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We describe a case of Bartonella quintana endocarditis in an 11-year-old child from Northern Manitoba, Canada. This case demonstrates the neglected endemicity of B . quintana in Northern Canada and highlights the need for improved case finding and elucidation of specific risk factors for B . quintana infection in the Canadian North. Considering B . quintana ’s predominant transmission via body lice ectoparasitosis, we hypothesize that B . quintana ’s endemicity in Northern Canada is linked to inadequate access to suitable housing and running water among remote communities in the Canadian North.

We present a three patient case series of infants who presented to the pediatric emergency department with fever, bulging anterior fontanelle (BAF), and an omicron variant COVID-19 infection. All patients had a benign course, none developed meningitis, and all had symptom resolution after two days. Considerations for neuroimaging and lumbar puncture are discussed. This case series adds to the previously published case reports of infants with COVID-19, fever and BAF and further describes a variant in the presenting symptomology of COVID-19 infection in infants under 12 months. Acute and primary care providers who treat infants should consider COVID-19 testing in patients who are well appearing, with fever and BAF.

Purpose. This study compared perceptions of the effectiveness of beginning teacher support and assessment projects at three middle schools at least one hour from an approved, public teacher training institution, which were identified by the California State Department of Education as having one of the most promising Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Projects. Perceptions were compared with and among participants by role. The study examined project inception, structure, and effectiveness in addressing the six domains of the Framework of Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities for Beginning Teachers in California. Methodology. The research design was a multiple case study utilizing ex post facto descriptive research. The interview instrument was based on the California New Teacher Project assessment instruments. For those questions which related to participants' perceptions of project elements and the six domains, descriptive statistics, specifically, mean and standard deviation scores, were calculated. Data were analyzed within and across cases. Findings. (1) Projects should start service before the school year begins to achieve their purpose of preparing beginning teachers for the upcoming year. (2) Personal and continuing communication by project staff with district and site administrators must begin prior to the new school year. (3) Beginning teachers and support providers must be carefully matched, preferably in close physical proximity, in the same school, discipline, and grade level. (4) Demands on beginning teachers must be reduced. (5) Portfolios should be emphasized and used. (6) Projects should be articulated with teacher preparation programs. Conclusions and recommendations. The projects studied effectively assisted beginning teachers to succeed and to develop professionally. This study recommends increased communication between project and school site staff, careful matching of support providers and beginning teachers, and the restructuring of beginning teachers' responsibilities. Teacher preparation programs should closely articulate with the State BTSA program. Further studies should compare perceptions among elementary, middle and high school BTSA project participants and between urban and rural participants, to assist projects to address differences in environments. A longitudinal study of new teachers who participated in BTSA projects could determine projects benefit sustainability. The support providers should be studied to determine the effects of the BTSA's on their job satisfaction.

Yet there is considerable evidence of mean reversion and its corollary that the annualised real volatility of equities is lower for longer periods of time. A pension fund that can wait 25 years - and cash in any time between 20 and 30 years - can afford to take the short-term risk of equities and wait for valuations to return to the norm. They are paid a premium by those that cannot. This equity risk premium is genuine, although sometimes overstated. Once you take into account survivorship bias, and get a more representative period than often used, the historic advantage of equities is much reduced. My own guess would be 1-2 per cent a year over bonds, but that adds up to a lot of money over a working life. If you use a fixed inflation rate the liabilities look like a conventional bond. If you use a market rate to several decimal places, and add a variable corporate yield spread on the asset side, as the standard requires, then a corporate inflation-linked bond would be a better match. Equities are the next best matching asset and, given the small and illiquid nature of the corporate inflation- linked bond market, perhaps the only matching asset. What these arguments imply is that a pension fund cannot match its liabilities by buying conventional and inflation-linked bonds, or anything else for that matter. The worst it can do is to pay someone else to take them on, by buying very expensive deferred insurance annuities. The best it can do, and the way to maximise shareholder value, is to try to minimise the pension cost in the long run, in part by holding equities. [William MacDougall] is an independent investment and pensions consultant. Until March 2003 he was chief investment officer of TRW's Pounds 3bn UK pension scheme.

Fifty years ago, George Ross Goobey changed the face of the investing world. Until Ross Goobey came along, most everyone had taken it for granted that bonds -- czarist railway loans for example -- were a nice safe place to be. Accordingly, the proper place for the investments of widows and orphans, and pensions, was therefore bonds. Ross Goobey reversed this conventional wisdom, saying that equities had a higher yield and were a real asset, so they were the better place for your money. He moved Imperial Tobacco's pension scheme into equities. While inflation has been low and stable in the U.K., it would be wrong to ignore inflation risks. The Bank of England and other central banks are cutting interest rates at a time when they are forecasting inflation above their targets. They may be right to take risks with prices to improve growth, but they are taking risks with inflation, and therefore inflation is more likely than deflation. A rise in the inflation rate to 4% from 2% for 30 years is perfectly possible, and would be devastating for anyone whose savings were locked away in long-term fixed-interest bonds. The U.K. government has just made things worse by lowering the required inflation-related pension cap to 2.5% from 5%. This is the maximum inflation protection required by law. The result of this change is, once again to make holding bonds in pension funds more attractive relative to stocks. While some schemes will chose to keep a higher cap, to keep some inflation protection, the government has removed any legal requirement to protect your pension against inflation, and thus reduced the need to hold equities as a hedge against inflation.

There is no doubt that there are racists among the police; I have met one myself. This must not be tolerated. But the report showed little evidence that racism - rather than simple human error - was the source of police failings in the murder investigation. It showed even less evidence of widespread racism, let alone \"institutional\".

Canada Post deliberately created the conditions for inevitable violence on the picket lines, and should be charged with inciting to riot.