The current program of the Belarusian opposition is generally limited to the slogan shouted by the protesters in Minsk: “Lukashenko go away.” That must change. The opposition must tackle a much wider range of issues, starting with a recovery from the economic disaster caused by Mr. Lukashenko’s failure to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The ultimate goal, of course, should be to develop a free and open society, with free and fair elections.
Still, Belarus also needs a new leader soon — a charismatic, strong personality who could defy a dictator. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran in the election against Mr. Lukashenko as the main opposition candidate, could fit such a role. Lack of political experience is not necessarily an obstacle to being a leader. Lech Walesa, who led Solidarity, was an electrician.
The pressing issue for the West now is to ensure that Mr. Lukashenko respects fundamental political freedoms and doesn’t repeat the early August violence against the opposition. His government is certain to strike back in other ways. On Aug. 22, ahead of large opposition rallies, more than 50 independent internet websites that provide information on protests were blocked by the regime. It could portend a giant crackdown on any future protests.
Another worrisome question is Russia’s behavior. Mr. Putin must know that developments toward true democracy in Belarus could encourage Russia’s people to challenge his rule. In the 1980s, there was a serious possibility that the Kremlin would send its tanks into Poland. In 2015, Mr. Putin sent fighters to Crimea, to grab it from Ukraine. The same could happen with Belarus. It will be the West’s task to use all diplomatic means to keep Mr. Putin away.
In turn, the European Union must open its borders to the victims of political persecution, admit young Belarusians to European schools and universities, help establish independent media outlets and help foster the Belarusian open society. In the 1980s, the West invested a lot in Poland — not only in money, but also by sharing knowledge with our universities and media and helping us toward democracy. Belarus needs the same support today.
But all Belarusians and their friends in the West must be patient. The quest for freedom will most likely last years and have setbacks. It needs the same support that the West gave Poland in the days of Solidarity.
Bartosz T. Wielinski is deputy editor in chief of the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, founded in 1989 by former members of Solidarity.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Image caption
Irina from Belarus is really upset that she will lose $2,000 of her monthly income due to OnlyFans’ price cap changes
Actress Bella Thorne has been embroiled in a controversy over selling $200 (£149.70) nude photos on OnlyFans that were not as described.
Her actions on the subscription content platform resulted in OnlyFans placing a cap on the prices creators can charge.
The former Disney actress issued an apology to content creators, who say their incomes will be impacted.
However OnlyFans told the BBC pricing changes had “been in the pipeline for a while”.
OnlyFans has become popular as a platform where content creators can post premium provocative and intimate photos, videos and text messages. OnlyFans takes a 20% commission on each transaction.
The platform has 60 million users and 750,000 content creators globally, according to most recent data.
While some content creators are sex workers, many others are models, dancers, singers, musicians and comedians who do not produce any content featuring nudity.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Former Disney actress Bella Thorne courted controversy by joining OnlyFans and selling $200 photos that turned out not to be nude
Over the weekend, OnlyFans saw a backlash from its content creators after changing the limit on each tip and paid post from $200 to $100 per item. Previously, content creators could charge any amount they liked.
“Spending limits are in place to protect all OnlyFans users and to allow them to use the platform safely,” said an OnlyFans spokeswoman. “The newly introduced limits on tips and paid posts is a change that has been in the pipeline for a while, and has not been implemented in response to any one creator or fan.”
The platform added that it made changes to its policies “with the safety and support” of its users and content creators in mind.
Ms Thorne, 22, broke records on OnlyFans when she signed up for an account last week, gaining over 50,000 followers and earning $2m within a week by charging $200 for supposedly nude photos.
But she was not nude in the photos, and thousands of her subscribers demanded refunds from the platform.
Ms Thorne apologised to content creators on Saturday 29 August, claiming in a series of tweets that she wanted to “remove the stigma behind sex work”.
Image copyright Stephanie Michelle
Image caption
OnlyFans content creator Stephanie Michelle in Los Angeles solely relies on her income from the platform to support her family
She also told Los Angeles Times that she was researching a new role for a film being made by director Sean Baker, but he has denied being involved in any projects with the actress.
Ms Thorne further angered content creators by saying she was meeting with OnlyFans to discuss the price caps on their behalf, when many say their own requests for clarification on the issue have been ignored by the platform.
“Bella Thorne has no right to speak for us and could never know the daily challenges we face every day,” Stephanie Michelle, a professional cosplayer based in Los Angeles told the BBC.
Ms Michelle has 550 fans and makes $8,000 a month, charging a $30 subscription fee to users. She also relies on tips ranging from $5-$200 for pay-per-view photos, videos and text messages.
She says her OnlyFans work is the only way she can support her family due to the pandemic, and fears many other content creators will struggle to make ends meet going forward.
Image copyright Kelly Jean
Image caption
Professional cosplayer and Twitch streamer Kelly Jean uses OnlyFans to build her brand, but posts no nude content
Kelly Jean, a London-based professional cosplayer and Twitch streamer, has 4,600 followers on OnlyFans.
She is on many social media platforms and uses OnlyFans as part of maintaining her following, by offering $10 sets of sexy modelling pictures as digital merchandise to her fans.
“It’s going to make people more suspicious of my content, but we can hope Bella Thorne is bringing more people to the platform and normalising it for others who don’t do nude content like me,” she said.
OnlyFans says a record number of people applied to become content creators on the platform in the last week after Ms Thorne joined it.
‘OnlyFans is ripping me off’
Irina is a cosplayer and model living in Belarus, with 35,700 followers on OnlyFans. Due to the pandemic, she depends on the platform for 90% of her income.
She charges up to $40 for lingerie pictures and videos or for content that implies nudity; $165 for topless photos and $200 for nude images and videos.
Image copyright Irina
Image caption
Irina is considering using other platforms as she doesn’t like the way OnlyFans has treated her
“I feel OnlyFans is ripping me off,” she said. “I will lose around $2,000 a month from my income because I can’t take any custom requests now as they are priced higher than usual content. With a maximum tip of $100 it’s hard to explain to people why they need to tip multiple times.”
Erika Heidewald, an actress and musician in Los Angeles, has only 317 followers.
She explains that there are many different business models on OnlyFans because people have wildly varying requests, and the sky’s the limit when it comes to creativity.
She could sell a swimsuit photograph for $20, or a picture of her shoes for $100, or someone might pay her $200 “to text and humiliate them for 20 minutes”.
“A lot of the large creators have lower prices because they have so many subscribers to buy those items, but most small creators rely on a limited number of loyal subscribers. They might only sell a couple videos a month, but they’re worth enough that it’s a life-saving amount of money,” she told the BBC.
“Lowering the price ceiling limits our money as well as cheapening the value of individually-produced content.”
Image copyright Erika Heidewald
Image caption
Erika Heidewald uses OnlyFans to supplement her income, earning enough to pay $1,200 in rent a month
Another bone of contention is the fact that OnlyFans previously promised creators that if they referred new influencers, they would be entitled to receive 5% of their income for the foreseeable future.
“I feel slightly used by OnlyFans,” said Kaya Corbridge, 23, a sex worker from Lancashire who has made $1.1m on the platform over the last three years and now owns her own home.
Ms Corbridge offers services ranging from $7-$25 “personalised penis ratings” and text chats charged at between $3-$300, to custom videos costing $50 a minute and even a $1,000 package where a user can control what she does for a day. She has 1.2 million followers on Only Fans.
“When I started, I signed up over 500 content creators and trained them up, offered them support, promotion and even a guide book that I created on the promise and contract that I would get 5% of their earnings for life,” she says. “So many of us have spent years training up our future competition.”
Ms Corbridge estimates she will lose $12,000 a month due to the referral fees policy change. She and Irina are now considering moving to other platforms.
According to digital content marketing expert Simon Penson, many technology platforms have built their success by attracting influencers with lucrative monetisation offers, and then “moved the goal posts” later on.
Image copyright Kaya Corbridge
Image caption
Kaya Corbridge, from Lancashire, feels she has helped build the platform and train her competition, but she will soon lose $12,000 a month
“Facebook did this, and we always saw it with influencers on YouTube too,” said Mr Penson, who founded Zazzle Media, one of the pioneers of the digital content marketing industry in 2009.
“The biggest guys had enough reach to negotiate with the social media platforms for bespoke deals.
“But the small and medium-sized influencers who were obviously making quite a lot of money were the ones who didn’t have a place at the negotiating table and they were the ones who were really hurt by YouTube’s changes.”
Content creators can’t yet turn their backs on online platforms as they need to reach audiences, but Mr Penson says things are changing.
“We’re starting to see an era whereby influencers, rather than relying on social media platforms for monetisation, they’ll move towards technology platforms like Patreon, OnlyFans and VuePay, which provide the technology rather than the audience.
“Influencers do have greater power than they used to have – they can utilise their influence to push their fans to the places they want to be.”
Image caption
Hypersonic aircraft will need new engine technology
“I’ve spent my career on things flying fast,” says Adam Dissel, who heads up the US operations of Reaction Engines.
This British company is building engines that can operate at dizzying speeds, under conditions that would melt existing jet engines.
The firm wants to reach hypersonic velocity, beyond five times the speed of sound, around 4,000mph (6,400km/h) or Mach 5.
The idea is to build a high-speed passenger transport by the 2030s. “It doesn’t have to go at Mach 5. It can be Mach 4.5 which is easier physics,” says Mr Dissel.
At those kinds of speeds you could fly from London to Sydney in four hours or Los Angeles to Tokyo in two hours.
However, most research into hypersonic flight is not for civil aviation. It originates from the military, where there’s been a burst of activity in recent years.
James Acton is a UK physicist who works for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Surveying the efforts of the US, China and Russia in hypersonic weapons he concludes that “there’s a whole zoo of hypersonic systems on the drawing board”.
Special materials that can withstand the extreme heat created around Mach 5, and a host of other technologies, are making hypersonic flight in the Earth’s atmosphere possible.
Experiments in piloted hypersonic flight date back to America’s X-15 rocket-plane of the 1960s. And Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) also re-enter the atmosphere at very high hypersonic speeds.
Now rival powers are striving to create weapons that can stay within the atmosphere, without needing to utilise the cooling properties of outer space, and that can be manoeuvred – unlike a static ICBM aimed at a city – towards a target that might be moving itself.
Carrier-killers
Military spending is driving the hypersonic push by the three big national players.
In a recent Pentagon media briefing Mike White, assistant director for hypersonics in the US military, talked about development being driven by “our great power competitors and their attempts to challenge our domain dominance”.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
China displayed its hypersonic weapon at a parade in 2019
Accuracy is a major challenge for these hypersonic missiles.
Mere possession of hypersonic missiles, dubbed “carrier-killers”, might force US aircraft carriers to stay far from the Chinese coast in the mid-Pacific.
But hitting a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier travelling at 30 knots or more (35mph or 56km/h) requires fine adjustments to a missile’s course that are tough to achieve at Mach 5.
The heat generated around a missile’s skin creates a sheath of plasma, or gaseous matter, at hypersonic speeds.
This can block off signals received from external sources, such as communications satellites and can also blind internal targeting systems trying to see outwards to locate a moving object.
Image copyright USAF
Image caption
The nose of a hypersonic aircraft would have to withstand extreme temperatures
Plasma only builds up where the highest temperature is found.
A conical-shaped missile will have a uniform coating of plasma, but missiles that resemble sleek-winged darts may push that plasma screen away from surfaces that contain the most sensitive antennae.
Shark jaws
As if hypersonic flight isn’t difficult enough, chemical dissociation adds to the problems.
At extreme speeds and temperatures this phenomena causes the atoms that hold oxygen molecules together to break down.
This in turn complicates the chemical model that any air-breathing engine is based on.
Image copyright USAF
Image caption
The X-51A flew at Mach 4.5
Progress in the hypersonic arms race has been dramatic. In 2010 the US flew a shark-jawed, unmanned aircraft across a stretch of the Pacific Ocean at hypersonic speeds for five minutes.
The goal was more than sheer speed. It was time.
Five minutes may not sound like a long flight time, but in terms of defeating hypersonic barriers it was a triumph.
This speed machine, the X-51A, was dropped from a high-flying B-52 bomber and used a rocket booster to reach Mach 4.5 before its main engine kicked in.
Image copyright Dean Conger/Corbis/Getty
Image caption
The X-15 was a 1960s trailblazer
Known as a scramjet, this engine combined the rush of air into a jagged intake with jet fuel – to accelerate to hypersonic speeds.
That meant coping for several minutes with air temperatures entering the intake at 1,000C. Four X-51As eventually took a one-way trip over the Pacific between 2010 and 2013.
Shockwaves
Aerojet Rocketdyne is a California space and rocket engine specialist that worked on the X-51A. It is a measure of the secrecy surrounding this technology that its staff will only speak on condition of anonymity, even seven years after the project ended.
One hypersonics expert at the firm says of the X-51A: “The really hot part of the machine is at the front where shockwaves form, so that’s where the investment in materials goes”.
He says much was learned from the X-15 rocket-plane of the 1960s and from the subsequent Space Shuttle programme.
Image copyright Reaction
Image caption
Reaction Engines has developed a pre-cooler to chill air coming into the engine
Reaction Engines has now demonstrated a process that should enable its aero-engine to ingest super-heated hypersonic air without hiccups.
Its Sabre engine incorporates what it calls a “pre-cooler”. This is the first part of the engine to encounter the raging hot hypersonic air.
The challenge then is to mix it with fuel to create thrust.
As hot as lava
The Sabre engine was subject to an intensive test regime at a Colorado site in October 2019, during which Reaction Engines had to find a way to replicate hypersonic air speeds.
The firm took a supersonic engine, nailed it down and channelled the air blasting out of its rear into the Sabre engine’s intake.
The Sabre pre-cooler did its job, piping coolant into the system at high pressure and allowing Sabre to mix that air with fuel.
The materials required here are not simple. The Space Shuttle relied on ceramic tiles comprised of composite materials known as ablatives to shield it during the white-hot re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Image copyright Hermeus
Image caption
The US Air Force is evaluating a possible hypersonic presidential jet
An alternative approach to ablatives, is to employ a nickel alloy called Inconel which can cope with airflow heated to the same intensity as a lava flow.
Mr Dissel says Reaction Engines is now going down this Inconel alloy route. “That’s kind of where we are now, and also running cooling channels to sap the heat,” he says.
So a sophisticated thermal management system paired with Inconel points the way forward.
Hypersonic leaders
If this combination works the vision of paying passengers on a hypersonic flight might become a reality within 15 years.
The potential for hypersonic travel to let VIPs arrive with maximum impact has been spotted by the US Air Force unit that deals with presidential jets.
It has commissioned Atlanta-based hypersonic start-up Hermeus to evaluate a Mach 5 transport design carrying up to 20 passengers.
It means that in the future, the president of the United States might one day join a very select band of Mach 5 travellers.
TikTok’s owner has said it will “strictly adhere to” new rules imposed by China over what technologies the country’s companies can sell overseas.
The export controls could potentially be used to block the sale of TikTok’s US operations.
The expanded list of restricted items covers some of the methods the app uses to target who sees which videos.
The app’s ability to quickly identify and cater to users’ interests has played a large part in its success.
Bytedance began talks to sell TikTok’s American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand division after President Donald Trump threatened to ban the app in the States, where it has about 100 million members.
The President has cited national security concerns, despite the company’s denial that it would give the Chinese authorities access to foreign users’ data.
The US government has given the company until mid-September to secure a sale as an alternative.
Microsoft and WalMart have teamed up to make a joint bid, while the database specialist Oracle is considering an offer of its own.
However, Bytedance has faced criticism within its home country for having been seen to have caved to foreign pressure to sell off a prized asset.
And Xinhua, the state-owned news organisation,
has quoted a government adviser as saying that Bytedance should “seriously and carefully consider” suspending sell-off talks in order to comply with the revised export rules.
Beijing added 23 items to its catalogue of technologies subject to export restrictions on 28 August, the first time it had amended the list since 2008.
image copyrightGetty Images
image captionTikTok’s chief executive Kevin Meyer quit last week as a result of the potential sell-off
It now includes two “civilian use” technologies that could directly impact TikTok:
interactive interfaces powered by artificial intelligence
personalised recommendations and notifications powered by data analysis
In theory, Bytedance would have to seek permission to sell the use of any related tech to a foreign entity, and it could take up to a month to get preliminary approval.
Were the company to be forbidden from including TikTok’s recommendation engine as part of a sale, it would in effect cripple the app.
That would mean a buyer would to have to develop a recommendation system of their own, making a smooth handover of control difficult to achieve.
Bytedance pledged to comply with the change to the law via a Chinese-language post on its news service Toutiao on Sunday night.
The firm’s lawyer Erich Andersen later added: “We are studying the new regulations that were released Friday. As with any cross-border transaction, we will follow the applicable laws, which in this case include those of the US and China.”
In other related developments:
TikTok has denied it is considering selling itself to rival video-sharing app Triller and a London-based investment firm. It told CNBC that “we are not and will not be in talks with them – still, we are flattered by how much they admire TikTok”
The UK prime minister’s advisers are split over whether Boris Johnson should publicly say he is in favour of Bytedance setting up global headquarters for TikTok’s remaining operations in London, according to a report in the Times. It quoted a government source as having said it is a “very sensitive” issue
An online poll has suggested that 40% of US adults support Trump’s intervention, while 30% oppose it. The survey of 1,349 adults was carried out by Reuters and Ipsos last week
Image caption
Christian Kroll was inspired to change the direction of his life after travelling through India
The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Christian Kroll, the founder and chief executive of internet search engine Ecosia.
Christian Kroll wants nothing less than to change the world.
“I want to make the world a greener, better place,” he says.
“I also want to prove that there is a more ethical alternative to the kind of greedy capitalism that is coming close to destroying the planet.”
The 35-year-old German is the boss of search engine Ecosia, which has an unusual but very environmentally friendly business model – it gives away most of its profits to enable trees to be planted around the world.
Image copyright Joshi Gottlieb
Image caption
It supports 20 tree-planting projects in 15 different countries
Founded by Christian in 2009, Ecosia makes its money in the same way as Google – from advertising revenues. It earns cash every time someone clicks on one of the adverts that appears above and beside its search results.
Ecosia then donates 80% of the profits it makes from this to tree-planting charities. To date it has funded more than 105 million new trees, from Indonesia to Brazil, and Kenya to Haiti.
As obviously not everyone clicks on the adverts, the company estimates that, on average, it takes 45 searches to raise the 0.22 euro (20p; 26 US cents) cost of planting of one tree.
Today Berlin-based Ecosia says it has 15 million users. This is a tiny drop in the ocean compared with Google’s estimated 5.6 billion searches per day, but Christian says he has grand ambitions to “scale massively, win more users, and plant billions of trees”.
And unlike the billionaire founders of Google – Larry Page and Sergey Brin – he promises to never buy a super yacht. “While they have big yachts I have an inflatable dinghy that I take to lakes. Ego consumption is not appropriate in a world where there’s climate change.”
Christian would, in fact, struggle to buy a yacht if he ever wanted one, as he put two legally binding restrictions on the business – shareholders and staff cannot personally sell shares or take profits outside of the company.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Christian says he has no interest in super yachts, such as this one – Senses – which was bought by Google’s Larry Page for $45m in 2011
Born in the former East Germany in 1985, Christian wasn’t always so altruistic. As a teenager in the town of Wittenberg, he and his friends would play the stock markets, often trebling their investments.
He wanted to become a stockbroker, and so enrolled to study business administration at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Bavaria.
However, his world view changed when aged 18 he went travelling for three months through India. “I met smarter people than me who didn’t have the same opportunities because they weren’t born in Germany,” he says. “It started dawning on me that maybe I should do something to make the world a better place.”
Then at university he first started to pay close attention to online advertising when he set up a website that compared different online brokers. “I was shocked at how much of my revenue I was spending on Google ads to bring traffic to the site,” he says.
And so his idea for what would eventually become Ecosia was born. “It became clear to me that Google had a very smart business model, and it was also fairly obvious that there was space for a purpose-driven search engine to do something similar… to use the money to fund tree planting.”
Image copyright Joshi Gottlieb
Image caption
The tree-planting projects provide work for local people, such as this Ghanaian farmer
After university he spent six months in Nepal in 2007, where he first tried and failed to launch a search engine to raise funds for local charity and non-government projects. “I didn’t know how to launch a business, funds were limited, and most days there were internet and electricity issues.”
He then spent 10 months in South America where the level of deforestation that he saw gave him the determination to launch Ecosia in 2009 after he had returned to Germany. The name is a mixture of the words “eco” and “utopia”.
Christian says he got the business up and running with the help of others. “The truth is that I didn’t have the technical knowledge to do it, but I was able to rely upon the skillset of friends and family,” he says.
Image caption
Trees such as the cashew produce a crop that people can sell
All of its electricity comes from solar power, and 80% of its users are said to be 29 or younger.
Its search engine uses Microsoft’s Bing’s technology, with whom it has a long-term arrangement. “They really like what we are doing,” says Christian.
Eric Haggstrom, analyst at business research group Insider Intelligence, says that Ecosia and other smaller search engines face “significant obstacles”.
“Most importantly, Google provides the default search for Android devices, and the Chrome browser,” he says. “And it spends billions of dollars a year to be the default search provider for Apple devices.
“Most users won’t use search engines other than their device or browser defaults. And on the ad side, advertisers use Google’s search product because it performs [so] well.”
Christian admits it “can be tricky”, and wants regulators to do something to loosen Google’s grip.
But more generally, he wants to see capitalism changed for the better. “This is really needed in the 21st Century,” he says.
“What we’re trying to do is reform capitalism. I think in its current state it’s not healthy. I want us to rethink how business should be, what the role of business is.”
The company announced Sunday that it will begin offering free same-day standby and flight changes to flyers starting in January 2021. For customers with tickets issued before December 31, United will extend a waiver, allowing travelers to change their flights an unlimited number of times for free. So, essentially, change fees are officially a thing of the past on United(UAL).
The new policy comes as the coronavirus pandemic has decimated air travel. Although travel has rebounded somewhat, it remains a fraction of what it was before the outbreak. Airlines, eager for customers, extended waivers to change fees as uncertain travelers wished to move their flights to avoid contagion.
“Change is inevitable these days — but it’s how we respond to it that matters most,” said Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, in a video message to customers. “When we hear from customers about where we can improve, getting rid of this fee is often the top request.”
Alluding to the post-September-11-2001 time for airlines, when they implemented more restrictions on customers, United said it had learned from some past mistakes.
“Following previous tough times, airlines made difficult decisions to survive, sometimes at the expense of customer service,” Kirby said. “United Airlines won’t be following that same playbook as we come out of this crisis. Instead, we’re taking a completely different approach — and looking at new ways to serve our customers better.”
Air travel has fallen on hard times since the onset of the pandemic in mid-March, with the number of travelers dropping significantly. The number of travelers screened at US airports has dropped more than 70% compared to a year ago, according to TSA data. Some experts predict traffic levels won’t return to pre-Covid numbers for another three to five years.
A web agency is a service provider that encompasses all trades related to the Internet. The development is its core business but it now plays a transversal role for the entire digital marketing. As a business manager or communications manager, choosing a web agency suited to your project may seem difficult. However, an informed decision can bring real added value to your business.
Let us say it: your point of view is necessarily subjective.
However, we wanted to bring together our best advice and explain how to choose the web agency that will allow you to make the most of your website and your social networks.
List your needs and objectives
The first step in choosing your web agency is to establish a specification. This preliminary research helps you determine all the criteria to consider. List the key elements that guide your research and support your decision-making. Developing a business website is a budget that can be significant. It is therefore a project which must be based on precise objectives, justifying the resources committed. At least ask yourself the following questions. Even if you don’t have all the technical skills to answer it, it will greatly simplify the selection of the right provider.
What are your constraints? The design of a new tool may depend on technology already in use in-house. Your future website may require integration with your CRM. You might have a timeline, like an event or a new product line to market. In this case, you need a site up and running on a specific date. All these elements should be taken into account and indicated to the agencies that you are going to canvass.
What features do you need? Not all online marketing tools meet the same needs. What type of website is right for your business? A showcase site, e-commerce, or a platform with a large number of user accounts? There is a set of features for each need. You can contact the online marketing agentur nürnberg for the best services.
What are your goals? Your online presence may aim to sell directly and therefore increase your turnover. On the contrary, it may have the main purpose of building a customer database or developing a community. Your business is probably basing its actions on a well-thought-out marketing strategy. The creation of your digital tools must be an integral part of it.
What is your budget? You probably don’t know how much the exact website or web application of your dreams costs. However, determine in advance the amount you can allocate to the project, you can always refine it once the first quotes are received. Don’t forget to factor design and development into this ideal rate.
In any case, see the long term and leave the door open to the development of your business. Your website must be efficient when you create it. It must also be able to keep up with your changing needs. If you plan to develop new products or services for the long term, mention it before you even move to the design phase. This will avoid a long and costly overhaul
Reed served as a contributing editor for “Garden & Gun” magazine for over a decade. In an announcement on her death, the publication described her as “a cornerstone” of the magazine.
“Garden & Gun” focuses on Southern food, people culture, art and literature.
“On Friday, August 28, our friend and colleague passed away from cancer, a loss that will be felt in our offices, around the South, and beyond, by the many readers and friends she made in her work and travels and adventures,” the magazine’s editors wrote.
Reed started as contributing editor for “Garden & Gun” in 2008, where she “crafted some of the magazine’s most popular stories, in her The High and Low column,” the magazine said.
She was born on September 11, 1960 in Greenville, Mississippi.
During her career, she was “a longtime editor and writer for Vogue magazine, she also contributed to the New York Times, Newsweek, Conde Nast Traveler, the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and Elle Décor,” according to an article by historian Jon Meacham published in the “Garden & Gun.”
She leaves behind a “wealth of words that we were honored to run,” the magazine said.
Watched on television by millions across the world, the annual race is deeply embedded in French culture as it weaves its way across stunning countryside and vertiginous mountains, as well as through picturesque towns and cities before concluding on Paris’ Champs-Elysées.
The Tour is normally held during July, but the global pandemic put paid to that idea, hence the August 29 start. The pandemic and a recent spike in new infections in France has also left organizers with a real logistical challenge in how best to stage the 23-day race.
Adding to organizers’ worries, the Alpes-Maritimes region — the site of the opening stages of the race — has been declared a red zone because of a recent rise in Covid-19 cases.
In red zones, the authorities are able to make masks compulsory outdoors and close bar. But with the French government ready for worse case scenarios with plans for local or national lockdown in place, questions are being asked as to whether the Tour will even reach Paris.
“The Tour de France will not stop if there’s a positive case, even if nobody knows whether it will be completed or not,” International Cycling Union (UCI) president David Lappartient told Reuters.
To ensure the race is completed, teams will be expelled from the 2020 event if at least two riders or members of staff show strong symptoms or test positive for Covid-19.
Documents obtained by cycling website VeloNews — which were confirmed to CNN as accurate by race organizer Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) — state that team members will have to pass two coronavirus tests before being able enter the Tour’s mandatory “bubble” three days before Saturday’s start in Nice.
“If two persons or more from the same team present strongly suspect symptoms or have tested positive for Covid-19, the team in question will be expelled from the Tour de France,” the document reads.
“Its riders will not be authorized to start the Tour de France (or the next stage) and the team’s personnel will have their accreditation withdrawn.”
All team members will again be tested on both of the Tour’s rest days — September 7 and 14 — but team doctors and race medical staff will also decide whether or not a rider showing milder symptoms can participate in a stage.
Due to the hectic nature of the cycling calendar, riders and team members have been regularly tested prior to competing in races leading up to the Tour, including the Criterium du Dauphine, which finished two weeks ago and was used as a test event.
While teams aren’t restricted to a certain radius — as they are in the NBA’s Disney bubble — and there is an element of self-policing involved, the ASO has still taken strict measures to ensure the Tour bubble remains secure.
“There aren’t other guests at our team hotel, there’s just one or two other teams here,” a spokesperson for the South African NTT Pro Cycling team told CNN Sport.
“All mask wearing is compulsory, obviously sanitizers are widely available and I think from a team perspective, our head doctors are constantly in communication with everybody in the team, as well as the organizers and the relevant health authorities.
“Food preparation and that all happens on site, so we try to minimize exposure points, but our sport requires us to be out on the open road and not in a stadium that you can shut off. So, I suppose for everybody, there’s always there’s always a risk.
“All of that’s obviously not normal in terms of how we normally experience racing, but I think everything considered we’re feeling pretty happy and comfortable.”
The Tour might have the advantage of being staged in the open air, but negotiating 3,470 kilometers still remains a tricky proposition.
“Organizers have been very specific around what departure villages will look like, what the paddock will look like, who has access to those, the different requirements for those people that do have access to have been tested, and how that that environment kind of moves through the countryside,” the NTT Pro Cycling spokesperson said.
“So that’s from start point, throughout the race to the finish and then on to the hotel. For all intents and purposes, that bubble will be maintained and those directives are issued by the organizers. We’re pretty happy with what they put in place.”
Tour director Christian Prudhomme says he’s happy with the way the sport has adjust to the new preventative regulations.
“So far cycling has not tripped on any obstacle,” he told Reuters. “There will be police officers on the climbs, who will filter the crowd and make sure fans are wearing masks since I’m confident all the local authorities will make it mandatory.”
No selfies allowed
One large part of the Tour’s attraction comes in its accessibility to fans, who are able to line the roads in their thousands at various stages to cheer on the riders.
This, of course, makes it far more challenging for organizers to make the race a “behind closed doors” event and a particular concern in a given the recent spike in Covid-19 cases.
“For instance, there won’t be the opportunity to sign autographs or to get selfies, those type of things and I think those are just common sense measures and the organizers have made that pretty clear as well that the routes are pretty well barricaded and marshaled,” the NTT Pro Cycling spokesperson said.
“Access to certain areas where they would normally be pinch points on climbs and areas where fans would normally congregate [has been restricted] and they’ve put a lot of measures in place.
“So I think we’re very comfortable that will all go ahead and it’s important for the sport that the race goes ahead and goes ahead safely. I think that we all kind of recognize that point.”
Going into the first stage on Saturday, defending champion Egan Bernal is joint favorite to win the famous yellow jersey along with Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic.
One NBA Team Walked Out A Generation of Athletes Followed
Following their walkout, Bucks players, led by Hill and his teammate Sterling Brown, called for elected officials in Wisconsin to take concrete steps to hold the police officers accountable for how they treated Blake.
“For this to occur, it’s imperative for the Wisconsin state Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform,” Hill said.
The walkouts drew the attention of several prominent political figures. Among the first to weigh in was former President Barack Obama, who has personal relationships with several N.B.A. players. He praised the Bucks in a tweet on Wednesday “for standing up for what they believe in.”
The reaction from the White House was much more critical.
Along with Trump’s comments, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, said on CNBC, “I think that the N.B.A. players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially.”
The players’ action, as impactful as it has been, has also come with some of its own challenges. At a private players’ meeting hours after the walkout, some players expressed frustration with the Bucks for surprising the union, their opponents and the league with their protest, according to two people who attended the meeting but were not authorized to discuss the details publicly.
Then, after the protest spread and inspired some players to reconsider playing at all this season, the Bucks quickly backed resuming play, rankling some rival players, including James, according to the people.
Several N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players have increased their social justice effortsin recent months.James and other top athletes formed More Than a Vote to protect voting rights and reach out to Black voters. Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors guard, appeared in a video at the Democratic National Convention in support of Joseph R. Biden Jr., the party’s presidential nominee. Renee Montgomery, who plays for the W.N.B.A.’s Atlanta Dream, skipped the season altogether to focus on social justice efforts.
