Thursday, October 31
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> New York Yankees top Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4 in Game 4 to avoid World Series sweep; Game 5 is set for tonight (8 pm ET, Fox) (More)
> Teri Garr, Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated actress best known for starring roles in "Tootsie" and "Young Frankenstein," dies at age 79 (More)
> "Anora" leads 2024 Gotham Awards nominations for independent films with four nods (More) | Netflix and Universal renew animated movie licensing deal, will add live-action films to Netflix's offering beginning in 2027 (More)
Science & Technology
> LinkedIn launches Hiring Assistant, an AI-powered agent built to take on a number of tasks involved in employee recruitment (More)
> Ocean scientists observe the largest predation event on record; millions of capelin—small anchovy-like fish—formed a miles long group while being fed on by cod (More)
> Astronomers discover one of the fastest spinning stars to date; located in the Sagittarius constellation near the center of the Milky Way, the neutron star rotates more than 700 times per second (More) | What are neutron stars? (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.2%, Dow -0.4%, Nasdaq +0.8%) with Nasdaq closing at record high (More)
> Alphabet earnings beat expectations, fueled by cloud business; shares rise 6% in after-hours trading (More) | Snap shares rise 10% in after-hours trading after beating earnings expectations (More) | Starbucks warns remote corporate employees to return to office at least three days per week or face getting fired (More)
> Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok-owner ByteDance, ranked China's richest person, worth $49.3B, in country's annual Hurun Rich List (More) | Number of dollar billionaires falls by one-third in China as country's stock market and economy slow (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Jailed man who attacked husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA-11) sentenced to life in prison without parole on state charges of kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment (More)
> UK teenager accused of killing three girls at Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July owned al-Qaida terror manual, produced deadly poison ricin, per police (More)
> UN mission finds UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces in Sudan committed widespread acts of sexual violence amid civil war; the 80-page report includes interviews with victims and family members (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Samhain Festival: The Origins of HALLOWEEN
Halloween's origins can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was a pagan celebration to mark the end of summer and the beginning of winter:
The festival
The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. They celebrated by:
Lighting bonfires: To guide souls to the afterlife and to frighten away evil spirits
Wearing costumes: To avoid being recognized by ghosts and to confuse spirits
Dancing around bonfires: To keep evil spirits away
Divination: To seek answers about marriage, health, and death
Setting out favorite foods for the dead: To welcome departed loved ones
The name
The word "Halloween" is thought to be a combination of the word "Hallow", which originally meant "saint", and "een", an abbreviation of "eve" or night before.
The date
The Celts celebrated Samhain on October 31, the night before the new year, which they celebrated on November 1.
The location
The Celts lived in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France.
The cave
According to a National Geographic article, the cave where Halloween originated is Oweynagat, which means "cave of the cats".
The popularity
The popularity of Halloween skyrocketed in the 20th century.
The traditions
Over the centuries, Halloween has evolved into a day of parties, costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and trick-or-treating.
SOURCE: AI Generated
Today is my Birthday
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Soon after my birth, my parents relocated to Alexandria, Virginia where we lived until I was almost 15 years old. Looking back on my years in Alexandria, Virginia, I was constantly harassed because my birthday was on Halloween and was often accused of wearing my Halloween mask all year long.
However, I do remember walking around the community with a brown grocery bag trick or treating with my pals. I am sure at what age I stopped but one night someone had left a rake in the yard that I stepped on and the handle hit me square in the head knocking me down. I continued undeterred.
In the summer of my 14th year, the family relocated to Cairo, Egypt where I attended high school at Cairo American College, graduating in 1966. Spending four years in Egypt was an education in and of itself and since we could not work in the summers, we had no choice but to travel through Europe for month based upon the Eurail pass we all purchased. Europe on $3/day was the standard back then.
I entered Elon College in North Carolina until December 1968, when I dropped out of college and enlisted into the military. I returned to Elon in 1972, graduated in 1974 with a BA in English and in 1979, I entered the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem where I earned a MBA in 1981 with a focus in strategic planning and small business management.
I started my working career full time in 1969 and retired at the end of 2014... working for a total of 45 years, in middle and upper management in the field of education. My work in education included teaching, consulting, designing training materials and course, managing corporate training, and managing teachers and students as a Dean and Director of Education.
From 1990 until 2015, I was CEO and President of Quest Training, Inc. Quest Training focused on organizational development, strategic planning, statistical team problem solving, process re-engineering, and quality management that included ISO9000/2000 quality standards.
I have been retired almost 10 years - I will reach that landmark on January 1, 2025.
Euclid "Dark Universe" Telescope
The huge mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024, accounts for 1% of the wide survey that Euclid will capture over six years. The location and actual size of the mosaic on the Southern Sky is shown in yellow. This all-sky view is an overlay of ESA Gaia’s star map from its second data release in 2018 and ESA Planck’s dust map from 2014. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; ESA/Gaia/DPAC; ESA/Planck Collaboration
A new 208-gigapixel cosmic map, capturing 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky, was unveiled, marking the start of a six-year journey by the Euclid mission to create the largest 3D cosmic map, revealing the universe in unprecedented detail.
The first section of Euclid’s map, a massive 208-gigapixel mosaic, was unveiled at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy, by ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher and Director of Science Carole Mundell.
This mosaic is composed of 260 observations taken between March 25 and April 8, 2024. In just two weeks, Euclid managed to capture 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky with incredible clarity—an area over 500 times larger than the full Moon. READ MORE...
Wednesday, October 30
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