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A compilation of more than a dozen previously published Dr. Seuss books, plus essays by nine authors and other book lovers, including Audrey Geisel, widow of Dr. Seuss.

In a new report, the World Travel and Tourism Council says that countries in the Middle East and Mediterranean should work together to reap their vast tourism potential. The region now accounts for 2.3% of world tourism receipts and investment, and that figure is expected to soar to 4% by 2005 -- increasing by four times the world average rate. The WTTC report was prepared in advance of a Middle East and North Africa economic summit that begins this weekend in Amman. \"If there's any one business that can help to promote peace and promote economies in the region, it's travel and tourism,\" says Geoffrey Lipman, the travel council's president. The easing of tensions, he says, means that the region's attractions can finally be marketed as a \"seamless\" package. But the report says governments there must take several key steps -- including expansion of airport capacity, simplification of immigration procedures, and \"intelligent\" taxation. DISORDERLY CONDUCT: British Airways plans to raise the problem of in-flight drunkenness at next week's meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Kuala Lumpur. \"We want to raise awareness so that all the airlines take these incidents a little more seriously,\" says a BA official. \"It's not epidemic, but it's increasing.\" The problem seems to be worse on long flights, when there's more time to drink up. BA has already written to police chiefs at airports it serves, advising that it expects unruly passengers to be dealt with by the law once the plane lands.

Airlines Lufthansa and SAS team up with a special offer to SAS EuroBonus and Lufthansa Miles and More customers. Starting March 15, those frequent fliers who have racked up 35,000 flying miles can claim an economy class bonus ticket comprised of eight coupons. Each coupon entitles the holder to fly to any Lufthansa or SAS destination in Europe, including Greenland. So what's the catch? The flights must include both airlines (in any constellation), stopovers of more than 24 hours would cost an additional coupon, and the route must include a return flight to the point of departure. Another bargain: Fliers living in Europe can now acquire from Lufthansa a bonus ticket to Tel Aviv for only 50,000 miles, from 70,000 miles previously. The British government says it has reached agreement with the opposition Labour Party to ensure that a giant festival to celebrate the Millennium will go ahead whichever party is in power. The Labour Party, favorite to win a general election which must be held by May, had called for the right to review the project if it comes to power. Its demands were said to have undermined confidence in the future of the $1.25 billion exhibition at Greenwich, and the government feared private backers might pull out.

Children's conduct and emotional problems increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. We tested whether a smartphone parenting support app, Parent Positive, developed specifically for this purpose, reversed these effects in a cost-effective way. Parent Positive includes 3 zones. Parenting Boosters (zone 1) provided content adapted from standard face-to-face parent training programs to tackle 8 specific challenges identified by parents and parenting experts as particularly relevant for parents during the pandemic. The Parenting Exchange (zone 2) was a parent-to-parent and parent-to-expert communication forum. Parenting Resources (zone 3) provided access to existing high-quality web-based resources on a range of additional topics of value to parents (eg, neurodevelopmental problems, diet, and sleep). Supporting Parents And Kids Through Lockdown Experiences (SPARKLE), a randomized controlled trial, was embedded in the UK-wide COVID-19: Supporting Parents, Adolescents and Children during Epidemics (Co-SPACE) longitudinal study on families' mental health during the pandemic. Parents of children aged 4 to 10 years were randomized 1:1 to Parent Positive or follow-up as usual (FAU) between May 19, 2021, and July 26, 2021. Parent Positive provided advice on common parenting challenges and evidence-based web-based resources and facilitated parent-to-parent and expert-to-parent support. Child conduct and emotional problems and family well-being were measured before randomization (T1) and at 1 (T2) and 2 (T3) months after randomization. Service use, costs, and adverse events were measured, along with app use and satisfaction. The primary outcome was T2 parent-reported child conduct problems, which were analyzed using linear mixed regression models. A total of 320 participants were randomized to Parent Positive, and 326 were randomized to FAU. The primary outcome analysis included 79.3% (512/646) of the participants (dropout: 84/320, 26% on Parent Positive and 50/326, 15% on FAU). There were no statistically significant intervention effects on conduct problems at either T2 (standardized effect=-0.01) or T3 (secondary outcome; standardized effect=-0.09) and no moderation by baseline conduct problems. Significant intervention-related reductions in emotional problems were observed at T2 and T3 (secondary outcomes; standardized effect=-0.13 in both cases). Parent Positive, relative to FAU, was associated with more parental worries at T3 (standardized effect=0.14). Few intervention-attributable adverse events were reported. Parent Positive was cost-effective once 4 outliers with extremely high health care costs were excluded. Parent Positive reduced child emotional problems and was cost-effective compared with FAU once outliers were removed. Although small when considered against targeted therapeutic interventions, the size of these effects was in line with trials of nontargeted universal mental health interventions. This highlights the public health potential of Parent Positive if implemented at the community level. Nevertheless, caution is required before making such an interpretation, and the findings need to be replicated in large-scale, whole-community studies. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04786080; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04786080.

The proportional recovery rule (PRR) posits that most stroke survivors can expect to reduce a fixed proportion of their motor impairment. As a statistical model, the PRR explicitly relates change scores to baseline values – an approach that arises in many scientific domains but has the potential to introduce artifacts and flawed conclusions. We describe approaches that can assess associations between baseline and changes from baseline while avoiding artifacts due either to mathematical coupling or to regression to the mean. We also describe methods that can compare different biological models of recovery. Across several real datasets in stroke recovery, we find evidence for non-artifactual associations between baseline and change, and support for the PRR compared to alternative models. We also introduce a statistical perspective that can be used to assess future models. We conclude that the PRR remains a biologically relevant model of stroke recovery.

Objectives The COVID-19 related lockdowns and distancing measures have presented families with unprecedented challenges. A UK-wide cohort study tracking changes in families’ mental health since early lockdown (Co-SPACE) found a significant rise in primary school-aged children’s behaviour problems and associated family-related stress. Three-quarters of parents in Co-SPACE also reported wanting extra support. In SPARKLE, we will examine whether providing Co-SPACE families with a smartphone application delivering information and parenting support, Parent Positive, can reverse the negative effects of the pandemic on children and parents. The efficacy on child and parent outcomes and cost-effectiveness of Parent Positive will be examined. We will also test whether the effects are moderated by pre-existing levels of child conduct problems and usage of Parent Positive . Exploratory analyses will examine whether other baseline characteristics or lockdown circumstances moderate the effects of Parent Positive . Trial design SPARKLE is a two-arm superiority parallel group randomised controlled trial embedded in an existing large UK-wide self-selected community cohort – Co-SPACE. Those who consent to SPARKLE will be randomised 1:1 to either Parent Positive or Follow-up As Usual (FAU). Participants Co-SPACE (a UK-wide longitudinal cohort study) parents aged ≥18 who have children aged 4-10 years will be eligible for SPARKLE. Intervention and comparator Parent Positive: is a digital public health intervention that can be delivered rapidly at scale to support parents in managing their children’s behaviour to reduce conduct problems and levels of family conflict, which were exacerbated during the first lockdown, and which may increase further in future months as families need to cope with continuous uncertainty and further disruption to their daily lives. Co-designed with parents and based on decades of parenting research, Parent Positive consists of three elements: (i) Parenting Boosters: where advice, delivered in the form of narrated animations, videos, graphics and text is provided to help parents with eight common parenting challenges; (ii) Parenting Exchange: a facilitated parent-to-parent communication and peer support platform and; (iii) Parent Resources: giving access to carefully selected high-quality, evidence-based online parenting resources. Follow-up as Usual: FAU was selected as a comparator because the public health nature meant that an active comparator was not appropriate due to the pragmatic, rapid implementation of the trial. Individuals randomised to FAU will receive no intervention for the first two months while the data for baseline (T1), T2 and T3 are collected. They will then be given full access to the app until 30th November 2021. Main outcomes Outcome measures will be collected remotely through Qualtrics according to the Co-SPACE schedule at baseline (T1), which will be the Co-SPACE survey data obtained immediately prior to randomisation, and then at one month (T2) and two months (T3) post-randomisation. Measures will be collected to assess group differences in child and parent outcomes, costs and service utilisation, and adverse events. Usage of Parent Positive will also be tracked. The primary outcome is parent-reported child conduct problems at one-month post-randomisation measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire conduct problems subscale. Randomisation Enrolled participants will be allocated to Parent Positive or FAU at the ratio of 1:1 by simple randomisation using the Randomizer function within the Qualtrics programme. Neither blocking nor stratification will be used. Blinding (masking) It is not possible to blind parents enrolled in the study and Qualtrics will automatically inform parents of their group allocation. Blinded members of the research team and the senior statistician will not be given access to the Qualtrics system or the data in order to remain blinded until after the analysis is complete. We do not anticipate any serious harms associated with taking part in the intervention, therefore there will be no need to unblind any blinded staff during the study. The junior statistician will be unblinded throughout. Numbers to be randomised (sample size) A total of 616 will be recruited into the trial with 308 consenting parents randomised to each treatment arm. Trial status V1.0; 15.03.2021. Not yet recruiting. Anticipated start date: 1 st April 2021. Anticipated end date for recruitment: 31 st July 2021. Trial registration Clinicaltrial.gov: NCT04786080 . The trial was prospectively registered on 8 March 2021. Full protocol The full protocol is attached as an additional file, accessible from the Trials website (Additional file 1 ). In the interest in expediting dissemination of this material, the familiar formatting has been eliminated; this Letter serves as a summary of the key elements of the full protocol. The study protocol has been reported in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Clinical Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines (Additional file 2 ).

London will likely achieve its goal of adding 10,000 new hotel rooms by the turn of the century, according to a report by BDO Hospitality Consulting. The report, prepared for the London Tourist Board, says that there have already been nearly 1,900 additional hotel rooms built since 1995; another 3,070 are under construction, and planning permission has been sought for an additional 6,900. London officials expect a surge of tourists for events to mark the Millennium, although the Millennium Dome under construction in Greenwich, just outside London, has been plagued by controversy. This week, on a trade mission to Japan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Japanese companies to invest in the dome -- which has an estimated price tag of 758 million pounds ($1.24 billion). British tourism officials are urging hotel developers to target some of the areas outside the London city center for new hotels: This would ease congestion in downtown London, they say, while helping to create more moderately priced accommodations.

China plans to make trains connecting major cities faster starting in April to lure back rail passengers from bus and airplane travel, the official Xinhua News Agency says. The planned improvements follow a decline in the popularity of trains, which are slow, crowded and hard to get tickets for. Train speeds will be increased to more than 110 kilometers an hour on mostly long-distance journeys from Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Chengdu in the southwest, and Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Xi'an in central China. In addition, more overnight services and dayreturns between cities are planned, as well as special trains for tourists, holiday travel, rural migrants working in cities and trains to soccer games, Xinhua adds. Lufthansa and SAS team up with a special offer for SAS EuroBonus and Lufthansa Miles and More customers. For 35,000 miles, they offer a round-trip ticket, called \"Whole Europe,\" that takes you to as many as eight cities ranging from Athens to Sondre Stromfjord, Greenland. Sounds great, you say? Well, the offer's restrictions might limit your horizons: Once booked, you can't change any itinerary; you can only stop in one city for more than 24 hours; you must fly both airlines; and you must leave from the city you arrived at (no flying into Copenhagen, then ferrying to Sweden and flying from there). Take heart. It's a bit more than just a tour of Europe's airports and top tourist traps, as the offer provides for one unlimited stopover. Trips must be taken between March 15 of this year and Feb. 28, 1998.

A smartphone app, Parent Positive, was developed to help parents manage their children's conduct and emotional problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. A randomized controlled trial, Supporting Parents and Kids Through Lockdown Experiences (SPARKLE), found Parent Positive to be effective in reducing children's emotional problems. However, app effectiveness may be influenced by a range of child, family, socioeconomic, and pandemic-related factors. This study examined whether baseline factors related to the child, family, and socioeconomic status, as well as pandemic-related disruption circumstances, moderated Parent Positive's effects on child conduct and emotional problems at 1- and 2-month follow-up. This study was a secondary exploratory analysis of SPARKLE data. The data set included 646 children (4-10 years of age) with parents randomized to either Parent Positive (n=320) or follow-up as usual (n=326). Candidate baseline moderators included child age, gender, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, parental psychological distress, family conflict, household income, employment status, household overcrowding, and pandemic-related disruption risk (ie, homeschooling, lockdown status, and isolation status). Child conduct and emotional problem outcomes measured at 1- (T2) and 2-months (T3) post randomization were analyzed using linear mixed-effects analysis of covariance models adjusting for baseline (T1) measure of outcome and including intervention and intervention by time point interaction terms allowing for different effects at the 2 time points. Moderation of intervention effects by baseline factors was assessed by replacing the intervention by time interaction terms with intervention by time point by baseline moderator interaction terms. Child gender was a significant moderator of the Parent Positive versus follow-up as usual effect on emotional problems (B=0.72, 95% CI 0.12-1.33; P=.02). Specifically, the effect of Parent Positive was close to significant (T2: B=-0.41, 95% CI -0.82 to 0.0004; P=.05) or significant (T3: B=-0.76, 95% CI -1.22 to -0.30; P<.001) in males only when compared with females, and males experienced a significantly larger reduction in emotional problems than females in the Parent Positive arm at the 2-month post randomization time point. None of the other investigated baseline factors moderated effects on emotional problems, and no factors moderated effects on conduct problems. This study highlights Parent Positive's potential for effectively reducing emotional problems in primary school-aged male children across a wide range of families. However, due to limited variability in the demographic background of the families, cautious interpretation is required, and replications are necessary in diverse samples with longer follow-up times. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04786080; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04786080.

Eurotunnel SA/Eurotunnel PLC said its Le Shuttle service for tourist cars will lower its prices for the summer to 250 French francs ($43.05) for a day- return ticket between Paris and London and 490 francs for a three-day stay, effective immediately. Meanwhile, a day-return ticket from Brussels to London costs 3,200 Belgian francs ($90.24)-over the weekend-while a three-weekday stay costs the same. A weekday-return ticket from London to Brussels costs 59 pounds ($96.67), while the same ticket from London to Paris goes for 69 pounds. The restricted Parisian fares compare with Le Shuttle's regular economy fares of between 990 francs and 1,560 francs during peak hours and 790 francs to 1,390 francs during off-peak hours.