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MLS Season Pass on Apple TV - How to watch NYC FC vs. New York RB matchup for the 2024 MLS Cup PlayoffsSlowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a smile spreads across the little girl’s face. Blinking behind her glasses, she inches her wheelchair forward and gently reaches out to stroke the tiny gray horse. Soon, 9-year-old Josifina Topa Mazuch is beaming as she leads Ivi, a specially trained miniature horse that stands no taller than her pink wheelchair, through the school hallway. “I really want them to come again,” Josifina said of Ivi and a second miniature horse, Calypso, after a November morning visit to her primary school for children with special needs in Athens, Greece. “They made me feel really happy.” Ivi and Calypso are two of nine tiny equines from Gentle Carousel Greece, a Greek offshoot of Florida-based charity Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses that offers visits to hospitals, rehabilitation centers and care homes. Trained for more than two years to work comfortably in confined environments and with vulnerable children and adults, the horses, which are about 30 inches tall at the shoulders, provide a form of pet therapy that caregivers say offers valuable interactions and learning experiences, particularly for people confined to hospitals or care homes. However, the charity they are part of is struggling to make ends meet — run by one woman who funds the entire operation herself, with one assistant and no support team. Started in 2014 by Mina Karagianni, an interior architect and designer, the Athens operation is the only one affiliated with the Florida-based charity outside the United States. Karagianni came across Gentle Carousel while scouring the internet for information on caring for an abandoned Shetland pony she had rescued. When she saw photos of the charity’s work in pediatric oncology wards, “I was touched and I was moved, and I said: ‘OK, we have to bring this to Greece,’” she said. It took months to track down and persuade the U.S. charity to work with her, and even longer to obtain the requisite permits and arrange transport to bring the horses over. But after incessant efforts, six trained miniature horses stepped off a flight from Florida via Frankfurt in November 2013. Entirely self-funded through her day job, Karagianni now has a total of nine equines — the six American miniature horses, one that was later born in Greece, and two rescued ponies: Billy the Shetland pony and Giselle, who was rescued from the island of Santorini. Karagianni transformed her family land in Rafina, a seaside area east of Athens, into Magic Garden, complete with stables, a paddock for the horses to run free every day, a small café and an area to host children’s parties and baptisms. At the time, she was open for visits every weekend, charging a small entrance fee to help cover operational costs — specialized food for the horses, wood shavings for their bedding, grooming material, veterinarian visits and transportation to and from hospitals and care homes. She also began visiting schools and setting up an education program. From 2014 when Gentle Carousel Greece first opened until the first COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, Karagianni said her little equine team saw about 12,000 children. s The lockdowns took their toll. Karagianni had to shut down the café and hasn’t been able to reopen it. With the small income from the café drying up, and Karagianni herself facing a health issue that took her out for 11⁄2 years, “we fell apart,” she said. Unable to pay utility bills, electricity and water companies cut off her supply, leaving her relying on neighbors for water for the horses. “I’m just starting to get myself back together again now,” she said. “With a lot of financial difficulties. But what can I do? I’m trying.” She’s got the utilities running again, but still owes thousands of euros. Approaches to companies and institutions for funding have been unsuccessful so far. “Maybe I just don’t know how to ask properly,” Karagianni said. Running Gentle Carousel single- handedly is taking its toll. “I’m making super-human efforts,” said Karagianni, who at 68 wonders how long she can continue and is searching for someone to ensure the program’s future. “I’m doing what I can. But I can’t do it alone,” she said. “I can’t do it without a team.” Despite her struggles, Karagianni said seeing the horses’ effect, particularly on children, makes her determined to continue for as long as she can. During a visit to the Athens special needs primary school, staff lined up children in wheelchairs so each could spend a few moments with the horses. Some reached out to stroke them; others bent their heads forward over the miniature horses for a kiss. “It’s incredible, the reactions. It’s like something awakens their senses,” special needs teacher Eleni Volikaki said. The state-run school, which shares facilities with a private charity for disabled children, ELEPAP, caters to those ages 6-14 with cognitive or mobility problems, or both. Anything that encourages the children to make even small hand gestures, such as reaching out to stroke a horse, “is very important for us. Especially when it’s spontaneous and comes directly from the child and isn’t instigated by us,” Volikaki said. “We saw things we didn’t expect. We saw children with autism, or children who are generally afraid of animals, coming very close, letting the (horses) get close to them,” Volikaki said. “And we saw ... spontaneous contact that under other circumstances we wouldn’t see.” The tiny horses don’t just enchant children. In the seaside area of Nea Makri northeast of Athens, residents of an adult psychiatric care home gather to greet Omiros – Homer in Greek – a 12-year-old miniature gray and white stallion with a flowing mane and blue eyes. Some show their excitement at the long-anticipated visit. Others are more shy at first, but nearly all eventually approach Omiros, leading him around the home’s recreation room or simply whispering to him. The interaction is invaluable, said social worker Alex Krokidas, who heads the staff at the Iasis home. “It offers, even if only briefly, the chance to create a bond that isn’t threatening, that has tenderness, quietness,” Krokidas said. “Let’s not forget, these people have faced many difficulties in their lives.” Meeting Omiros and having a few moments each with him “gives them the opportunity to be a bit calmer, to not feel threatened, to stroke the animal,” Krokidas said. “All of that is very therapeutic, it is deeply therapeutic.” Giorgos, one of the residents, initially kept his distance before letting Omiros come close. He leaned his head near the flowing mane. “He gave me a beautiful feeling when he was here,” he said after Omiros headed back into the recreation room. “Now that it’s gone, I feel an absence.” Get local news delivered to your inbox!
CES Energy Solutions Corp. ( OTCMKTS:CESDF – Get Free Report ) announced a dividend on Tuesday, December 24th, investing.com reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, January 1st will be given a dividend of 0.0216 per share on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a dividend yield of 1.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. CES Energy Solutions Stock Performance Shares of CES Energy Solutions stock opened at $6.73 on Friday. CES Energy Solutions has a 1 year low of $2.54 and a 1 year high of $7.11. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $6.39 and a 200 day moving average price of $5.85. CES Energy Solutions Company Profile ( Get Free Report ) Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for CES Energy Solutions Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CES Energy Solutions and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Donald Trump, T20 World Cup, Monkeypox: Top 10 Most Searched Topics On Google In 2024NEW YORK (AP) — Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans. Lamenting the contretemps, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich said in a statement Sunday that he’d let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing “appropriate jeans” with a jacket, and other “elegant minor deviations” from the dress code. He said Carlsen’s stand — which culminated in his quitting the tournament Friday — highlighted a need for more discussion “to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport.” Carlsen, meanwhile, said in a video posted Sunday on social media that he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship when it begins Monday. “I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side,” the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster said. But he added that he loves playing blitz — a fast-paced form of chess — and wanted fans to be able to watch, and that he was encouraged by his discussions with the federation after Friday’s showdown. “I think we sort of all want the same thing,” he suggested in the video on his Take Take Take chess app’s YouTube channel. “We want the players to be comfortable, sure, but also relatively presentable.” The events began when Carlsen wore jeans and a sportcoat Friday to the Rapid World Championship, which is separate from but held in conjunction with the blitz event. The chess federation said Friday that longstanding rules prohibit jeans at those tournaments, and players are lodged nearby to make sartorial switch-ups easy if needed. An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn’t paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play. Carlsen has said that he offered to wear something else the next day, but officials were unyielding. He said “it became a bit of a matter of principle,” so he quit the rapid and blitz championships. In the video posted Sunday, he questioned whether he had indeed broken a rule and said changing clothes would have needlessly interrupted his concentration between games. He called the punishment “unbelievably harsh.” “Of course, I could have changed. Obviously, I didn’t want to,” he said, and “I stand by that.”Former President Jimmy Carter sought international peace and stability, quality education and environmental protections during a turbulent four years in office, said his second-in-command, Walter Mondale. Mondale, a former vice president and Minnesota senator who died in April 2021 , reflected on Carter’s background, presidency and legacy in November 2019. He described Carter as a devout Baptist and fellow small-town kid who wanted to be seen for what he did and wrote. Later in life, Mondale said he enjoyed watching his friend belatedly earn Americans' admiration, noting at the time, “Carter’s place in the country has been rising.” Carter, the longest-lived American president, died Sunday . He was 100 years old. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Q: Carter chose you as his running mate after a visit at his home in Plains, Ga. What was your impression of him then? A: We had a lot in common. We were both small-town kids. I was from Ceylon and Elmore [Minn.], and he was from Plains. And we both had a background in Christianity. My dad was a preacher, and he was a devout Baptist. ... The depth of our common faiths made a big difference, and as the years went on and things got tough, I came to rely on that common background that we had to keep us going. And it did. Q: You were the first vice president with a White House office. Did you need to persuade Carter to change your role? A: He was all for it. ... We took it out of no man’s land and into the West Wing. I saw the president many times a day. I was free to go in there and talk about what I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. Q: Did Carter, a former Georgia governor, draw on your congressional experience? A: One day we were sitting in, I think Blair House [the president’s guesthouse] — that’s before the president went in to take the oath of office and before he’d been in the White House — and he said, “What’s it like?” I said, “Are you asking me what the White House is like?” [Laughs] ... He was elected president and he’d never been in the White House. I had been around a lot, I had been up on the Hill a lot. Well, I lived on the Hill. And I had a lot of friends around the executive branch, and so on. So I think he thought he needed someone like me to fill in the blanks. Q: President Carter has written more than 30 books. Are there certain stances he felt the need to clarify? A: He felt a need to explain himself. Not to justify himself, but just so the public better understood him. ... He didn’t have much confidence, or didn’t have much interest, in explaining himself as a typical politician would do. That was not who he was. He wanted to be seen for what he wrote, what he did. ... So I think one of the reasons he may have written a lot of these books is to explain himself in a different way. Q: He was a religious man who was committed to telling truth. Did that have political ramifications? A: He played it straight. That meant a lot to me. He wanted his administration to stand for international peace and stability. He wanted his government to stand for good education, sound education. He was the first president to get really serious about the environment. He knew something about the science of it. ... We set up the Department of Energy under him. He put people in there that were serious students of this issue. I think he’ll go down as a pioneering voice, before the country had really gotten into it, for environmental protection. Q: What was Carter’s approach to governing amid the frustration of the 444-day Iran hostage crisis? A: When the rescue mission was en route, we did everything we could to look like we were nonchalant, that there was nothing was going on. ... Once in a while I would sneak in when I knew the president was alone and ask him how it was coming. And the last time when he said, “Well, not very good. It just failed.” ... GIs were killed there. It was sad, really sad. Q: How did Carter personally navigate that tragedy? A: He was a deeply crestfallen guy, no question about it. He had hoped that this rescue mission would end the issue and put him out in front. Instead of that it did just the opposite. It kept the issue going, put him behind further and yeah, really tough. And that issue of getting the hostages out plagued us for the rest of our term. Q: After the White House, the Carters returned to the $167,000 house they built in 1961. Why did they choose to continue living a comparatively frugal life in Plains? A: He’s a farm person and he had this home in Plains that they had lived in, raised their family in, and he went back there. He also was building the Carter Library in Atlanta and in that library was a place that they could live, connected with Emory University. He and [his wife] Rosalynn both loved that place ... and this is where Carter is at his best. He works on issues, he travels. He tries to unravel tough problems to get them solved. Q: How often did you communicate in recent years, and what would you talk about? A: He has an annual Carter conference, where he brings in people from around the country. ... We go over issues that concern us now, go over the history of our administration. One of the things we kind of enjoy is that Carter’s place in the country has been rising. As people look at things, remember what he said, maybe watch what this president [Donald Trump] is doing, he becomes more impressive to the American people. And I feel that everywhere when I’m around him. He’s finally earned a different and better place in the opinion of many Americans. And so we enjoy that, finally. This story contains information from the Associated Press.
Boston Properties, Inc. ( NYSE:BXP – Get Free Report ) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 18th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given a dividend of 0.98 per share by the real estate investment trust on Thursday, January 30th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. Boston Properties has a payout ratio of 204.2% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Boston Properties to earn $7.12 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 55.1%. Boston Properties Price Performance Shares of BXP stock opened at $74.61 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 5.51, a current ratio of 5.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.01. Boston Properties has a 12-month low of $56.46 and a 12-month high of $90.11. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $80.73 and a 200-day moving average of $74.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.55 and a beta of 1.17. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Boston Properties from $64.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Boston Properties from $73.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. StockNews.com downgraded Boston Properties from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Piper Sandler raised Boston Properties from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $78.00 to $105.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Truist Financial increased their price objective on Boston Properties from $77.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $81.38. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Boston Properties About Boston Properties ( Get Free Report ) Boston Properties, Inc (NYSE: BXP) (BXP or the Company) is the largest publicly traded developer, owner, and manager of premier workplaces in the United States, concentrated in six dynamic gateway markets – Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. BXP has delivered places that power progress for our clients and communities for more than 50 years. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Boston Properties Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boston Properties and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Dr Ally Louks could not have predicted when completing her PhD on smells in literature that it would cause such a stink. The Cambridge University academic passed her viva with no corrections last week and posted a picture of herself smiling while holding her thesis, titled Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose . The academic’s post became the target of a sexist pile-on from tens of thousands of anonymous accounts and was seen more than 100 million times. In an unusual move, the university leapt to her defence after she received 11,000 comments and 20,000 retweets in a matter of hours. “Her being proud of her thesis in bullshitology is really cringe”, said one reply. “You would have spent your years better by getting married and having children”, said another.A low doesn’t always mean a stock’s cheap. But I think value investors should take a close look at ( ) shares at a P/E multiple of 8. The company makes money by buying and leasing aircraft. And it looks to me a potentially better pick than either of the . Overview With a few exceptions, airlines typically don’t like owning the aircraft they operate. And the reason’s straightforward – they’re expensive. Buying and maintaining aircraft involves a lot of cash. By contrast, leasing involves a relatively small capital outlay early on and this gives airlines the possibility for rapid profits when demand’s strong. The downside – and the reason I mostly don’t like airlines as investments – is that making ongoing lease payments requires constant cash generation. And in a industry, that’s very risky. Aercap however, has the opposite approach. It used debt to buy aircraft outright and generates income by leasing them to airlines. Valuation At a P/E ratio of around 8, the stock looks cheap, but investors should be careful with jumping to conclusions here. Aercap’s earnings don’t just go down in a cyclical downturn – they go negative. That means investors need to make enough when things are going well to offset the effect of loss-making years. This is why a low P/E ratio doesn’t automatically make the stock a bargain. A better way of assessing the stock from a valuation perspective is the . Unlike the company’s earnings, its book value’s relatively stable through the business cycle. On a P/B basis, the stock‘s towards the higher end of its historic range. Given this, my instinct is to keep the stock on my watchlist for the next downturn, rather than buying it now. Aercap Vs airlines When a downturn comes – and the cyclical nature of air travel means I’m convinced it will come – I’d rather buy shares in Aercap than an airline. I think the risk of bankruptcy’s much lower. They can make big profits during strong periods and I could be wrong, but airlines that have to make lease payments can find themselves in trouble in a downturn. Aercap however, has a collection of assets it can sell if needed. It’s worth noting that the firm‘s been selling its older aircraft at around twice what it carries them on its balance sheet at. And this has allowed it to reduce its share count by almost 25% since 2022. Neither nor has managed to do this. And I see that as a clear reason to prefer Aercap over either of the FTSE 100 airlines. When to buy? I’m usually wary of cyclical stocks trading at historically high multiples. But Aercap shares might be good value right now, even given the threat of a downturn. The company’s managed an average 10% return on equity over the last decade. On top of this, it’s selling aircraft at twice their book value. Given this, a P/B multiple of 1 for the stock doesn’t look high. So there’s a decent case for considering the stock right now.
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