracle and they're random, therefore this polynomial must be a zero polynomial and therefore A1 must be a zero. And A1 is something that the simulator picked at random. So it will not be a zero with very high probability. So once again, we prove that Fiat-Chemille bullet proofs the simulation extractable in the AGM random oracle model. And we show this relation between the advantage of different adversaries we consider. Right. And well, Q2 is the number of simulation queries that the adversary makes. To conclude, we have a new approach to show non-intractive protocols are simulation extractable. We give a concrete analysis for bullet proofs and range proof. And this might be applicable for other multi-run constructions. And well, one final thing, there was a concurrent work by Atema et al. Where they prove that the non-intractive protocols, the non-intractive multi-run protocols are extractable and they do this without assuming AGM. And using their result, we can remove the reliance on AGM from our own result. And this is something which is still work in progress and will be soon up on the apron. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Do we have any questions? Please walk to the microphone if you can. Thanks. Thanks for your great presentation. So now that you don't do the extraction by rewinding, can we also think about black box variant of the simulation extractivity? Let's say we have extractor, which is universal, doesn't depend on the adversary. Because you don't need to rewind the adversary, yeah, if I get correct. Yes. So because this version that you said, I'm still not sure if it's black box extractable, maybe co-authors can comment on it. So you mean there's an extractor that works for all adversaries? Yeah, because there is a result that if you have black box extractability of the simulation extractivity, so that should be enough to realize the ideal functionality of this NISCs in UC model. So now I'm just curious to know that if this is sufficient, because now you don't use rewinding of this. Well, I think there's, so do you mean like simulation extractability, proving simulation extractability in the UC? If this is black box, then would this imply simulation extractability in the UC? Yeah, my question, let's clarify. So my question is that, does this simulation extractability that you achieve is for black box simulation extractability, or I saw that it's not non-black box, because you don't use rewinding of adversary? I'm not sure actually. No problem, we can discuss it. Thank you. One comment I have from that, there's also an algebraic remodel in the middle, so maybe that's also true. Right, that's also true, yeah. Yeah, without GM. No, but then you would rewind.  Let's thank the speaker again.


5. Satoshi Mysteries In 2008, an article was published under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto, presenting the idea for a non-centralized digital currency based on cryptography. Satoshi then released the software and began by creating the first 50 bitcoins. After two years of assisting with development, Satoshi faded away in 2011, leaving nothing but code and questions behind but taking with him a grand total of 1 million bitcoin. Here are the five top Satoshi theories. 5. Sherlock Ted Ted Nelson, author, philosopher, eccentric, believes that Satoshi Nakamoto is in fact Shinichi Mochizuki, a research professor of mathematics at Kyoto University. His theory is based on Mochizuki similarly posting a bafflingly brilliant paper a few years later in a similar manner to Satoshi, but this time using his real name. This is perhaps one of the most reasonable and well-thought-out theories, however it has never been confirmed or denied. 4. Craig Wright is always right, right?  However, when push came to shove and Craig Wright needed to submit evidence, he backed off, claiming he didn't want to anymore.  3.  This theory circled for a while because an ex-space ex-employee claimed that Elon Musk had all of the attributes that one would need to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Elon Musk has denied this claim as laughable and very few truly believe it to be possible. It made it onto our list for the sole reason that one of the attributes the ex-space ex-employee noted was that Elon Musk has the type of humor to create a name that is an anagram for so a man took a shit. 2. Nick Szabo. The case for Nick Szabo might be the strongest so far. There are two theories. One, he is Satoshi. Two, he was part of the team that went under the pseudonym as a collective. There are many pieces of evidence for this, but we will note two. One, Nick Szabo made a post expressing interest in Bitcoin technology before it was ever presented by Satoshi and then later edited the post to change the date to a time much later. And two, researchers at Aston University analyzed Nick Szabo's writing style against that of Satoshi Nakamoto and found them to be quote, uncanny. 1. The Government. Bitcoin was created by the NSA as a normalization experiment to get people used to using digital money with the end goal of creating a one-world digital currency run by governments and big banks. Based on a paper by mathematicians at the NSA dated back in 1997 that outlines a cryptography-secured digital currency, it is at least evident that the government had an interest in cryptocurrency years before Bitcoin was released. This theory also claims that the NSA could have done something to the SHA-256 hash upon which every Bitcoin transaction depends and give them access to one-day snatch up all bitcoins in one fell swoop. This all might sound terrifying until you really think about it. Not all cryptographers work for the government, not even the best ones. And while the conspiracy of a one-world order is a fun thought experiment, remember governments are people and code is code, so unless the government has paid off every cryptographer to ignore flaws in the code, you shouldn't worry too much. To learn more about any of the Satoshi conspiracy theories, check out the links in the description below. Subscribe and share for more cryptocurrency entertainment.